Arts On Art and Democracy
posted by on October 24 at 13:24 PM
Regina Hackett’s attack:
[Mudede] says he’s a Marxist, but a more accurate description would be an art-for-art’s sake Marxist. He writes about historical inevitability, but in a random way. He plucks a premise from the air and defends it into life.The problem with criticism in all of its forms (art, film, literature) has been its susceptibility to the charge that, ultimately, it is nothing more than the product of someone’s opinion. Criticism is not truth; it is an opinion � or what the Greeks called doxa. We can all agree that opinions are no good.
Nonsense. Who agrees that opinions are no good? Only those who believe in the Word made flesh. Mudede cannot claim to be one of them. “We can all agree” is his way of signaling his con job. He knows to his bones that a critic can’t hand down the law to the people.
My defense:
Marxism for me is simply this: Art and politics cannot be separated. A political truth is an artistic truth. But what is politics? It is the social space in which ideas of how a society should or should not distribute its wealth meet and compete for the prize of realization. So wealth is what matters in politics. And the matters of politics are also the matters of art. Because those who have the most wealth mostly determine the results (realizations) of politics (a government, laws, management of the armed forces, law enforcement, and other institutions that organize and express the power of the state), art must either be in the situation of reinforcing the state (status) of power or resisting it.
This basically is my position, and it is not without problems. However, opinions (doxa) are bad for art because they are bad for politics.
And why are opinions bad for politics? Because you are free to have as many of them as you want. Recall this: When Bush is directly criticized for going to war, he often tells his critic that he/she has the (American) right to have and express that opinion. What is the meaning of this? America is great because it permits people to have opinions. As for Bush, he has more than just mere opinions; he has the right to act on his beliefs. You can enjoy your opinions while the king controls the power to act.
Alain Badiou puts it this way:
Everyone knows that there is a precious ‘freedom of opinion’, where as the ‘freedom of truth’ remains in doubt. In the lengthy succession of banalities pronounced on the ‘dogmatic’, ‘abstract’ and ‘constrained’ character of the idea of truth—banalities forever invested in defense of political regimes whose (general economic) authority to exercise power is concealed behind the ‘freedom of opinion.’
In the case of the present war (and they are many other such cases), at the center of Bush’s right to act is a lie. Not an opinion, but a lie. If he can act on a lie, then it is up to his critics to act on the truth.
In politics, a lie and a truth have a much higher value than an opinion. Why? Because for a lie to be worth anything it must assume the character of a truth, not an opinion. Bush never acts on an opinion. He would never degrade his decisions to such a low status. The lie he used to call up the war had the power of the truth.
As it is for politics, it must also be for art. The value of politics is close to nothing if all it can offer is a space for the exchange and circulation of opinions; the value of art criticism is close to nothing if all it can offer is a market place for opinions.
That is my point.
Seems to me the mixture of art and politics is more about having more politics and less about having more art.
"Art and politics cannot be separated."
This calls for a slapfight between Mudede and Jen Graves.
But Regina is all about her opinion being the only one in this town to matter pertaining to art.
Maybe she's a wee bit threatened?
Regina's point is that you try to get around the "problem with criticism in all its forms" by characterizing your opinions as statements of truth, as if that's all it takes. It's a linguistic tic and nothing more, and it doesn't do your writing any favours.
Oh oh.
I just had an epiphany reading Mudede, not about art but about the meaning and value of opinions and the very category of "opinions" in politics.
Get back to the cleavage shots. This thinking is tiring.
is your defense meant to be ironic?
hackett: "He plucks a premise from the air and defends it into life"
charles: "art and politics cannot be sepblah blah blah wealth blah blah opinion blah some pompous quote blah blah blah is my point"
i mean really, is it?
Charles, I was with you on your earlier post today. But know you've lost me again.
Dude, the biggest problem with chaz's writing is he just makes stupid assertions with no backing. He thinks his opinion is fact for the basis of his own arguments.
every idea he has ever put forward requires you to believe the assumptions he makes, which is terrible because the assumptions he makes arent rooted in any commonly accepted facts or truths.
for instance in this post he basically says, arts and politics can't be seperate and then extrapolated on that without justifying it or explaining it.
any time someone uses "must" "can not" "we" it shoots out a warning shot that what is about to follow is crap.
@7, make that "now" instead of "know."
know would also work though.
I would love for Charles to write a post in E-Prime. What would happen if he couldn't use various forms of 'to be' for a day?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
I bet it would put his criticism into a completely different light.
And in case you didn't want to go to the Wikipedia link, I give you this choice quote that illustrates what I was trying to get at:
art is only about truth in that it is basically a lie, an illusion, framing for effect, and an idealized reflection of Psyche in a way to satisfy our Narcissus eyes...
but screw all that; my Armani suit is ready for pick-up from the cleaners, and theres an anti-IMF rally I'm running late for.
even from the post:
art and politics can't be seperated (assumption)
opinions are bad in politics (assumption)
therefore opinions are bad in evaluating art (assumptive conclusion)
so chaz needs two assumptions to create a 3rd conclusive assumption. What kind of bullshit flim flam is that?
Bellevue Ave, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Flim flam.
At this moment in time the only option for the masses to regain majority control of politics is through art. The masses have been entirely marginalized and art has been massively commercialized. The last options available to the underground are gorrilla art, writing, film and media - up through the masses as an educational operation up through the establishment and elite. Everything else has failed.
I think it's hilarious that Regina Hackett is trying to pretend that she's a serious critic here. Oh man...
Art is subjective. It can't be separated form politics if you decide it can't.
Your viewpoint is self-fulfilling, Mudede. If you choose to analyze art in that context, then you will forever view it in that light, thus reinforcing your original assumption.
Try looking away from the mirror from time to time, you may see something more interesting than your own reflection.
Mudede wants art criticism to be empowering in some way, not merely idle (and ignorable) chatter. Just as he wants political speech to have some political effect.
What's ironic is that Mudede himself is in a position of power (sort of like Bush) where he can ignore all the criticism that comes his way and continue to pluck premises out of the air without really defending them. Every time he posts something a barrage of comments fly up taking him to task for bullshitting, but nothing ever happens. His writing never changes.
A friend of mine is sure that this is all a joke. He thinks that the editors at the Stranger let Mudede keep going because it's funny to see people worked into a froth over his quasi-philosophical undefended banter. Maybe my friend is right and the joke is on us.
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