The pleasure of destruction

[Martin Dunne]

I have never understood the psychology of collection destruction. I'm of a library background and have seen fellow librarians apparently joyously wreck card catalogues, throw items into garbage skips or simply do their jobs as poorly as possible. Which has led to the insight that if you view the collection as the enemy it's probably time you moved on.

My partner's time as a public servant suggests differently though. She has told me of the sheer joy of destroying records and then signing off on them once and for all, as opposed to being their custodian.

Can any one shine some light onto this phenomenon?

[Peter Elliott]

I certainly can't shed any light on this since it baffles me as well!

When Syd Barrett died, it emerged that though he was a prolific painter, he would destroy all his work... he'd take a photo of it for posterity and reference but then burn or recycle the canvas. I believe quite a few artists also do this and it makes me wonder why they bother to paint in the first place.

Then there's journal and letter writers. They keep everything they write but some leave strict orders that upon their death it should all be destroyed. In one of my cupboards I have a suitcase belonging to my ex containing all her diaries, journals, lyrics and poetry. She asked me to look after them under the proviso I would never open the case. Not long before we split she gave me instructions that should anything fatal happen to her then I must burn the case and it's contents. I don't know if I could carry out her orders because I'm a journal writer myself and when I die, I want them to be passed down the family because my journals is my ultimate self portrait capturing everything about me for all posterity.

I believe Emily Dickinson's poetry was discovered in such a manner. A relative was destroying all her papers when she took a look at one of the poems and brought the destruction to a halt and Dickinson's poetry went on to be cherished and loved by many. That relative felt like kicking themselves for destroying many poems beforehand.

Hopefully somebody with the opposite feelings to you and I will post here and maybe try and explain it!

[Alan Jeffries]

Interesting points there. A friend who worked at the BBC some years ago had loads of record cards of costs of costumes for various shows. They recorded the production number, show - of course and various basic details. On the reverse it listed all the costume costs for that particular show.
When they were moving offices all were being binned, as they of no value. I rescued as many as I could carry and now they sit in a cupboard taking up space. But they are unique.
Ones for Hi-Di-Hi went to a Hi-Di-Hi museum!
But how much should be kept?
On the other side, my mother-in-law passed away a couple of yeras ago. She had a vast amount of letters she wrote to her fiance. My wife is not sure if she wants to read them as they were private to her mum and would be happy to see them destroyed. They have been kept, though, as family history items.

Alan

[Dave Andrews]

I think that 'Pleasure-of-destruction' is an extension of the 'Change-for-the-sake-of-change' thing.

People seem to fall into two catagories: those who favour changing something only if it will clearly be better for it; and those who would change everything and (usually grudgingly) will only leave something unchanged if someone else clearly demonstrates that a change is positively detrimental.

The problem with the first is that sometimes it can become the refuge of the incompetant.

The second is often the ploy of those who seek advancement but have no good ideas of their own.

[markboulton]

I work in what can essentially be called an archive/library capacity, and it amazes me just how cavalier everyone else is in terms of what they see necessary to keep or throw away. It almost is as if work records are seen as something to get rid of as soon as possible, so that the only records that remain are their own personal memories. I think some people feel insecure about giving other people the power to hold knowledge that otherwise they would be sole holders of - it would weaken their 'unique selling points' in terms of trying to get on in the business.

Quite why so many people think in this way is, I suspect like most people on here, a mystery to me, but then there are many things that many people do that I just don't understand the impetus behind. Unfortunately my/our disagreement with such things are always highly unlikely to change the way in which the majority thinks/acts. Has always been thus to do with any behaviour that is directed towards destroying anything as opposed to cherishing what has been created.

[simoncoward]

I think it can be quite easy to become some kind of prisoner of one's collection or collecting mentality. I'm sure a number of us have started out recording episodes of a particular programme we really like and have continued to do so long after the programme's changed into something else altogether or is now well past its sell-by date for some other reason.

And that show (as far as we're concerned) no longer really merits being recorded, but it is and it's kept, simply because we've got all the other episodes and who knows, it might eventually return to its former glory and then you'd be sad if your collection had a few missing in the middle. And these recordings are never watched again.

But what do you do when the format those recordings are on becomes, or is in danger of becoming, obsolete? Can you actually be bothered to copy every single episode onto whatever the new medium is? Or would you just pick the episodes you know you'll watch again?

I can quite easily imagine this is a scenario that would free you from the tyranny of completism - and you might feel quite good about it. Particularly as you can blame the death of Betamax / VHS / whatever for it, rather than yourself.

[Alan Jeffries]

I can certainly attest to once having being a prisoner to my collections. I once had thousands of videos and am now down to hundreds. I do not miss those movies I haven't watched in 20 years. I now am turning my eye to all those 100s of magazines, books and general 'stuff' I have archived since the early '70s. A good archive, if anyone ever used it. So I have to ask myself, what's the point in having it all? I actually collect very little now and am enjoying the space I'm getting back.

Alan

[Eric Lawton]

Sounds SO familiar. An example is this :
Up to around 18 months ago, I still had the original TX First and Second series of AUF WIEDERSEHEN PET. 3 episodes to a tape, with ads and continuity links on. Even though I had the complete works bought me, ALL Series 1-4 plus the Christmas special, I was reluctant to throw those old tapes away. But it just gets to a stage where you literally would need another house. I destroyed them and binned them.
Having said that, I wish I would have kept them until now, just to transfer the ads / continuity links to DVD. Then, I could have destroyed them.
Im definitely a hoarder, but gradually "drying out".
Eric.

[markboulton]

But there's a vast difference between a private individual being a completist and a company (public or commercial) being one. The original point was about the latter but we seem to be making a decision on that based on the considerations of the former.

FWIW, I recently got hold of some Central trails for "Auf...", "Morse" and "Spitting Image" on some old tapes. Knowing that these won't exist anywhere else (if they did before Broad Street was knocked down - which is unlikely - then they certainly wouldn't afterwards), I don't see what merit there would be in just throwing the tapes out purely to get a thrill from displaying some great act of cathartic altruism in order to prove how un-anoraky I am. Especially when it is so easy to copy the 5 minutes or so of trailers, etc. that surround the programme material onto a DVD, as has been suggested.

BTW Personally, I don't bother transferring old tapes to DVD (in their entirity). The original media always plays better and more reliably.

BTW2 Special event programming, such as Election Coverages, the Lord Mayor's Show, Royal Weddings, etc. are worth keeping because you know they will NEVER get repeated as originally broadcast. They will always be incomplete in some way (bits chopped out due to political sensitivities, or lacking some original links and/or astons, as was the case with Election 97 due to the way the archive 'master' was recorded).