I don’t have direct experience with many art spaces, but there might be something to this.
In software engineering, where the financial difficulties are much lower, I rarely see much drama. Maybe I just need to work somewhere more exciting, though.
If resources were more scare, it’d definitely get more heated, I’m sure.
Why do artistic communities always have a lot of interesting drama?
I think it is because making a comfortable living as an artist is extremely difficult so the competition is going to be tough.
Writing is one of those artistic mediums --like music -- where in theory someone could become very wealthy. Every few years there is a writing superstar who makes a ton of money on their work: Stephen King, JK Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins. I think RF Kuang might be the next big author? I'm not sure since I don't keep up with contemporary lit.
Visual mediums, like photography or painting, are harder to commercialize in this way. (I might be wrong here). So the competition and envy is not quite as fierce. Potentially. Would be interested in hearing everyone else's thoughts on this.
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yeah I think the high risk, high reward makes literary spaces particularly cutthroat. Whereas visual mediums since it is generally pretty low reward, can perhaps remain more collaborative.