State of Art

 November 10, 2022

State of Art

What happened? It's not unfair to say, during this generation of mid-20-something's as of this writing, all the literature and art "happened" too soon. Novels and art came out by very young writers/artists that were really meditations on agriculture, fire, and the wheel, as if the truth was that we were in danger of losing the jewels of civilization. I blame the latest of America's nonsense wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) for part of this. The rest of the blame is due to generalized millenarian hysteria about the Internet corrupting young minds away from the practical. What actually seems to have happened is that attempting to social-engineer satisfaction with he practical jewels of civilization through young adult art and literature (in the aughts and early 2010's), while also isolating the Internet as a singular item of study or fascination actually had the opposite effect; that of prompting the rediscovery of the practical. What actually seems to have happened is that attempting to socially engineer satisfaction with the practical jewels of civilization that are the technology of fire, the wheel, and agriculture, on the Internet, in effect isolating the consciousness of this cadre of young thinkers. What was actually created by the priorities was not a cognitively focused group, but a hyper-literate and infinitely empirical and practical group, (but one that does not "do" art as a holdover from childhood.) How strange, that our priorities, did not create the priorities we prepared for. The most straightforward thing you can say about this phenomenon is that if you are under the age of 35, you were probably introduced to some very heavy and complex things (both technology and concepts; both constructs and concepts) thru' very simply stories. There was not a lot to hang you hat on in those stories. One might also say the same thing about the representations. 

There's a limit to how much we can blame this on faulty social engineering, and how much, rather, is really the product of smart and early starters outpacing the social construct. 

What is crossing the border from theory into practice as these set of conditions gains majority in society, is a strained optimism about overcoming unpleasant aspects of human nature. Is this universally about calm assurance or does it cover up a narrowness of understanding about the essentials? That is, could it be that no one authors, young adult book conveyed, sufficient understanding of the essential it claimed to convey, enough for adults understanding? Some would contend that we took big lessons from books at an age when the lessons contained therein, were too thin for the weight of the message. Some would argue that simplicity is the name of the game itself. 

Internal to all this is the ideals newly ascribed to literature and art. People one more life like, understandable, depiction in the literature and art they create now. But along with that standard, that has changed, so also comes a desire for creating deeper messages within the art. Does the understanding conveyed to the artist from the literature and art? They consumed in training, have sufficiency to their desire? Surely they are working through inspiration to a degree not seen in many decades. 

There is a liminal space at work here. In a reasonable manner, it exists in the persons who derive their concepts of literature and art from what the literature and art is like at the moment, regardless of what that literature and art is. In a certain way, this is desirable, or at least expected, because formulating the inspiration for art should likely exist outside the common ken. What exists "on the threshold"of classic and popular notions of art, probably comes out of this group of perfectly reasonable, but disinterested and reliant people. Amongst this liminal selection of ideas right now, about literature and art is the notion that the creative process is a process of progressive revelation, but that the quality of the final extractable revelation is small, and not so meaningful. Which raises for me the obvious, to me, question: do the foundations of our understanding about the things that literature and art contends in, need to be updated? We should be very careful not to make artistic and creative endeavor only a process type of occupation. But this is, perhaps where someone else would start to wonder as well, is the art we consumed in our formative years made "it" all happen for us too soon, at too small a scale, and in too childish a vein. 

It is perhaps in this space of liminality caring about literature and art that the essentials can be found. That is to note the repetitions and inspiration and also the tendencies that go along with the essentials. And perhaps we have reached the point when the tendencies begin to outweigh the essentials on the patience of the onlookers.

And perhaps we have legitimately reached a place of re-centering the tendencies of the derivative literature, as a rebirth of a new, all the thing: that a human tendencies themselves, including the voice and the manner, and the tendencies of thought. The transparencies of a new honesty.