Books | NEW YORK Interview with Douglas Rushkoff
-As a child what did you want to become? (profession-wise)
A medical doctor and a theater director; I saw them as the same profession - figuring out what makes something “alive.”
-In which town did you grow up? A few. I guess Larchmont, New York.
-Do you think your background influences your current style? If so, what specific element in your background is most pervasive in influencing your current style?
Depends what you mean by style. I think having gone to a college as conservative as Princeton influenced my style. They were all conservative and preppy, so I became radicalized. I don’t think I would have become a member of the counterculture had I not had such a conservative background to rebel against.
-What inspires you in the job of being an author, teacher and documentarian?
I am inspired by the access to people’s brains. I am inspired by the opportunity to find out about anything I want to learn about - all for the price of sharing what I’ve found with other people.
-Do you have any other creative ambitions or dreams to which you aspire?
Not really. I’ve gotten to do more than I thought I would. (Although,) I might like to make a TV show - some kind of science fiction or strangeness on television. Push that medium as it hasn’t been pushed since the days of the Twilight Zone. And I’d like to figure out a way for the human species to continue another century or so. I am bummed about how highly probable it is that we’ll kill ourselves off in my daughter’s lifetime. Or shortly there after.
-Which basic elements of creativity did your family teach you?
That it was okay to have a personal vision. And that people who attack it may have reasons that have nothing to do with me.
-How did you get the idea for writing your latest book?
The latest is really Life Inc. And what gave me the idea to write that one was the fact that people look at money as if it were real. They believe in it, like it’s some pre-existing condition, or as if it were invented to help us do commerce and transactions. I realized that no one - almost no one, and certainly no one in banking - had any idea who invented the particular kind of
money we use, why they invented it and what it is for. I realized people were rather powerless to understand the economic crisis occurring all around them or to see it as the tremendously positive opportunity it is.
-Do you have a favorite writer or documentarian?
I don’t know about favorites. I like Robert Anton Wilson. I like Jonathan Lethem and Walter Kirn. Ken Kesey, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon. Beckett. As for documentary-makers, Adam Curtis definitely keeps me awake.
-Are you ever afraid you will run out of inspiration and creativity in your job?
I don’t know. I am afraid of a lot of things, I guess. That isn’t one of them. I figure if I run out of creativity, I’ll do something else or work to promote someone else’s creativity. It’s not so very important to me at this point that the stuff that happens is somehow my own.
-What is the most difficult thing in your job? Working alone.
-What is the most fun part in your job? Doing a talk and seeing people get it.
-Do you expect your way of creating books and documentaries to change in the future?
Well, it’s changed in the past, so I don’t see why it won’t change in the future, too. It’s always changing. My first book was typed on a typewriter. The next three were on computer, but the publishers only accepted print outs. I just did an Indie book, Program or Be Programmed, with an Indie publisher. But the next one will be with Penguin. I’ve shot movies on film, on tape and on disk. With $200,000 cameras and with $300 cameras. I think we all need to do what we do by any means necessary.
-Do you embrace the changes in the book industry regarding social media and technology influences?
Some of them. I don’t like being obliged to follow some online routine or prescription. But I do like the ability to reach my audience - or the people who I think *should* be my audience - by appearing on a blog or something. I don’t really like the book industry so very much, but I do like there being some barrier to entry. The tools have made it so easy for people to create big documents, (and with this ease) too many people seem to think they can write. Add to this the problem of smart editors being replaced by businessmen, and you get a publishing industry jammed up with shit. The only way out is to develop our sensibility as an audience, so that we become better at telling the difference.
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