Let’s leave law for a few days…
“Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.”
It’s tempting to read what Friedrich Nietzsche wrote 125 years ago in The Gay Science and with it justify an arsenal of anti-pop-culture ordnance, to set sail an armada of Britney-Paris-Lindsay, reality TV, and Kanye v. Fitty critiques. It’s also really easy, and a bit ridiculous. To beat up pop-culture, which is consumed by the Great Unwashed and in the Ivory Tower alike, using Nietzsche is not only overkill, it is inappropriate and hypocritical.
Well, perhaps not inappropriate at first glance, as what deadens our human curiosity to the point of indulging these pleasures is a form of intellectual apathy; but to wield the mighty pen of Nietzsche in this manner is inappropriate insofar as to do so neglects the possibility of vulgar indulgence as occasional (read: anything-less-than-always) guilty pleasure. To use this statement of Freddy Nietzsche’s to bash pop-culture is to admit hypocrisy and duplicity rather than to examine multi-facetedness and simultaneity.
For those whose entire cultural diet consists of the consumption of fast-food-styled expeditious pop, indeed what Nietzsche says is true. But such troglodytes are as unlikely to read his work as to be able to spell his name.
Thus, he wasn’t writing to them. Pardon the “us & them” dichotomy I am setting up; I welcome your suggestions of alternative Venn diagrams and taxonomies.
Actually, I can’t even allow myself to set up such a dichotomy. It is both elitist and untrue. There is an overlap of the fringes and the whole culture-consumption ambit is itself a graded spectrum of preferences and indulgences. On one side, we have those who won’t associate with anyone who can’t hum Debussy or pun in Latin. On the other are those whose literary daily bread can be nothing but the most bleached white flour of laugh-tracked gender and racial stereotype-based sitcoms. In between, we find the presumed majority: those who are inspired and entertained by a range of sources, from American Pie to Tootsie, from Benny Goodman to girls named Simpson.
Perhaps it is to this majority group that Nietzsche is addressing his statement.
When oscillation turns to vacillation, Nietzsche calls us back to Socrates and reminds us to lean towards the examined life: when in doubt, determine “art” by its propensity towards revelation. Art should shine light into the crevices and crevasses of existence, if for nothing else, to let us know that it is not smooth.
And how does art shine this light?
Tune in next time!
Loading ...