I assume most people have noticed that the things/activities/events valued most in our society are those that can be labeled “productive,” usually ones that have an obvoius, tangible outcome. I’m wondering if we can’t come up with a word that can be valued as much as productive, but that values process over product. At first I considered processive, but it turns out it’s already a word, meaning, accorrding to dictionary.com, “proceeding, advancing,” which might be appropriate, but I’m unsure. Of course, even if the word did catch on, perhaps dominant culture would subvert it and instead of “That was processive” being a note of affirmation, it would become sarcastic or perjorative, coming to mean “That was just processive.”
About Michael J. Faris
I study rhetoric and composition as a PhD student in the English Department at Penn State University.
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Walt Whitman’s shattering of poetic conventions, in the 1855 Leaves of Grass, is a great place to look when investigating the redirection of our focus on process rather than product.
There have certainly been many efforts in the performing arts, over the past 30, years to redirect the focus as well. Meredith Monk’s latest work, called Impermanence in one such example of making the product the process…
On a more personal note, I was just talking to a friend about the feeling I get when I pass by a rehearsal room. It takes me back to my home environment, which was filled with the arts and the continual act of creating. My association of this good feeling with the processual stages in the crafting of performative arts, led me to conclude that the distinction is very important–more so for the arrtist than the audience, though, I think. It seems the product is depleted of meaning, once the searching and discovery are over…All the hours I have spent in the theater have never elicited the thrill and beauty I feel when observing the preparation backstage. What is left over–the product–is a shell or a scrap thown out to patrons…