Democratising the Poet (interview question #10)
Dr Simon Ussher has started emailing me interview questions about my recent books on aesthetics (see here). Over coming weeks I’ll post my responses to his questions.
If Henry Thoreau inspired some of these ideas, you also say that you go beyond him by seeking to ‘democratise the poet’ – and here the influence of William Morris again becomes clear. Can you expand on how Morris influenced your work? Why do you set out to blur the distinction between artist and artisan?
If Thoreau helped shape my understanding of voluntary simplicity and sufficiency, Morris helped me understand the political, social, and aesthetic dimensions of those ideas more deeply. Indeed, Morris was arguably the first great theorist (since Schiller) to infuse questions of art and aesthetics into social and political philosophy, but today he is a sorely neglected thinker. I am trying to revive him.
Morris saw very clearly that industrial capitalism had not merely impoverished workers materially or politically; it had also degraded the aesthetic quality of everyday life. Industrial production separated conception from execution, creativity from labour, beauty from utility. Most people became trapped performing monotonous, alienated work, producing objects that were functional perhaps, but spiritually dead. At the same time, art was increasingly isolated into museums, galleries, and elite cultural institutions – something consumed passively rather than lived actively.
Morris rejected that division entirely. His famous claim was that art should be understood broadly as ‘the expression of man’s pleasure in labour.’ That formulation had a profound impact on me. It suggests that art is not merely painting, sculpture, or poetry, but potentially any meaningful and pleasurable form of creative work. Carpentry, weaving, pottery, gardening, architecture, cooking – these too can become aesthetic or artful practices when undertaken skillfully, freely, and with care.
That is what Morris meant by blurring the distinction between artist and artisan. Modern industrial society tends to rank forms of creativity hierarchically. The ‘artist’ is elevated as a rare genius producing cultural commodities, while the artisan or craftsperson is treated as economically marginal, obsolete, or ‘lesser’. Morris wanted to abolish that hierarchy by reintegrating beauty into ordinary life and ordinary labour. I share that aspiration.
Inspired by Morris, I argue that an ecological civilisation should seek to ‘democratise the poet’. By this I mean creating social conditions in which aesthetic expression is not confined to elites but becomes woven into the fabric of everyday existence. The ideal is not a society where a tiny minority become famous artists while everyone else remains passive consumers. The ideal is a society where ordinary people reclaim their capacities for creativity, craft, self-expression, and aesthetic experience.
This is one reason why I place such emphasis on low-energy, localised, participatory forms of production. Industrial capitalism prioritises efficiency, scale, speed, technology, and profit maximisation. But those imperatives often destroy opportunities for meaningful, creative labour. Morris understood that human beings need more than consumption and wages; we need work that engages our imaginations and senses. We need opportunities to shape the world around us in ways that express care, beauty, and personality.
This becomes especially important within the framework of ecological civilisation. If humanity must reduce energy and resource consumption – an inescapable conclusion, I believe – then the question becomes: How can life remain rich and fulfilling within material limits? My answer, following Morris and Thoreau, is that richness increasingly shifts from quantity of consumption to quality of experience and participation. A handcrafted wooden table made slowly and beautifully may embody more meaning and satisfaction than a mass-produced disposable commodity manufactured through exploitative global supply chains.
Morris also influenced my belief that aesthetics is inherently political. Beauty is not an optional luxury added onto life once ‘economic necessities’ are solved. The shape of our cities, the character of our labour, the design of our homes, the rhythms of everyday existence – all of these influence consciousness, desire, and wellbeing. Industrial capitalism produces ugly landscapes, ugly work, ugly relationships to nature, and often ugly forms of subjectivity. Morris believed a just society must also be a beautiful society. I agree.
But perhaps most importantly, Morris gave me a vision of anarcho-communitarianism that was not merely economic or bureaucratic, but civilisational and aesthetic. His utopian novel News from Nowhere (1890) portrays a society in which labour has become creative, communities are ecologically integrated, and beauty permeates ordinary life. That vision influenced my own conception of SMPLCTY as a civilisation where art is not segregated from existence but integrated into the rituals and necessities of everyday living.
Of course, neither Morris nor I imagine that all labour can become purely pleasurable or artistic. There will always be forms of necessary toil and tragedy in human existence, and machines and appropriate technology still have a role to play in a good society. But the question is whether society is organised in ways that maximise alienation or minimise it; whether creativity is monopolised by elites and technology or distributed democratically. So when I speak of ‘democratising the poet’, I am ultimately talking about reclaiming creativity as a universal human birthright. The poet-farmer is not an exceptional genius. The idea denotes the ordinary person who discovers that meaningful existence itself can become a creative act.
