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.

The Perfect Wave Project: Introduction

To some degree, we're all attracted to the ideal – as we see in the movies, for example – and we live with a cultural ideal. But there's a problem when a cultural ideal lends itself to the suppression of the spirit, or demoralization, and the occlusion of sympathetic love in our society, towards others and our own selves. To help address this problem I propose a project we can call The Perfect Wave Project that strives to make greater use and integration of the arts.

For over twenty years I've been contending with the consumer culture and this problem of the ideal. To contend with this, I believe, is to draw on and emphasize certain aspects of the moral culture, which includes a societies religions, traditions, the mythos (the stories a society tells about itself), ideals, history, and the arts. Concerning the latter, The Perfect Wave Project reflects Walt Whitman's approach but expands to include all of the arts, including poetry as art.

Recognizing and addressing this problem I believe can be a boon to the local arts scene. There's much competition among artists and arts groups for limited funding and attention. Yet I believe we could weave a collective approach that can be a boon to all involved and potentially expand the funding base. The project itself shouldn't necessarily be part of any art institution but enable such an institution to make use of it. I've outlined some guiding principles that I believe could lead to its success as follows:

1. Weave mutually beneficial relationships among artists and arts groups.
2. Enable both individual artists and arts groups to creatively make it their own.

Besides the obvious surfing reference, use of the term perfect is informed and reconciled by influences such as follows:

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
-- from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"

"Morality which is based on ideas, or on an ideal, is an unmitigated evil. No absolute is going to make the lion lie down with the lamb unless the lamb is inside. It is no good casting out devils. They belong to us, we must accept them and be at peace with them."
-- D.H. Lawrence

In the Biblical passage where the Apostle Paul addresses the Cornithians, he makes reference to a "thorn in his side." Recognizing his own weakness, he'd appealed to God to remove this thorn. The answer, Paul relates as follows:

But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'

The Perfect Wave Project: Doing the Poet's Job Collectively

While I pass no judgments of what art should or should not be – art can be various things to various people – I do believe in greater possibilities of what art can be. In her introduction to Ellen Bass's wonderful book of poems, Mules of Love, the poet Dorianne Laux writes as follows about the poet's job:

What is the poet's job but to help us to become aware of life's transience, love's power, the subtle manifestations of hope, to play for us again the ancient themes.

I'm suggesting here that we can better do the poet's job through a collective approach rather than individually, recognizing the limitations of the art form. But I expect it would have to start within the circles of poetry, as the writer Henry Miller asserted:

The future always has and always will belong to – the poet.

We can start with Laux's quote above and break it down and inspect more deeply its various parts to help guide us.

The Perfect Wave Project: Human Flourishing and the Problem of the Ideal

To some degree, we're all attracted to the ideal – as we see in the movies, for example – and we live with a cultural ideal. But there's a problem when a cultural ideal lends itself to the suppression of the spirit, or demoralization, and the occlusion of sympathetic love in our society.

Being socialized into the consumer culture there's an inclination to feel -- the key word -- something like as follows: I want this ideal life, I want to be this ideal person and attract an ideal mate. Needless to say, the individual will have to come to terms with the real, though such feelings can remain, in the dubious pursuit of happiness. Part of our national obsession with celebrities, I think, at least in part, is that they appear to either have attained this ideal or be in a position to.

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. The former is problematic while the latter often fails to receive recognition and monetary compensation; consequently, our society is susceptible to a certain degree of demoralization.

The problem of attaining a sense of self through comparison, to others or too a cultural ideal, manifests itself in a variety ways but notably here is it's simply a weak foundation. Comparing ourselves to others, we lack the vision to pass such a judgment; consequently we can set ourselves to be humbled.

Comparing ourselves to an ideal contributes to a problem of promoting an image of our selves rather than confronting or opening up to the truth about ourselves. This can cause distance in our relationships; worse, it can cause a deep sense of shame for not being able to up to an ideal. The mind can have a way of not confronting the shameful truth. As the ideal can impair our ability to confront the truth about ourselves and our human nature in general, it impedes our progress in creating a society that promotes the best of our nature while minimizing the worst.

Recognizing how a cultural ideal can lend itself to demoralization, we subsequently can turn to the moral culture and determine what aspects can be promoted to alleviate that demoralization. Part of the reason Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life became and remains a best-seller, I believe, is that it addressed and provided some alleviation from this demoralization, that is, in the Christian context. But in a pluralistic country founded on the tenets of the enlightenment, a broader approach is needed because a country’s moral culture is more than religion, also encompassing, for example, its history, traditions, ideals, and its art.

In another time of division in this country, Walt Whitman, perhaps the country’s greatest poet, took on these issues in the prelude to the Civil War. Expanding on Whitman's approach and other influences, I believe there's a poetic path towards cultural transformation to better enable an imaginative framework that affirms one’s sense of self derived from contribution as the appropriate foundation toward human flourishing for both the individual and society.

The Perfect Wave Project: Healing the Cultural Divide

To heal the political divide that afflicts our country, we must first heal the cultural divide. That's the assertion of James F. Cooper, author of Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape. In the culture wars, he is an art critic that I expect would be viewed as one who swings to the right. But he takes issue with conservatives that would defund the arts; quite the opposite, as his concluding remarks state in the following excerpt:

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 artists to help us see once again.

We can draw on Coopers argument and broaden the base of support for the arts without alienating its regular patrons. What I've tried to do as a writer and a poet, is take Walt Whitman's vision out of its time and place in the nineteenth century, bring it through the awful truth of the twentieth century, and set it down into the twenty-first century to restore hope and faith in both our human nature and our democratic society. Furthermore, I believe this vision is supported by and anticipates developments in scientific fields such as neuroscience and evolutionary biology.