Nothing is better than a giant philosophical revelation at midnight. Here we go.
Our human understanding of the world is based on opposites, dualities that are based on incomparable polarities. Some would refer to this as a more "westernized" way to see humanity and society, but that is frankly for another blog to discuss. I will, however, be discussing things that exist within a mainly Western tradition, so I'll keep it in mind. The stigma against dualities is that they create a "black and white" understanding of the world, i.e. an "us or them" scenario, in which there is no room left for interpretation or the so-called "gray matter" in the middle. But I find this understanding of duality as stubborn as it claims duality itself to be. I am comfortable in this interpretation because I know that both the black side and the white carry so many complexities within themselves that their essence as overruling opposites only strengthens one's understanding of what they contain; much like the highest dogma of a religion lends to all of its mythology; Christian parables are varied, yet they all carry the same undertone of piety, sacrifice, Christian love, et cetera. Opposites are not so much unwavering structures as they are themes through which to understand the world and culture we live in. It is this definition of duality which I will use for my argument.
As stated above, one commonly phrased set of opposites is black and white, through which we can understand the basic nature of duality, at least in the Western tradition. Opposites are, by definition, extremities that have nothing in common, save for the theme on which they rest. And (especially in the Western tradition, though I have no doubt that this thought is more or less natural) they have values: Good and Evil, Love and Fear, God and Satan, Heaven and Hell. Each of these values lends to other, more seemingly neutral opposites: Day and Night, for example, are often valued as positive and negative (respectively), much as Up and Down are, given associations one might have with the brightness of Heaven and the darkness of Hell.
And then there is Life and Death. There is probably not a more potent set of opposites. On the plane of existence, there is no gray matter: a thing is either living, or it is dead. A human being is either living in some capacity, or they are a corpse, and where the rest of them goes is up to whomever buries them, and it certainly does not make their body less dead. And, of course, the values associated with Life and Death need not be described. It is positive to be alive. We have always viewed death with negativity; the only idea that makes it tolerable to most is the idea of a return to life--through reincarnation, perhaps, or in an afterlife--so that one does not have to exist on the negative pole. I believe that it is in human activity that we can see our homage to both Life and to Death, with a pair of opposites that is not so clichéd: Art and War. In this I propose that Art pays homage to Life, and War to Death. Though this interpretation may seem a bit obvious for such verbosity, hang on for a sec. I'm getting somewhere.
I'll start with Art and Life. Life, in the human understanding of it, has a great deal to do with Creation, not only in the religious sense, but in our day-to-day observations: pregnancy and birth are "the miracle of life." Evolution is life's show of creativity, even: the traits adapted by a species like the molding of a sculptor's clay. Thus, the creation of art is, as the saying goes, an imitation of life; not in the sense that art merely mirrors what happens in reality, but that it attempts to do what existence has done for millenia. It is man trying to replicate the mythic acts of Gods, to repeat the creative action on a much smaller scale. Art exists, also, to validate life: since it replicates what might be the ultimate positive pole, art is proof that life works. You needn't go further than consider that religion itself--the tool which so many use to validate and explain life--may be the highest form of human artistic accomplishment.
War is easily comparable to Death. War serves as a vehicle for death: it is defined by lives destroyed, by civilizations obliterated, ultimate weapons that destroy life's chances of continuing. But war is also conflict of any kind; quarrels and barbed statements, childlike destruction as well as adult cynicism. Politics, for example, will always be warlike, especially within the United States, where they rely so heavily on the Liberal/Conservative structure. I am not assuming that politicians are agents of death, but I will suggest that the destructive tendencies within politics occur more out of Freud's Thanatos than his Eros. This is also what I meant earlier, by the complexities within the polarities: Politics are Conflict, and Conflict is War, and War is Death, but that is not meant to conclude that Politics are Death. Merely that they bear that connotation, that subconscious understanding that to make a career of disagreement is to invite negativity into one's life.
I have always believed Virginia Woolf's idea that good art is not political. This does not mean that politics and art need to be separated. Art can--and, in many cases, should--comment, critique, satirize, or at least acknowledge the political and social issues of its time. But Art cannot be used primarily as a weapon, it must exist, as I have said, as a validation for the importance of life. Even nihilistic, absurdist art can do this; so long as the effect it has is profound to the point that the observer or audience feels moved (intellectually stimulated, "alive"), they have validated life. They have made the audience aware. This is not easily accomplished. Yes, I love art for art's sake, and I will always encourage others to create it, but one cannot validate life while creating something that refuses to be aware of as many facets of existence--good or bad--as possible. But art that does not have that great profundity, the transcendence which we crave which fills us with the life-affirming sensation, eventually suffers for itself. Sometimes this is simply bad art, which there is a lot of in the world (which cannot be blamed, after all, not every living thing is an agent of love, and besides, bad art is still done with the hope of celebrating creativity, so in application, it is very good), but when it is combined with the political, the cynical, the biased or enraged, the bad art fails to cover up the message within, and so it is revealed as a wolf in poorly shorn sheep's clothing.
You can probably find dozens of examples of such failures. In my opinion, for example, the dystopian futures in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and George Orwell's 1984 are similar, yet Atwood's over-arching political ramblings and observations eventually kill her prose, whereas Orwell's gift for suspense and terror make us almost forget what we're reading about, though we remain aware of his message, letting it rest between the lines as opposed to in bold print. Artists who go for so-called "shock value" bear the same cross as faulted political tellings: they introduce jarring, conflicted elements without using them as small additions to the overall piece. The Saw films will never be real art. Eraserhead tiptoes along the line between meaninglessly disjointed and truly moving, and depending who you are, it falls too easily on one side or the other.
Now I am not saying that all works of art should be positive and have happy endings, the affirmation of life that I seek out is not so much a wedding at the end of the play as it is that unspoken gut reaction one feels after experiencing real art, an understanding below the skin, that effects your life. Think of how many times you have heard someone say "this album/book/movie changed my life"? Even the saddest things confirm this: Think of "Eleanor Rigby," or Johnny Cash singing "Hurt," the pain in Mozart's Requiem, the trembling, mad look on Saturn's face as he devours his children in Goya's painting, all are profoundly effective and possibly timeless pieces of art that are not "affirming" in the kindergarden graduation sense of the word. They make the air shimmer, they shift your perspective, they help you feel more alive.
I can think of countless experiences like this. But what is truly unfortunate is that there are more experiences of the former kind: art that is destroyed by its own "message." Art should not have an overall message. It should contain a message, yes, perhaps, but this is only a portion of the entire experience. Political ideas themselves do not change people. Art changes people, and gradually the politics inherent might slip through and help create an opinion. I never said art was perfect. But I will say this: it is not War. It is not Death. It is Life. Artists, as few as they are and as much as they seem overshadowed amongst others with different careers, are, in a way, the medieval monks of modern art, slaving away in the candlelight so that they might give the might of creation permanence and glory. Keep up the good work, guys. Make us feel alive.
