[lit-ideas] Re: Which is the least political of the arts?/Whether to run or fly
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 08:31:26 -0800
Donal,
As usual, my response ran a bit long, so I posted it at
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2010/12/which-is-least-political-of-arts.html
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Donal McEvoy
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 3:28 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Which is the least political of the arts?/Whether
to run or fly
--- On Wed, 22/12/10, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I was struck by something I read earlier in A. J. P. Taylor's The Habsburg
Monarchy, 1809-1918:
Referring to the alliance of the Habsburgs and the "Counter-Revolution,"
Taylor writes, "The alliance of the dynasty and the Jesuits saved the
Habsburgs and defeated Protestantism in central Europe; it also gave to
'Austrian' culture the peculiar stamp which it preserved to the end.
Austrian Baroque civilisation, like the buildings which it created, was
grandiose, full of superficial life, yet sterile within: it was theatre, not
reality. It lacked integrity and individual character; at its heart was a
despairing frivolity. 'Hopeless, but not serious' was the guiding principle
which the age of Baroque stamped upon the Habsburg world. Deep feeling
found an outlet only in music, the least political of the arts; even here
the creative spirit strove to break its bonds, and the air of Vienna was
more congenial to Johann Strauss than to Mozart or to Beethoven. The
Habsburgs learnt from the Jesuits patience, subtlety, and showmanship; they
could not
learn from them sincerity and creativeness."
Some might say this is self-description masquerading as analysis: that is,
'if you spot it, you got it'. Would anyone be surprised to find some writing
of Wittgenstein's or Popper's, both Viennese, which described the backwaters
of Oxbridge "as full of superficial life, yet sterile within: it was
theatre, not reality. It lacked integrity and individual character; at its
heart was a despairing frivolity."? Or that their self-styled 'analytical'
approach requires some patience and subtlety but very little in the way of
"sincerity and creativeness"?
Taylor's implicit view of the relation between art and politics is perhaps
equally sterile and superficial. In the narrow sense of 'politics' as a
party-programme etc., it is surely questionable whether the proper function
of art is to serve politics or even much reflect it. Insofar as art seeks to
illuminate 'the human condition', or some such, it is profoundly political -
as all dictators and Plato know, which is why artistic expression must be
controlled and suppressed in such regimes. That includes the music.
A counter-argument to Taylor's is that it is precisely because music takes
its form and content from above the petty day-to-day machinations of the
political arena that it is the most political of the arts - in a similar
way, perhaps, that it is the most political of positions to decry politics
as a necessary evil and not a be-all and end-all.
Of course, there are more urgent reasons for dictators to suppress
newspapers than music recitals: because newspapers contain
propositional/factual claims that may undermine the official line in a way a
string quartet does not; as a photograph may also constitute a factual claim
[e.g. here are government soldiers shooting unarmed protesters] it may also
fall to be suppressed more urgently than the string quartet. But this is
hardly the only or deepest measure of the political importance of a cultural
item: we may say that while news reports of the assassination of the
Archduke or photographs from Vietnam had a direct and immense political
impact, this impact is of very little longstanding historical importance
compared to works of art on our lives and our attitudes.
Donal
London
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