Art, I’d argue, is initially borne of discontent, of dissatisafaction, with the the way the world is from Beethoven, to Proust, Godard, computer games and hip hop. As Eisenstein put it, Art is produced by conflict, by the dynamic that exists between the maker and their socio-political moment. We can go back to Sophocles to see a playwright who is disputing the wisdom of the Gods, asking questions which only spectators can ‘answer’ – or consider – for themselves. One might argue that this is how an artefact transcends its time: the questions it poses remain pertinent to successive generations and epochs…Sophocles’ questioning of freewill, Goldsmith’s critique of technology, Proust’s consideration of perception over time, Wagner’s representation of myth and its relevance, Pollock’s attempt to make sense of a post-nucelar world.
Art also exposes the myth of a “ruling rationality”, that is, the idea that there is a single, univocal rationality to which everyone aspires and subscribes. In Art we see alternatives; it’s tempting to say that we only see alternatives – which is possible if we exclude mainstream film from the ‘category’. Yet even mainstream film is useful, in that it enables us to see the ideological assumptions on which this type of film rests: capitalism is the ‘best’ system; poverty is a useful motivator; some people are inherently ‘evil’; some people are ‘lazy’; men and women are inherently ‘different’. Wthin the mainstream film world, such assumptions become self-fulfilling prophesises, perpetuating themselves. ‘Adulthood’ is defined as accepting that “this is the way things are”; positing other ways of being, other rationalities, become adolescent fantasies or hormonal phases – temporary flashes of rebellion before accepting “adult values”.
‘Floating’ in the background, I think, of any discussion of Art and value is Heidegger’s contention that it is Art that produces society. If this is the case, then it raises the inevitable question of why, if Art occupies what we might call a “revolutionary space”, we don’t live in some kind of utopia acheived by a kind of artistic “trickle down” effect. Put another way, if Art can really make one a ‘better’ person, then why do we live as we do, in a world riven by injustice, inequality and individualism?
The easy answer is that philosophical gambit, “Define ‘better'”. Ok…a world that is more empathetic, caring, community-based (Never ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to! Maxwell Fife and a host of others over the centuries.) What artists cannot control is the interpretation of their work, how it will be used to political ends (take Shakespeare for example, although one can argue that he wrote for deliberate political ends). Nor can they control the perception (of them as a group) which society has of them. If we look back into history, we can see a progressive marginalisation of Art and artists: in the 17th century, Henry VIII, in England, begins the creation of the modern British state. To this end, he establishes the position of Lord Chamberlin, a forerunner of the modern censor, to whom all works must be submitted before performance or publication. We can go further back philosophically, to Plato’s The Republic; Art and artists are banned because they represent things, people, emotions “as they are not”. Jump to Aristotle and we’re presented with the formula that persists to this day: give the spectator an individual character to identify with. This character can then act as a ‘guide’ to perception of events and situations encountered while, at one and the same time, appearing to be an “everyperson” – paradigmatic of “reasonable response”. Move forward to Kant, a philosopher who, as the embodiment of the Age of Englightenment, attempts to formulate a set of rational responses to Art, all the while dealing in a univocal concept of rationality – his most ‘interesting’ idea is that emotion clouds aesethic judgement, actually makes that judgement incorrect (in some sense or other). Yet Kant’s ideas rely (in the same way as Descartes’ cogito ‘proof’) on the existence of (a) God.
In Hume’s Of the Standard of Taste, we again see an assumption of a univocal rationality while, at the same time, he introduces two notions that are still popular: (i) that the young are swayed by their emotions, thus, invalidating their judgement of Art and, (ii), that to ‘know’ the value of Art time has to pass, we have to see if if X endures over time…
Now, this line of argument might seem rather odd, but what I’m doing is leading into a discussion of Heidegger’s assertion that it isn’t society that makes Art, it’s Art that makes society. In short, why do we value the works we do and, if Art has power (to changes minds/to improve society), why do we have the society that we have in 2023, a society characterised by unfairness, inequality, racism, sexism etc.
To begin to discuss this question, one has to look at the ways in which Art and Artists are regarded in society – their ideological positioning. We can also ask who, or which institutions, decide on what is considered Art…and, more importantly for my purposes, how Art is ‘used’ and perceived in education.
As recently as the early nineteenth century, Shelley wrote that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”…but he’d reckoned without the relentless march of industrial capitalism as the century wore on. What’s fascinating about the nineteenth century (and I’ll stick to the UK) is that we have this (apparently) flourishing age of industrialism and imperialism (or put another way, exploitation of people “at home and abroad”), but this is not celebrated by artists – read Dickens, Eliot or Gaskell, look at the paintings that depict the industrialised landscape as akin to hell. What we see is critique (similar trajectories are seen in France and Germany too), a questioning of the effects of technology and colonialism on people and their communities, on Being itself. Ideologically, this leads to the gradual marginalisation of the artist: the myth of the starving artist in the garret, who doesn’t inhabit the ‘real’ world, who cannot accept ideas of ‘progress’ (even though such ideas are morally repugnant). This marginalisation was, and remains, highly successful, now augmented by the profit motive and, theoretically, by postmodernism – a theory that claims metanarratives are obsolete, redundant, whilst it is itself part of the metanarrative of capitalism…sleight of hand at its most effective.
Once, apparently, metanarrative becomes obsolete, alternative rationalities become ‘equal’, everyone’s opinion becomes ‘equal’, one decides on worth for oneself.
Yet, as Marx argues, not only do the ruling class control the means of production, they also control the flow of ideas, and those ideas themselves – what is covered in the media, what is published, what is made…what is valued and what is marginalised. In short, it is relatively easy to argue that ‘history’ is controlled by the ruling class and that, therefore, Art is controlled as part of history. Those artefacts that ‘contribute’ to stability and security, to the status quo, are preserved over time, their “cultural position” being redefined as and when required, but fundamentally doing the same ‘job’: maintaining the ideological position of the ruling class.
Nietzsche’s The Genealogy of Morals works for Art too. Artefacts and the ideas they represent are anointed by “cultural controllers”. These artefacts are then passed down to following generations as a “base line” of (political) artistic standards.
End of Part 1…
Murmurs from the Forest 