Someone said to me in an email today that without conflicts and contradictions it isn't possible to be an artist. And I found myself once more not speaking the same language as anybody else. I hear sentences like that and I find it so obvious that they need disarming, like a bomb that turns up in a conversation, and it's only made up of the same chemicals as the rest of the world, but in a configuration that makes it unnecessarily dangerous. So here goes:
The crucial point is not conflicts and contradictions themselves, but how we react to them. A lot of people want to become artists because they think they are going to resolve their conflicts and contradictions, and that we will pay to watch them do this.
But conflicts and contradictions are parts of life, and most if not all of the unhappiness in the world arises not from conflicts and contradictions, but from the erroneous belief that conflict and contradiction need to be resolved.
This belief derives directly from monotheistic concepts of final, irrevocable judgment, of dualism in the sense of good and evil and in the sense of body and soul. Either-ors. Elect or reprobate. Yes or no.
Traditions not only of artistic expression, but also of science, academic research and debate, politics, diplomacy, sexual politics, interpersonal relations of all kinds, have all been developed in the light of the belief that conflicts and contradictions must be resolved. In spite of the fact that not one single conflict or contradiction ever has been resolved in any of these fields, but at 'best' glossed over by time, no one seriously questions the belief.
But even if you go way back and look at what Aristotle regarded as the purpose of classical tragedy, namely to astonish and entrance the audience with a richer sensation of the immediacy of life... producing ekstasis ('trance') and katharsis ('purification'), even the most illustrious of the Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus, completely fails to do this, because he tacks on pious humanistic endings to his plays which take them out of the cathartic/ecstatic sphere and into the didactic. For instance, at the end of the Eumenides, the Furies are stopped from properly completing the nature-circle of destruction when Athena intervenes, putting the 'case' of Orestes' guilt before the democratic institutions of Athens, Orestes finally being acquitted by a jury. And they all lived happily ever after. Bla bla.
The notion that conflicts and contradictions must be resolved is a recipe for unhappiness, because the 'happily ever after' deceit only works in a theatre - a theatre, furthermore, that has been turned from a lens of wonder for the ritual reflection and consideration of nature into a centre of propaganda. The audience leaves, not in a state of ekstasis or katharsis but in a state of delusion.
This is not a world in which 'happily ever after' can or should be achieved. This is a pagan polyworld in which more than one truth/love/viewpoint can be absolute at once and conflicts and contradictions don't have to be resolved, but explored, re-explored, celebrated, played out.
At least, it is if you want it to be. I know I do.
The crucial point is not conflicts and contradictions themselves, but how we react to them. A lot of people want to become artists because they think they are going to resolve their conflicts and contradictions, and that we will pay to watch them do this.
But conflicts and contradictions are parts of life, and most if not all of the unhappiness in the world arises not from conflicts and contradictions, but from the erroneous belief that conflict and contradiction need to be resolved.
This belief derives directly from monotheistic concepts of final, irrevocable judgment, of dualism in the sense of good and evil and in the sense of body and soul. Either-ors. Elect or reprobate. Yes or no.
Traditions not only of artistic expression, but also of science, academic research and debate, politics, diplomacy, sexual politics, interpersonal relations of all kinds, have all been developed in the light of the belief that conflicts and contradictions must be resolved. In spite of the fact that not one single conflict or contradiction ever has been resolved in any of these fields, but at 'best' glossed over by time, no one seriously questions the belief.
But even if you go way back and look at what Aristotle regarded as the purpose of classical tragedy, namely to astonish and entrance the audience with a richer sensation of the immediacy of life... producing ekstasis ('trance') and katharsis ('purification'), even the most illustrious of the Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus, completely fails to do this, because he tacks on pious humanistic endings to his plays which take them out of the cathartic/ecstatic sphere and into the didactic. For instance, at the end of the Eumenides, the Furies are stopped from properly completing the nature-circle of destruction when Athena intervenes, putting the 'case' of Orestes' guilt before the democratic institutions of Athens, Orestes finally being acquitted by a jury. And they all lived happily ever after. Bla bla.
The notion that conflicts and contradictions must be resolved is a recipe for unhappiness, because the 'happily ever after' deceit only works in a theatre - a theatre, furthermore, that has been turned from a lens of wonder for the ritual reflection and consideration of nature into a centre of propaganda. The audience leaves, not in a state of ekstasis or katharsis but in a state of delusion.
This is not a world in which 'happily ever after' can or should be achieved. This is a pagan polyworld in which more than one truth/love/viewpoint can be absolute at once and conflicts and contradictions don't have to be resolved, but explored, re-explored, celebrated, played out.
At least, it is if you want it to be. I know I do.
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I have, for years, had a recurring dream theme - where sometimes I'm in Germany and sometimes I'm in Holland. But I am speaking the appropriate language, and not just translating it, but knowing it....I am often giving directions to others in a train station. Sometimes Centraal Station in Amsterdam, sometimes other stations that I have never visited. The dreams have evolved to reflect what I currently look like, who is in my life, etc. I feel that I'm supposed to live in the EU, at some point in my life. I have made it a goal to be there in four years.
We shall see.....