Politics and Awful Art

Followup to:  Rationality and the English Language

One of my less treasured memories is of a State of the Union address, or possibly a presidential inauguration, at which a Nobel Laureate got up and read, in a terribly solemn voice, some politically correct screed about what a wonderfully inclusive nation we all were - "The African-Americans, the Ethiopians, the Etruscans", or something like that.  The "poem", if you can call it that, was absolutely awful.  As far as my ears could tell, it had no redeeming artistic merit whatsoever.

Every now and then, yet another atheist is struck by the amazing idea that atheists should have hymns, just like religious people have hymns, and they take some existing religious song and turn out an atheistic version.  And then this "atheistic hymn" is, almost without exception, absolutely awful.  But the author can't see how dreadful the verse is as verse.  They're too busy congratulating themselves on having said "Religion sure sucks, amen."  Landing a punch on the Hated Enemy feels so good that they overlook the hymn's lack of any other merit.  Verse of the same quality about something unpolitical, like mountain streams, would be seen as something a kindergartener's mother would post on her refrigerator. 

In yesterday's Litany Against Gurus, there are only two lines that might be classifiable as "poetry", not just "verse".  When I was composing the litany's end, the lines that first popped into my head were:

I was not your destination
Only a step on your path

Which didn't sound right at all.  Substitute "pathway" for "road", so the syllable counts would match?  But that sounded even worse.  The prosody - the pattern of stressed syllables - was all wrong.

The real problem was the word des-ti-NA-tion - a huge awkward lump four syllables long.  So get rid of it!  "I was not your goal" was the first alternative that came to mind.  Nicely short.  But now that I was thinking about it, "goal" sounded very airy and abstract.  Then the word "city" came into my mind - and it echoed.

"I was never your city" came to me, not by thinking about rationality, but by thinking about prosody.  The constraints of art force us to toss out the first, old, tired phrasing that comes to mind; and in searching for a less obvious phrasing, often lead us to less obvious thoughts.

If I'd said, "Well, this is such a wonderful thought about rationality, that I don't have to worry about the prosodic problem", then I would have not received the benefit of being constrained.

The other poetic line began as "Laugh once, and never look back," which had problems as rationality, not just as prosody.  "Laugh once" is the wrong kind of laughter; too derisive.  "Never look back" is even less correct, because the memory of past mistakes can be useful years later.  So... "Look back, laugh once smile, and then," um, "look forward"?  Now if I'd been enthralled by the wonders of rationality, I would have said, "Ooh, 'look forward'!  What a progressive sentiment!" and forgiven the extra syllable.

"Eyes front!"  It was two syllables.  It had the crisp click of a drill sergeant telling you to stop woolgathering, snap out of that daze, and get to work!  Nothing like the soft cliche of "look forward, look upward, look to the future in a vaguely admiring sort of way..."

Eyes front!  It's a better thought as rationality, which I would never have found, if I'd been so impressed with daring to write about rationality, that I had forgiven myself the prosodic transgression of an extra syllable.

If you allow affirmation of My-Favorite-Idea to compensate for lack of rhythm in a song, lack of beauty in a painting, lack of poignancy in fiction, then your art will, inevitably, suck.  When you do art about My-Favorite-Idea, you have to hold yourself to the same standard as if you were doing art about a butterfly.

There is powerful politicized art, just as there are great religious paintings.  But merit in politicized art is more the exception than the rule.  Most of it ends up as New Soviet Man Heroically Crushing Capitalist Snakes.  It's an easy living.  If anyone criticizes your art on grounds of general suckiness, they'll be executed for siding with the capitalist snakes.

Tolerance of awful art, just because it lands a delicious punch on the Enemy, or just because it affirms the Great Truth, is a dangerous sign:  It indicates an affective death spiral entering the supercritical phase where you can no longer criticize any argument whose conclusion is the "right" one.

And then the next thing you know, you're composing dreadful hymns, or inserting giant philosophical lectures into the climax of your fictional novel...

Comments

[Doug S.]

