Synthesis Journal 1
I. The Elitism of Art
"Art in this country belongs to and is controlled by a specific group of people" (p 8).
For far too long the arts in Western culture have been in an "ivory tower"-the domain of those who "know" art. Art is regarded by most people as something that only educated people have a right to enjoy, that the only "good" art hangs in the Louvre or is performed in Carnegie Hall. We as a society are afraid to own the arts, to do anything associated with the arts-from viewing it to making it-because we lack the required "talent" to be considered valid in our point of view. Only the "experts" are allowed to make art, perform it, or critique it. Only the "expert opinion" is valid.
Children are born recognizing their inherent creativity. They use everything in their environment as art materials to create whatever they can imagine. They unabashedly perform the great plays never written by adults, sing to their heart's content and turn common household items into fine orchestral instruments. But then one day they observe (or they're told outright) that what they're doing isn't good enough, or "as good as," that they lack talent…and they stop creating for creation's sake. They grow up to become adults who devalue art's importance because they have been alienated from it by a society that says "only 'the best' is important enough to be recognized as valuable," completely ignoring the process of art-making as beneficial to the individual soul as well as the collective soul of Western society.
II. The Elitism of Western Civilization
"The most crucial of these insights is the necessity to avoid thinking of other cultures as existing passively in the past, while the present is the property of an active 'Western civilization'" (p11).
The "Westernization" of the world is the most devastating concept ever proposed, in my opinion. The idea that one culture is somehow inherently more important than all other cultures is abhorrent. Something spiritual is lost when the most remote communities have a McDonald's on every corner and all the people wear Levi's. Something valuable is lost when a community is forced to give up on what makes them unique.
III. Culture As the Fabric of Life
"When culture is perceived as the entire fabric of life-including the arts with dress, speech, social customs, decorations, food-one begins to see art itself differently" (p14).
I have a book titled Where There Is No Name for Art by Bruce Hucko. It's about the people of Tewa Pueblo and how the things we in Western society label as "art" are so integrated in their life-way that to think of "life" as separate from "art" is inconceivable. Art is life, and vice-versa...to take art-as an object or a process-out of everyday life and put it on some kind of pedestal is to kill the essence of life itself.
I believe that is where Western culture went wrong, why we suffer many of the social ills that we do. We don't regard culture as the fabric of LIFE. We compartmentalize everything so that instead of a fine tapestry that defines who we are, we have created a quilt that is threadbare and incomplete, missing many essential squares.
