I had a bad day yesterday, though I should qualify such a statement with the acknowledgment of how fortunate I am to not experience many of them as a matter of course. I was overcome with concern and frustration with world events, compounded by a few personal conflicts. I was angry, and among my many flaws I sometimes do not handle anger well. Often I am successful in stamping out such feelings before they consume me, but every so often they do get the upper hand.
Those who know me surely also know that I hold some strong opinions about matters of politics, justice, the environment and many others. Over the years I often struggled with the question of airing such convictions in public, and by extension also associating them with my work. Time and again I weighed the arguments for and against, and each time so far I concluded that I did not wish to be a public activist. I know that many of my friends and colleagues, some of whom are overt and outspoken activists, vehemently disagree with this sentiment, which is why I felt it worthwhile to explain my reasons.
It helps that I am not alone in pondering such issues. Before explaining my own views I also wish to acknowledge that throughout history great artists confronted similar choices. Some pursued their convictions openly and harnessed their influence in support of various causes, while others valiantly defended the notion that art should transcend life and, instead, celebrate the ideal and not become mired in political controversy even when the artist, as a person, is. I wish to state clearly that I applaud anyone who takes a stand for higher causes, regardless of their actual choice. To me, the decision to make a bold statement for a worthy cause is always admirable, whether openly taking side in a conflict or defending the purity and idealism of their art by shielding it from politics.
In the midst of World War I, German writer Hermann Hesse pondered similar thoughts. In an essay titled Fantasies, he offered, “From recent reading of various kinds, the idea of ‘politicizing the spirit’ was familiar, and it was to this idea, which had always been profoundly repugnant to me, that I now felt drawn. … Even though poets were calling themselves ‘intellectuals’! Could one misunderstand and misinterpret oneself and one’s task more completely and more foolishly? There was only one thing proper about all this, that the ‘intellectuals’ felt a share of guilt for the war and for the misery of the world. Certainly they were implicated, indeed, deeply, vitally implicated, these magisterial ‘intellectuals.’ They had long since ceased to be poets … and now they had come forward demanding the ‘politicizing of the poet’! … they had long since stopped doing the one thing the poet is brought into the world to do, the performance of a sacred duty toward that world which is more than real, which is eternal.”
Photographic artists, too, found themselves pondering similar thoughts. During World War II, Ansel Adams, under criticism for making seemingly benign images of natural subjects while the nation was at war, stated in a letter to David McAlpin that his greatest wartime contribution was “interpreting the natural scene as a part of what we are fighting for.”
The question is a simple one (the answers, hardly so): is the ideal of defending the sanctity of art as worthy as the ideals underlying wars, social injustice, political ideologies or any other? I believe that it is. In fact, I believe that in many cases it even surpasses them in importance.
I should emphasize that the idea of art transcending the quarrels of politics, wars and injustice does not in any way imply indifference to such things. If anything, it implies defiance in the face of the lowest, least dignified and most violent of human feats – a staunch refusal to toss yet more purity, beauty and transcendence into the festering cauldron of petty things, however horrific their consequences.
For all our high ideals, we spend the vast majority of our resources on ever more violent and despicable ways of destroying and subjugating others. Artists, being human, are not immune to taking sides in such conflicts. But the question remains whether, in the long run, we can be more effective in improving the lot of humanity by joining a fight or by defiantly refusing to, no matter how strongly we feel as individuals. Is art greater than such things? And, as such, is it worthy of shielding in pure form, lest it becomes tarnished by them? Are we better off using our art as a weapon, or will such use rob it of the very things that make it elevated, worthy and important?
Being susceptible to human emotions, the choice is not an easy one, but in my mind Nietzsche was right when he posited that those who fight monsters also face the risk of becoming monsters themselves. A world in which art does not stand elevated and separate above the roiling mass of violence, bigotry, ignorance, superstition, pettiness and greed will, in my mind, be a sad world to be human in. What good is our idealism if in the course of defending it we end up making a world where one can never find refuge from such things?
My conclusion aligns with that of Hesse: the artist’s most sacred duty is not in aligning their influence with political causes, but in shielding that part of existence that is beyond the flaws of human arrogance, violence and greed, and the quarrels of the day.
After spending most of yesterday seething about the state of humanity, I finally decided to tune out. I put on headphones, played a selection of favorite music and went to work in my garden as thunderstorms rolled through. I welcomed the occasional rain and was oblivious to my clothes getting wet; I watched the plays of light and shadow on the mountainside across the valley, rejoiced in the scents of wet earth and wet plants, and savored the sensation of sinking my bare fingers into the rich soil. I then took a hot shower and, feeling renewed, I set about processing some recent work as the storms continued outside my window. To channel such experiences into a fight, ideological or physical, seemed like betrayal – like turning away a great gift, spitting in the eye of the giver. It would be an act of profound disrespect toward all things truly and purely uplifting, independent of the pettiness of humanity. I became keenly aware of how the human-made world, with all its technological wonders, fell so far short in so many important ways, in comparison; and I understood why those for whom such experiences are rare or absent never know true happiness even if successful by other measures. If we lose this, what is left to fight for? And, no, existence for its own sake is not a sufficient answer, in my mind.
It is unlikely that I will ever sway the course of history like so many world leaders, celebrity activists or even some pundits, but my duty, humble as it is, is still a sacred one to me. I am an artist. I side with art. I consider it imminently important to the quality of human experience, independent of any cause, and exactly because it is independent of any cause. I cannot imagine a life worth living without it. This is my small hill to defend, and I do so proudly.
I will continue to espouse my thoughts and political leanings in the same way that any individual does, and should: among friends and in fulfilling my duties as a citizen. But as an artist I feel that my contribution to the greater good is not in becoming an activist but in insuring that my art remains independent of such quarrelsome affairs, no matter how strongly I feel about them, and not for my own sake, but for the sake of art and for the sake of those who will benefit from it long after the great issues of today are forgotten and obsolete.
And yet, considering how often such thoughts plague me, it is clearly not a settled matter. It is an ongoing battle with the primitive urge to fight, to strike back, to perform heroic deeds. As a human such urges are built into me and I can’t help them, but as an artist I consider it more noble to resist them and to create in spite of them.
