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TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
Note: I think I already disagree with all of this. I don't think this makes a lot of sense anymore. All I know is that I hate the idea that all art is inherently political, but can't really find a way to argue against it. I guess it would be easier to sit with that if politics had genuine spiritual weight, but today it doesn't. I would summarize my current position like this: all art is political, because "political" at the broadest level means concern with other humans. The problem is that "political" as we understand it is degrading and base. So "political" art as we understand it will always be degrading and base as well. I'll continue to think about this but consider the following essay to already be dubious.
"All art is inherently political" is a soymale left-wing mantra. The narrative goes that right-wing chuds just lack media literacy and can't understand the COMPLEX and DEEP political messaging of their favorite movies and video games. Of course, apparently this message is so complex and deep that is can usually be summed up as "capitalism bad." Something is wrong about all of this. But the answer is something more complex than just "not all art is political."
The word "political" is derived from the Greek word "polis" (plural "poleis") which means a city or urban area. For the Greeks, identity as members of a group or people primarily happened at the level of the city. Today, we normally think of our membership of a group in terms of a nation or country, or maybe a state if you live somewhere like the United States. For the Greeks it was about the city. There was indeed a concept of pan-Hellenism or broadly being distinguished from the "barbarians" among the Greeks, especially to unite against foreign threats like the Persians. But no concept of Hellas as a NATION existed among the ancient Greeks. Anything like our modern idea of nationalism existed at the level of the city, and the inhabitants of certain major poleis like Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Argos, Ephesus, etc. would certainly have been acutely aware of their differences from the others.
So something "political" is concerned with the polis. It is concerned with the society we find ourselves in and wants to comment on it. Now we see where the idea that all art is political comes from. What COULD art even be besides political in this case? What could art be FOR if not for communicating something with other humans, which is a form of influencing and "taking a stand on" society as it exists? So why would you be upset at and reject this worldview?
The idea that all art is political may have once been inspiring and freeing. It is not anymore. Maybe when the only people who could make art were whoever would serve a bunch of rich old churchmen, it was refreshing and invigorating to be able to use art as a tool to rebel and in so doing gain a bit of control over the levers of society and culture. But today, we are all constantly accosted by "responsibility over" and "choices about" our politics that seep into every facet of our communication with anyone and everyone. It's exhausting even to be alive. The LAST thing anyone wants from art today is more "responsibility." Even if all art is political, today we don't want it to be. Because we already feel responsible for the whole world and just want a fucking break!
I'll admit, this means that I fundamentally judge and appreciate art pieces differently based on the time they were made. One of my favorite movies ever is They Live by John Carpenter. It is such an obvious satire and statement on the conformity and consumerism of the Reagan era in the US that you'd have to be brain-dead to miss it. And that's what makes it great! They Live is fantastic precisely because it is the complete opposite of subtle and is such a big, fat middle finger to everything destructive and corrosive about modern capitalist society. But if the same movie was made today about [insert current US political issue here], I would think it was cringe and gay. That's just a matter of the fact that today we are inundated by this kind of messaging everywhere, even when we already all agree. Any expression about a state of affairs in politics in art today feels like nagging, and nobody likes being nagged.
Mdern "politics" is degraded, corrupted, and base. So art that is "political" will be similarly degraded, corrupted, and base. Nobody likes political art because nobody likes or feels inspired by their polis. Nobody sees themselves or the people they care about as part of their polis. The polis is a bunch of liars and thieves and bureaucracy and red tape... why would we want to have anything to do with them? Why would we want to remind ourselves of the fact that we have to live with them? Political art is only good if it expresses what it is like to be a victim. It is profoundly uninteresting if it appears in the guise of being a banner for a movement, because "movements" are gay and the people who lead them quickly become politicians, that is, oppressors.
No one wants to "change" or "fix" their polis, they just want to not live in a polis anymore. That's because it's never invigorating or fun to "do" politics today. It's something we all have to do, but it's like scrubbing our toilet or taking out the trash. Nobody LIKES it. It feels like most "political" art is trying to nag us to become activists and take responsibility for things that we feel barely able to influence. This is annoying. The most we want to do is express ourselves as the victims of politics that we all are. Nobody wants politics to be "fun" or "exciting" or to be their mission in life. We just want less of it. It's like when your boss tries to get everyone excited and creative and free in the workplace. We all hate that. We don't want work to become "fun" or "social" or "creative," we just want to have less fucking work!
We could set up a division of materialistic, pragmatic art as a tool for the polis, (which is the Marxist understanding that is destroying modern art) and higher, holy art as existing for its own sake. But I don't think this is fair. In an ancient context, the polis and the higher existed in an original unity. But this could not last long. As soon as the word polis was used to distinguish it from nature this was already lost. There is no spiritual sustenance in modern politics. And no, this is not a call for an end to secularism. Theocracies do infinitely more damage to religion than secular democracies, because they subordinate the mystical infinite to the bureaucracy and clarity required in running a country. At least secular democracies give the spiritual its own room. All this is to say the following: Working a job would be enjoyable in a society that was spiritually elevated and full of meaning. Today it is not, and most of us hate our jobs. Politics would be a refreshing subject for art in such a society as well. But today the polis is a nightmare and everyone hates it.
The polis as a model and framework for being involved with others, with all its bureaucracy and red tape and hatred and mind-numbing drudgery, is unappealing. With this in mind, I would like to introduce another ancient Greek word which is related to "polis" but is distinct, and that is "koinonia." This word appears in the New Testament and is usually used in a Christian context, although it is older than Christianity. It is generally translated as "communion" in a Christian context and refers to a fellowship and cohesion as a group that is spiritual rather than based on political machinations. This is a word that I would like to use to define the way that art exists among us socially. I think all art is koinonic (i.e. that it exists to bring humans together and give them shared meaning), but any definition of art as political (i.e. to justify and sustain the polis as the model for human interaction) seems inherently insulting to me.
When an artwork is understood to be "political," this seems to always mean that it is completely understood and "worked out." In politics, you always have to shrink the meaning of what we experience with endless explanation and clarification. Everything has to be clear and exhaustive. No one should want clarification in artworks. An artwork that is clarified is dead. An artwork that is koinonic is open for possibility as long as humans are the infinitely deep and varied individuals that we are.
Our politics should take the shape of our koinonia, not the other way around. Of course art should follow suit.