lingvokapablo:

komenstanto:I like 'afektulo', though strictly speaking, I think everyone is a wannabe, or no one. The idea of 'social-learning' means copying other ideas in order to help evolve them. I watched a video that suggested chimpanzees lacked social-learning skills, thus they could not evolve like humans by copying each other and improving. They merely do the same thing over and over.

I had an argument with a blues musician from northern Germany who suggested that only the Eric Clapton generation were NOT wannabes. All subsequent rock is wannabe. To me though, Clapton was a wannabe blues artist as well, as he copied the African American musicians. I don't see where the line is drawn. To stop change and innovation goes against human evolution.

The concept of wannabe thus has no productive meaning for human progress.

For me, when I use the word "wannabe" it comes down to authenticity. A wannabe to me isn't someone who sincerely wants to learn, they want "it" (whatever it happens to be) because it's cool or socially accepted.

However, I do agree with you when you say we as humans copy each other to learn.

Again, that is a lot of society, because genuine or innocent people, who only want to learn, are often frowned on by society at large. Whenever I have been at my most innocent, I have always been attacked by some vicious person.

How would elites relate to wannabe-ism? In elitism, you have people who just want to be the elite of something.

Example, when I was younger, I always painted and drew. When I got older, it seemed natural to go to art school, to perhaps master further. But at the school, the entire history of impoverish artists in lofts was skipped over by teachers who demanded only the most expensive paints and brushes. Any person with a less than the most expensive brush was not even allowed in class or had to borrow, a further embarrassment. The other students were all rich and formed cliques. I got the impression the school was rather an aristocratic trend more than a place of learning. I felt really burned, and it was an American school, but had many foreigners who came to the USA just to go there. In the end I got a very bad impression of the art world, and imagined that the art supplies industry was a sort of mafia out to rob people blind. Consequently I paint with only cheap paint today as I did as a child. Who is the wannabe? Me or the elite in this situation?

komenstanto:Who is the wannabe? Me or the elite in this situation?

I honestly wouldn't consider either of you to be a wannabe. A person can be an elitist, and yet still completely sincere about his or her craft. Like I said before, for me it boils down to sincerity of one's efforts.

lingvokapablo:

komenstanto:Who is the wannabe? Me or the elite in this situation?

I honestly wouldn't consider either of you to be a wannabe. A person can be an elitist, and yet still completely sincere about his or her craft. Like I said before, for me it boils down to sincerity of one's efforts.

Who can judge levels of sincerity? As they say, sometimes the clown is the most serious of all inside. Franz Kafka wrote very serious and dark works, but in real life he was a often a clown and made his friends laugh in cafes. I would worry more about superficial seriousness and what goes on in the private life or mind more. In that case, only one oneself can judge.

I don't know about your cheap paint or cheap brushes, but I had my own experience with cheap brushes.

When I started doing Chinese calligraphy, I only bought the cheap brushes. I found it difficult to do some of the strokes correctly, though the teacher was able to do it with my cheap brush. I assumed that it was simply because I was a beginner. But when I eventually spent more money to buy a better quality brush, my work improved instantly. I found it much, much easier to do the strokes correctly, and I had fewer brush hairs coming out. I wish I had bought a nicer brush from the beginning, because the cheap brush was making things harder for me than they needed to be - the brush split mid-stroke, lost hairs, and lacked the necessary "springiness" that allows the brush to straighten out at the completion of a stroke.

The most expensive supplies aren't always necessary. But using the very cheapest supplies can make it more difficult for a beginner to do things well, particularly when it comes to brushes. It isn't always about elitism and being snobbish about brand and cost.

A cheap inkwell holds ink as well as an expensive one; but a cheap brush usually has performance far below the performance of a brush that is even of moderate price (not even buying the most expensive). I wouldn't be surprised if that's why your teacher insisted on using more expensive supplies in that case. I wish my Chinese calligraphy teacher had told us that it's worth the extra money not to buy a bottom-of-the-line brush; he didn't give us any guidance in that regard.

I wouldn't buy the cheapest calligraphy brush again, unless it was to give a child to play with.

Ha! That makes sense, but on another level, since the school was mostly hyper-rich kids, it could be they wanted to make the school look good to the rich parents, so if some the rich kids weren't that good, they made sure that they painted well by forcing them to buy expensive supplies that do half the work for you! I never thought of that theory, but I have never done good work knowing that the paint costs more than dinner!

I consider all art efforts private now, like when I was a child and just had some cheap paint my parents got me in my own room, without thought of showing it or being an artist. It always worked the best, because it has an element of humility and innocence in it, something that say your SOHO type New York posh artist lacks in the most profound way. I consider most of them wannabes, some sort of fake pop-cultural nothing art.

I am having a problem pinning down the notion of a wannabe Esperantist. Does a volunta Esperantisto come above or below an Eterna komencanto in the Esperanto hierarchy?

I can see an application for the term volunta lingvo-fakulo. I have encountered some of those.