well... (Off-Topic)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Thursday, December 08, 2022, 17:35 (504 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Such presentism. If you're spinning what I said into good guys always win in real life, that was proved wrong long before 1977. If art can't inspire us to see the world more clearly, and can't inspire us to live an heroic life, what the fuck is it for?

Control.

The powers that be love art. It's a 'safe' way to sublimate revolutionary urges in a way that ends up being non threatening, and non effectual. Even more so if the artists themselves believe in the 'power' of art.

Wow. Either I’m completely misunderstanding you, or this is nonsense on stilts. How could it be wrong, on one hand, to believe that art is powerful, yet at the same time believe that somehow there’s these puppet masters somewhere that control artists, and use their art to control others.

Art can be powerful, which is why the system will always co-opt art for its own purposes. It is powerful for the system. Not for you.

Oooh, the all-powerful system! Why didn't you say so?

I think that's an overused word that people use to explain what they can't otherwise explain. It's a conversation ender. And so this conversation ends.

Nope. It's a shorthand way of referring to all of the separate forces of power that align independently. Same way you talk about magnetic poles rather than the quintillions of individually spinning electrons. It provides understanding, rather than hides it. The macro effect becomes clear. Of course forces of power can be broken down since there aren't as many as there are electrons, but you do not need to in order to point out its effects.

You do need to if you're going to give agency to human beings.

But that's the point. Individual agency is swallowed when it's the sum of forces. The magnet won't stop being a magnet if one electron flips. But it will if half of them do. This is why asking individuals to change never works and doesn't solve anything on a macro scale. The power structures that motivate people to behave a certain way must be altered or dismantled for change to occur.

But this is impossible with Art alone, since it always works inside such power structures one way or another.

You speak in abstractions: forces, powerful structures. These are non-falsifiable by design. Individuals can change the world. Individual works of art can change the world. Asking individuals to change never works? What’s saddest about that is the self-fulfilling prophecy set up by that belief. It’s utterly depressing. Ugh.