Culture now?
How can I write about culture in the midst of the violence, fear and hatred that surrounds us now? Isn’t culture the epitome of escapism – at best naive, at worst insensitive and indifferent to the pain, loss and suffering?
Yes, culture offers an escape. Reading Albert Camus, Zora Neale Hurston, or Jane Austen, listening to Dylan, Bach or the Beach Boys, turning the pages of an over-sized art book to indulge in the colors of Van Gogh’s dreams, the erotic tensions of Schiele, or, as today is after all October 21, 2015, going Back to the Future with Marty McFly and Doc Brown – all these bring rest and solace to my aching, weary spirit. These and other artists make me feel good, and feeling good, as the song says, is sometimes “good enough.”
But if I stop to think about why they make me feel good (and as a chronic over-thinker I simply must), the picture becomes more complex. Sure, I feel good because when I’m reading a book or watching a movie I am not thinking about my problems, whether global or personal. It is escapism, it takes me, figuratively, out of myself. Yet I would not say that I am not thinking; I am thinking differently.
The kind of thinking we do when we are engaged in cultural activity (and yes, I believe this holds true across the board – for opera, carnivals, comics and what you will) takes us outside ourselves in a way that offers us hope and a challenge.
Art calls upon us to look deeply into our selves, to see ourselves as we appear to others, and to enter imaginatively into the lives, thoughts and feelings of others. Looking at works of the past, one can discern patterns, acquire a perspective on human struggles and emotions that is not possible in the chaos of everyday life. Looking at contemporary works, we connect to the experience of others in this moment, as they translate the beauty and ugliness of this world into music, poetry and dance. Art strives to understand, to communicate. I think it’s time and effort well spent if we try to see, to listen, and to feel.
And about feeling good – isn’t that what we all want?
So, yes, I am writing about culture, not without difficulty, not without thinking, not without feeling the pain, and stopping and sometimes stumbling… but I continue to write because I believe it is literally in our hands to make this a better world.
