ART and OUR OWN OPPRESSION
I have just returned from three weeks of reflection in some isolation. The journey was tiring and now I have little energy but want to share this.
FAILURE
I have come to realise how we carry our humiliating failure to change our lives and/or the world around us. This failure leads us to construct a prison out of our false consciousness. False consciousness is a state of being which we capitulate to by accepting and even making our own the empty goals and inhumane morality of the dominant neoliberal imposed culture. These goals are, for instance, about replacing the inner sanctity of our souls for the consumption of things and mindless experiences; or coming to believe our homes are simply an investment opportunity rather than a place of memories and sharing; or that wealth is only defined by money rather than by our possessing knowledge, love and truth.
THE BIG LIE
It has become natural that we oppress ourselves by accepting the Neoliberal’s Big Lie about the nature of freedom, equality and justice. By the age of 8 or 9 many of us have submitted to the pervasive anti-intellectual and anti-creative pressures of the school system, to our parent’s conservatism, to the surrounding banal dominant culture and to the platitudes of our peer groups, all of which design and construct the walls and bars that restrain our real needs and desires.
Psychoanalysts tell us that our auto-suppression at first leads to neurosis and eventually to psychosis. Is there any wonder that people often comment on how crazy our world seems when continually surrounded by people who are contorted by their own oppression?
LOSING CLARITY
This leads artists into confusion, not being able to discover their formal language and their potential contribution to society. When artists are incapable of gaining sight of what their contribution may be to enlightening the world around them, they also lose their grasp of artistic forms and to the pressing social questions of their time.
Inspired by John Berger’s HOLD EVERYTHING DEAR
Thank you for sharing this Robert,
Personally I am struggling with a kind of deep unease that seems to go beyond politics, environmental concerns etc. It, perhaps is a feeling that the direction our species feels misguided and doomed (!) and I'm an optimist! It is like a grief in the heart, yet, at the same time I am noticing loving and good acts more vividly, I am speaking my own truth in a loud, clear voice and feel a huge expanse of love and care for people as they go about their lives.
Daily, I look at my painting and question, Is it enough? What am I doing? How will it change anything? ... yet inside, my spirit burns with an inner reassurance that to try, is everything, to try with your very own, beautiful and flawed voice.
You are certainly trying and doing more than trying - and your essays are present to be found and your photographs stirring questions. We care Robert, enough to scour our own souls for answers and hopeful remedies to this mess. Thank you for both your courage and your doubt.
Sincerely and with Respect,
Helen