Rambling on Art

I’ve been wrestling with the question “What is Art?” for years, and I can’t say I have a good answer. The difficulty is going from an example of something everyone knows to be art — say, Dante’s Commedia — to setting up some kind of boundaries for the subject. A couple of years ago, I would have said that art must be Christological, because art must point to the essential truth of the universe. Goodbye Homer, Beowulf, Joyce, Faulkner, and O’Neill. So maybe art must only show us some true thing about the universe. Don’t we say that the purpose of the liberal arts is just that, to give us a little corner of truth?

Complicating the problem is whether bad art is the same as un-art. I tend to think that Chris Tomlin does a really bad job, theologically and musically. But his melodic/harmonic lines bow to the natural patters of music, and while he may damn his God with faint praise, he doesn’t tell lies about Him. That’s something fundamentally different than a modernist composing a piece from recorded sound effects of trashcans and car engines. In other words, I think there is a distinction.

Maybe it’s easiest to start from the realm of un-art, and with the crassly obvious. Pornography is not art. I don’t think anyone with a semblance of taste will disagree with that. But film is art. Some films are technically really bad. I imagine that some pornography is technically very well made (though I may be showing my ignorance here). The two share the same forms: film crews, actors, directors, editing, costumes. The difference is that film, speaking generally, tries to tell us something true about the world. A drama only wins Oscars if it is insightful. A comedy only makes us laugh if we can relate to the humor. At the heart of pornography is a lie about the human condition — that lovemaking is not a covenant between a bride, a bridegroom, and their God, but is a cheap fix for lusty pimple-faced boys of all ages. Film, Christian or not, seeks to understand the humanity (some would call it the imago Dei) from homo sapiens. Pornography casually strips it away.

To apply it, then, perhaps Art is that which speaks some truth about humanity and our world. Un-art is anything that tells a lie as its fundamental assertion. Of course, that still requires judgment, and brings us to the hazy realm of interpreting the artist’s intent. But let’s take an Andres Serrano’s “Piss Cross.” I believe that this photograph is very honest about Serrano’s belief that the crucifix belongs in a jar of urine. I believe Serrano, however, is lying, because I believe that it’s probably wrong to urinate on a symbol of love. Art, then, can only be defined as self-expression if the artist is truthful. The Un-artist has a soul that naturally expresses itself in lies.  

March for Life

This was the unsigned (i.e., technically a group project) Collegian weekly for Feb. 1.

Last weekend, more than 100 students from Hillsdale College boarded buses and spent the next 36 hours traveling to and from Washington, D.C., to affirm once more their allegiance to life and its Giver. There was time for the protest march and for a worship service, but there was no scheduled time to rest. The students who organized it gave an extraordinary amount themselves. The students who went sacrificed time, sleep, and comfort. Their service to an ideal is admirable and humbling. But, at the risk of sounding disloyal to people and a cause we love and respect, we want to raise the question: was their time well spent?

Forty years ago, Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. For 40 years, people have descended on Washington to demand that our two great powers, the media and Capitol Hill, acknowledge the humanity of an unborn child. Congress and the courts have paid little attention. The media has paid no attention. Has anyone heard the protest except the protesters themselves?

The well-known Catholic philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that modern protests are frivolous because they witness against something without giving their allegiance to anything else. That is not true of the March for Life, and we are not arguing that the march is trivial. But the pro-life cause loses a battle every time a woman has an abortion. We’ve lost a lot of battles, and the march has proved an ineffective weapon.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. Many people say it is a precious time of prayer and sanctification that draws them closer to God. But it might mean that there are better ways to fight for the cause of life.

Maybe volunteer at the crisis pregnancy center in town. It’s even possible that one of your classes on the Friday of the march would have done more to equip you for fights down the road. That will all probably feel isolated and insufficient, and it is. The problem isn’t going away anytime soon. But if we intend to end abortion, it’s time to try something else.