Art and the Ideal

What's currently going on at the Annenberg Space for Photography, in the exhibit entitled, "Beauty Culture", as it concerns the cultural ideal of beauty, is similar to what I had in mind for a Perfect Wave Project (see blog entries from Nov. 12 – Dec. 14) but more focused on the regional, California ideal. The Annenberg exhibit no doubt benefits from the contradictory feelings of challenging, or questioning, the ideal while simultaneously being attracted to the ideal. I believe art is an important medium for exploring these issues because it functions in the realm of feelings.

In contending with the cultural ideal of beauty -- that is, the dispiriting affects it can have as we become self-conscious of our shortcomings in comparison to this ideal -- a common response is the vague prescription of developing a positive self-image. But this is limited because we can’t help our feelings of being attracted toward an ideal. Furthermore, as social beings, we can’t help feeling self-conscious of how others within the culture perceive us. Yet it is the self-image itself -- so central as it is to our consumer culture – that I believe can be deemphasized through cultural transformation.

The real potential for art toward culturally transformative change, I believe, lies in a realm that remains largely unconsidered: affecting a kind of everyday poetry that culturally shapes one's frame of mind, or the frame of a person's worldview. A recent editorial by New York Times columnist David Brooks provides a good introduction to this issue (see the link to my blog of April 16).

We can attain a sense of self through two means, though usually through some variation of both: comparison to others, or to a cultural ideal; or, through contribution to a greater collective. By employing the arts and other means to culturally emphasize the latter, thus promoting a greater collective consciousness, we in turn deemphasize the former, thus demoting individual-self consciousness.

The problem with the self-image in our consumer culture, I argue, is that it lends itself to demoralization as others and our own selves fail to live up to an ideal. The essential moral problem is the occlusion of the human spirit. But again, what is important to note is that these involve feelings that we’re socialized into and that we commonly can’t help but feel nevertheless.

While art can challenge, or question the ideal, or the idea we have about ourselves (i.e., one's self-image), it can also lend itself to the affirmation of a sense of self derived through contribution, a more truthful and inherently moral disposition without being moralistic – or didactic. In his essay on the poet Walt Whitman, the writer and poet D.H. Lawrence wrote as follows:

The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not decorative, not pastime and recreation. But Moral. The essential function of art is moral.
But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic.

Art can be all those things that Lawrence describes, and it is, but what Lawrence is honing in on in his use of the word moral is to mean the opposite of demoralization. Both Lawrence and Whitman (and I would add Jesus of Nazareth) we’re onto something prescient and potentially revolutionary. The significant problem of the issue of the ideal, and derivatively, the idea and ideologies, is that the truth about ourselves is potentially greater than whatever ideas we might have about ourselves. But to reap that potential we first have to come to terms with truth.

In his Plato’s Republic, Socrates cites an ancient argument, or difference , between poetry and philosophy that I submit continues to this day. I believe there’s an opportunity to weigh in on this “ancient argument” from the poetic side and advance a resolution. More than art, poetry can be about the truth. To me, it’s no accident that both the arts and philosophy flourished together at that time known as the Golden Age of Greece. In her book The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton writes as follows:

It is clear that in Greece the values were different from our own to-day. Indeed we are not able really to bring into one consistent whole their outlook upon life; from our point of view it seems to involve a self-contradiction. People so devoted to poetry as to make it a matter of practical importance must have been, we feel, deficient in the sense for what is practically important, dreamers, not alive to life’s hard facts. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Greeks were pre-eminently realists. The temper of mind that made them carve their statues and paint their pictures from the living human beings around them, that kept their poetry within the sober limits of the possible, made them hard-headed men in the world of every-day affairs. They were not tempted to evade facts. It is we ourselves who are the sentimentalist. We, to whom poetry, all art, is only a superficial decoration of life, made a refuge from a world too hard to face by sentimentalizing it. The Greeks looked straight at it. They were completely unsentimental. It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies.

To restore greatness to our society, we’ll have to shed the untruths that falsely prop up our vitality because that foundation, I sense, is fast crumbling beneath us. Already, I believe, a new foundation is being constructed to enable the world leadership that our country is in a position to provide. But must we first bottom-out before we can begin to recognize it? In the concluding words of James F. Cooper from his book, Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape, James writes as follows:

The promise of the future outweighs the doubts and repression of the old order. We can boldly advance into the future with the visionary gifts that artists and poets alone possess. Or we can choose to hang back with the dead, blind culture of the old order. I suspect we will choose life. Let us unashamedly honor the strengths and virtues of our nation and encourage our own recognition of them. Let us begin this great task by enlisting gifted artist to help us see once again.

