Thursday, March 5, 2009
Pjk, I detect a certain evolution in your argument........ which I agree with but struggle with since I am guilty of the same "evolution" you describe. Why do we expect this sacrifice only of our artists? Why do we not expect the same from ourselves in our daily lives. I completely agree with the analysis that mediocrity often results from our caving to outside pressure and am cognizant of it every single day. I see the same thing in art though, especially your last point about being overly concerned with how they are viewed or received. It may not be fair to ask of them what we ourselves are unwilling to do. Artists seem to be especially exposed to this pressure since their very livelihood depends on this acceptance. That's the same pressure that leads us to change the way we teach or write our dissertations. (Though never having even come close to writing one I would like to think that I would resist such urges) I haven't read more than a paragraph of our book yet, got it today, and I hope that is one of the things we get some insight into. I hate thinking of myself as a product of this culture but there seems to be no denying it. "We are the hollow men, the stuffed men...." I have a feeling I may be out of my league but I will proceed as if I am not. I enjoyed your first remarks and look forward to more.
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Again, and i don't mean to beat a dead horse, but: why are artists especially exposed to "this pressure?" We are all constantly under the same barrage to be a part of the culture we are in. Of course this metaphor of war is itself a romantic notion of the individual at war against the machine. We are a part of our world, both creator and created. We We are both victim and victimizer. We do it to ourselves: "In dreams begin responsibilities" Yeats. Oh, well off to work. A good example of the pressure to reinscibe the status quo.
H. Richard Niebuhr in his classic theological text CHRIST AND CULTURE was not attempting to find the relationship between Christ and Culture but the way people who felt Christ and Culture to be undeniable authorities in their internal lives, worked out those sorts of pressures. Conform? Rebel? Both? Neither? But how can one rebel against those very things that have shaped us in ways that we cannot undo?
So the muse pushes us one way and culture demands another. But is the muse a part of culture or separate from it? Or is the muse a creative extension of the cultural form that inhabit our minds and hearts and communities?
When is not our expression an expectation of some one, some where?
Artists are not the only ones. We all are, every day of every minute of every day. And we have to sort out who this allegedly authentic self is supposed to be, or become.....
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