To be fair, we also hold some "art" to a different standard because it was made by an amateur, a child, or for various other reasons. I don't expect your average scientist to be as skilled at tale-telling as an average professional tale-teller. (Carl Sagan happened to be both a professional scientist and a pretty good fiction writer; I rather liked Contact.)

Once in a while, you do run into someone, such as George Orwell, who is good enough to stick an Author Filibuster into a novel and have it still be a good novel, but more often, they just make things boring to anyone except those who already agree with the argument or would read philosophy for fun anyway.

[Alex Martelli]

If you're looking for awesome atheist poetry, Lucretius' "De Rerum Naturae" will supply it -- in Latin, that's true, but, it CAN be translated, you know;-). Yes, it DOES start with a hymn to Venus -- "hominum divomque voluptas", and the rest of the wonderful opening Hymn to Venus -- but that's just keeping the paying sponsors (the Caesars, Augustus in particular) happy, as they claim descent from Venus -- look around the "tantum religio potuet suadere malorum" part for some juicier materials;-).

[Psy-Kosh]

I take your point, though I guess for "atheist hymns", or the closest things theirof, perhaps the first place to look would be Filk music? There're very very very few professional filkers, and most Filk is with untrained voices and so on, and has to be appreciated as just as it is, just for fun... but there's some good stuff too... Fire in the Sky, Hope Eyerie, etc.. (at least in my view)

One in particular that formed more or less out of the composer's frustration with a Young Earth Creationist is actually pretty good... perhaps one of the nicest attacks on YEC around, specifically "Word of God"

The ones I mentioned are at http://www.prometheus-music.com/eli/virtual.htm (Surprise! is just plain fun though! dunno about deep artistic merit, it's just fun. :))

Of course, tastes vary...

[Doug S.]

Upon blind faith they place reliance
What we need more of is science!

[mnuez]

Such are the things that consistently befall me

I come to say "Hi!"
to let know of my appreciation
and I arrive at a post
that seems poetic masturbation.

Nightly I read
listen
learn
love
laugh
at the litany of biases being overcome by
Overcoming Bias'
staff

- and by the commentors as well, ye, the commentors as well -

But Alas! and Woe! and forsooth! (and my tooth!)
For I read in bed
by the light of my phone
and can join the choired commentors,
Not.

So I power-up tonight! (my laptop delicate)
to say "hello, y'all!" from a position not prone (I stand, I won't sit)
"Leizer, you're the best! You're fun to read and to cheer for!"
"And Robin, your free-market posts are so full of bias and herefore!
But I love you anyway, for I'm a disciple of Jesus,
And I would not laugh or cackle if he beat out of you the begeesus!
(And also you offer us this blog, which may mitigate some sins...)"

But what do I find?
What does my screen show?
A post about poetry!
of which nothing I know...

sigh, sigh / a kercheif for mine eye ~

mnuez
www.mnuez.blogspot.com

[Ian C.]

Maybe to be beautiful, art has to have a sense of balance and proper proportion, but a political fanatic has very little of either of these.

[Ben Jones]

As I remember from A Level English, Goldstein's 'book' on Big Brother's regime was the first part of 1984 to be written. I'm glad to see someone highlighting the parallels between great fictional works like Orwell's and classic rationalist scientific literature; I've always thought there was great value in this.

Rubbish art attempting to point up serious political issues is about as effective as a scientific paper detailing a poorly run experiment. It's the difference between an Atlas Shrugged and a 1984.

Ian, for an example of great, polemic, unbalanced political art, see Rage Against The Machine. Being artistic - even being good at it - doesn't make you honest, it just makes you accessible.

mnuez - hang on to that day job! ;)

[Doug S.]

Actually, I think I found something better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEOkxRLzBf0

[Tom]

It's such a shame about my failure
To have been born within Australia;
Because then the rhyme for "Overcoming Bias"
Could be found among "The Himalayas".

[Rick Smith]

I've always felt that constraining yourself to poetry that rhymes restricts both what you can say and the artfulness with which you can say it.