If these words I write come off as too high-minded or detached from reality – and honestly, they often do to myself – recall the more grounded proposal that we’re merely exploring these feelings, much as the Annenberg is currently doing concerning the beauty ideal, through the realm of art. I expect no wordy philosophy to induce good art but by the individual artist exploring his or her own feelings and creatively making it their own. While acknowledging our attraction to the ideal, we can nevertheless cultivate a greater appreciation for the real. If the Perfect Wave Project does prove to be the wave of the future, I know no better community than “Surf City” Huntington Beach where we can ride it.

National Poetry Month: Addressing the Problem of the Human Condition

The condition of men is the result of their disunion. – Tolstoy

We began the month recognizing the alienating effects that modern poetry can have on the average citizen, lending itself to a sense of the exclusionary. The irony is that poetry, and the arts in general, has a deep history as a means to bring people together. As our society comes to terms with its divisions and entrenched narrow interests, I argue we can again look to poetry to help enable unity.

Poetry has addressed the problems of the human condition in the past and can be useful in the present. The allegory -- a poetic device -- of Adam and Eve, generally attributed to Moses, provides a narrative to describe the dispiriting effects of the fall into self-consciousness. Thus the allegory provides a narrative to describe the evolution of consciousness toward the self apart from others and nature.

As we celebrate Easter on this date, we should recognize that the story of Christ accepting the cross, whatever theological interpreations it may have, provides a powerful poetic interpretation: a symbol of love, faith, and sacrifice. In response to the fall into the self, described in the paragraph above, the life of Jesus becomes a symbol to "deny the self", as described in the Biblical Book of Luke (9:23), toward the moral disposition of acting for the greater good.

Yet the symbol of the cross is controversial, causing the effect of differing reactions to that symbol, because it is generally viewed as a symbol of religion. But this is where poetry can step in, differentiating between religion and mythos, and making use of symbol, metaphor, and narrative to induce an evolution of consciousness.

Our socialization into the individual consciousness of the modern era, compounded by a consumer culture that incites the pride and passions of the self, may leave us in an unsustainable imbalance of consciousness toward the individual self at the expense of the greater good, leaving us drifting toward spiritual crisis. Moving from the margins of society to the forefront, however, poetry may be in a position to meet this crisis. But as it appears to me, to intone Walt Whitman, it would have to move from paper and types to bodies and souls.

National Poetry Month: Applying Poetry Toward Unity

This project is in of itself a kind of poem, making use of symbol, metaphor, and narrative. "The Promised Land" is symbolic of a collective vision capable of overriding and incorporating one's personal vision. The overall metaphor of the project is that we, as a society, have to move from the land of the dead to the land of the living; this reflects a quote attributed to Thornton Wilder as follows:

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love.

It makes use of a narrative, drawn from the Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son, that appears to me as strikingly prescient for our times to help induce an evolution of consciousness. More about this narrative can be found at the blog entry of July 4, 2010.

By making use of such poetic devices as symbol, metaphor, and narrative, I believe we can construct a framework to enable the more vital use of the arts towards the revitalization of the the moral culture in general.

A Timely N.Y. Times Editorial about the Poetry of Everyday Life

Here's a link to a timely editorial by New York Times columnist David Brooks that addresses some of the concepts this project contends with, particularly the entries made this month. Brooks cites a book, I is an Other by James Geary, the title of which I presume is taken from Rimbaud's 1871 seer letter that's addressed elsewhere in this blog.

National Poetry Month: The Use of Poetry in the Revitalization of the Moral Culture

In regards to religion, the renowed mythologist Joseph Campbell describes the process of revitalization to Bill Moyers as follows, excerpted from The Power of Myth:

The world changes, the religions have to be transformed….It’s in the religions; all the religions are true – for their time. If you can find what the truth is and separate it from the temporal inflection, just be your same old religion into a new set of metaphors, and you’ve got it.

Yet in a pluralistic democratic society, the intent of this project is not in creating a new religion or directly revitalizing an old religion but in broadening the concept of poetry to revitalize the moral culture in general, inclusive of religion.

Note that Campbell makes use of the term metaphors. A metaphor is a poetic device, as is symbol, narrative, allegory, and parable, among others. But to make use of poetry, it has to be the truth -- as best we understand the truth to be given our limited vision -- and it has to inspire.

Here the old adage applies: man proposes, God disposes. As we attempt to draw on and make use of poetry to induce human inspiration, we are reliant on inspiration and whether it flows or not, taking us wherever it may lead us. If such a project fails to call to you, I am content to at least plant a seed should it germinate into something later. My sense is that we’re all like pieces of a greater puzzle and it may require some intermediate pieces before we can see or feel a true connection.

National Poetry Month: From Paper and Types to Bodies and Souls

In the previous entry we engaged in an ancient argument between poetry and philosophy to examine the use of poetry to help bring people together. Here we move from the ancient era into the modern era.

In a time of division in our nation’s history, in the prelude to the Civil War, the poet Walt Whitman attempted to use poetry to help bring people together based on our shared human identity relative to our democratic society. The opening poem of the first 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass , later entitled, "Song of Myself" would help initiate a revolution in written poetry, that of free verse. Yet in the opening of the subsequent poem, it is as though the genius of Whitman looks back on the opening poem and its ecstatic assertions and already recognizes the limitations of poetry in written form:

This is unfinished business with me….how is it with you?
I was chilled with the cold types and cylinder and wet paper between us.

I pass so poorly with paper and types….I must pass with the contact of bodies
and souls.

– from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition

About a century later, in his book, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud, Henry Miller writes as follows:

It does not require paper and ink to create poetry or to disseminate it. Primitive peoples on the whole are poets of action, poets of life.

The two books cited above provide some background and influences towards a proposed movement in American poetry: poetry moving from paper and types to bodies souls, or from the written poetic to the living poetic. Such a movement is envisioned to revitalize all of the arts, including poetry in written form, as we renew poetry's historic calling to help bring people together and override our societal divisions and entrenched narrow interests.

National Poetry Month: Broadening Our View of Poetry

As I’ve addressed elsewhere on this blog, to enable poetry to help bring people together and heal the divisions that afflict our society, we begin by broadening our view of poetry. In Plato's Republic, Socrates cites an ancient argument, or difference, between poetry and philosophy (i.e., mythos and logos) that I submit continues to this day. While the modern era has exalted reason, or logos, the term myth has become generally synonymous as something that's dismissively untrue. A more accurate and working definition can be as follows: the stories a society tells about itself. The term narrative seems to be currently en vogue and is similarly used to describe how an individual or group sees itself in relation to the rest of the world body. Furthermore, the modern mindset often fails to differentiate between religion, an institution, and the mythos.

The creation myth of Adam and Eve and the subsequent initial books that make up the Bible, makes use of a collective narrative and to help bring people together, former slaves, to help solidify a people, the ancient nation of Israel. The narrative provides a shared history and addresses the shared human predicament of the fall into the dispiriting effects of self-concsiousness as Adam and Eve suddenly recognize they’re naked.

The poets of ancient Greece drew on myth to dramatize tragedy. Thus poetry was used to bring people together through a shared human capacity to suffer.

National Poetry Month: Countering the Alienating Effects of Poetry

In poetry, we recognize that less can be more. As we celebrate national poetry month, we should also recognize an all too common sentiment throughout our nation that none of it might even be better.

There's a grim irony that poetry can have such an alienating effect on people. The average citizen, for example, who might attempt to read T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, perhaps the premier poem of high modernism, is apt feel alienated from the poem, and poetry in general, by its cryptic use of language.

The irony that seems indicative of the modern era is that poets and poetry by historic definition affectively inflame our emotions, not leave us in the cold. Furthermore, throughout human history poetry and the arts in general have been used to bring people together. As the avant-garde pushed the margins of poetry, it had the effect of marginalizing itself from the average citizen. It reflects the fragmentation of all of the arts throughout the modern era and lends itself to questions of elitism and government funding of the arts.

But as we celebrate National Poetry Month, I beleive that by taking a broader view of poetry, poetry still has the potential to bring people together at a time when our nation struggles with divisions and entrenched narrow interests that threaten the integrity of the greater collective.

The Perfect Wave Project: Exploring the Viability of a New Movement in the Arts and Activism

As related in previous posts, I'm proposing a Perfect Wave Project as a new movement in the arts and activism. But there are questions to its viability. Thus perhaps it's best rephrased as exploring the viability of a new movement in the arts and activism. What I hope to do is bring together various groups in the arts and activism to explore, for example, how the arts can lend rhthym to action (to intone Rimbaud).

New York Times Column on Shared Sacrifice

Here's a link to a David Brooks column on the differences of private sector unions versus public sector unions and the importance of shared sacrifice to come to terms with our debt.

Thinkers and Dreamers

Here's a link to an essay that appeared in the New York Times Book Review on January 23, 2011. Entitled "Thinkers and Dreamers" in the book review, the online version falls under another title, "The Philosophical Novel". It raises some questions that the Promised Land Project addresses.

The Perfect Wave Project: A Proposed Movement in the Arts and Activism

By thinking outside of the modern mindset and promoting a poetic approach to human progress, I believe we can begin to heal the divisions that afflict our society while simultaneously provide an oppor-tunity for the local arts. In Plato's Republic, Socrates cites an ancient argument, or difference, between poetry and philosophy (i.e., mythos and logos) that I submit continues to this day. By weighing in on this “ancient argument” toward a resolution, we can help to induce bottom up, culturally transformative change at a time when top down incremental change is failing the address the many challenges that confront our society.

While the modern era has exalted education, science and reason, the approach through logos, the term myth has become generally synonymous as something that's dismissively untrue. A more accurate and working definition can be as follows: the stories a society tells about itself. The term narrative seems to be currently en vogue and is similarly used to describe how an individual or group sees itself in rela-tion to the rest of the world body. Furthermore, the modern mindset often fails to differentiate between religion, an institution, and the mythos.

This is not to suggest that we should abandon education, science or reason, only to recognize their limitations. As activists, speaking truth to power is important, that is, as best we understand that truth to be given our limited vision. But we should recognize that the truth doesn't necessarily lend itself to inspiration; conversely, it can lend itself to its opposite effect, that of demoralization. Consequently, people become susceptible to latching on to a narrative that enables one to disengage from the truth in order to sustain a level of validity and inspiration to their lives.

More than art, poetry can be about the truth. By drawing on the mythos and framing it poetically yet truthfully and interjecting the arts, we can tell the human story, in its diversity of forms, to induce the human spirit. In essence, by telling the human story, from beginning to its projected end, you enable the individual to awaken to the truth of his or her role in its outcome by providing a new means to dis-cover or affirm validation for one's life. Furthermore, it can cast roles, making it difficult to disengage from.

If you promote a collective vision, rooted in truth and integrity, people will eventually adjust their lives because inherently they will desire their lives to be part of the solution rather than the problem. But the key words here are eventually and inherently. There are legitimate obstacles: it must be the truth, as best we understand the truth to be; it must be capable of capturing the collective imagination; it must sustain a level of inspiration. Granted, my limited credibility here is the first obstacle. But I see no impasse.

As developments in neuroscience have demonstrated that the capacity to reason is inseparable from emotion, as a society, it occurs to me, we've yet to fully come to terms with that truth. By promoting the human spirit, one also promotes greater integrity of reason. To my view, it's not by accident that great strides in both philosophy and poetry occurred simultaneously in that special time and place known as the Golden Age of Greece.

Societies throughout human history have turned to the spiritual gifts of their poets to revitalize the moral culture. To meet the challenges before own democratic society, it increasingly appears that we must also look to our poets. Walt Whitman tried a poetic approach at another time of division in our country, in the prelude to the civil war. But Whitman, while revolutionizing the art form, ran into the limitations of poetry as art. Yet by expanding his approach to encompass all of the arts, including poetry as art, with a particular emphasis on the communal, participatory arts, a new poetic approach can be initiated. At present, I'm calling this project The Perfect Wave Project.

To summarize, we should explore a more vital use of the arts to address what may be a burgeoning spi-ritual crisis, which I define, simply, as follows: the inability to overcome entrenched, narrow interests that threaten the integrity of the greater collective. Put another way, we should enlist the arts as part of a broader spiritual movement. Self-interest in human nature is a force to be reckoned with; who among us has not strived to attain a certain degree of wealth and power, or wealth and status? But it's no match for the human longing that our lives be imbued with meaning beyond our individual selves. Moving in this direction I believe we may find our salvation.

Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and relation to the Project

"The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Here on MLK day, it's worth revisiting how the project relates to the man. Foremost, perhaps, it promotes a nonconformist, poetic approach to human progress. While that fact may contribute nothing to ensure its ultimate success, it at least pays homage to the pioneer spirit. But the name of the project, "The Promised Land" was also influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr. According to Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, the term is defined as follows:

Promised Land: The land that God promised he would give to the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; the "land flowing with milk and honey"; the ..land.. of ..Canaan.., or ....Palestine..... The Israelites did not take it over until after the Exodus, when they conquered the people already living there.
By extension, an idyllic place or state of being that a person hopes to reach, especially one that cannot be reached except by patience and determination, is called a "Promised Land." (my bold to emphasize how it relates to our purposes)

As the term symbolizes a shared vision, Martin Luther King, Jr. makes reference to it in his last public address. The following excerpt, as it came on the eve of his assassination, never fails to help restore my faith, if not in the project's success, at least in the spirit behind it:

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

New York Times Editorial Link / The Relevance of the Promised Land Project

Here's a link to a New York Times column by David Brooks that addresses a recently published book of philosophy. The Promised Land Project addresses many of these same issues but from the side of poetry.

Of particular note is the described collective dynamic called "whooshing up" (leave it to the philosophers to come up with that word) which I would describe as collective spirit. There is no mention of the human spirit, the poet's realm, which in my view reflects the divine law to love others as yourself, the ultimate "whooshing up" that can enable human salvation and world peace.

In this ancient argument between poetry and philosophy (i.e., mythos and logos), cited by Socrates in Plato's Republic, here's an opportunity for poetry to weigh in towards its resolution. Drawing on the mythos, I entitled this project "The Promised Land" to symbolize a collective vision, and to honor what may have been the country's last true prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Moving into the New Year, I expect to be promoting "The Perfect Wave Project" to emphasize the regional arts with the suggestion that it may represent the wave of the future.