On Art and Impact

A Response to "On Politics and Poetry" and "On Being and Becoming" by Elisabeth Dawson

Photo by adrianna geo on Unsplash

In the inauguratory post of the Mythic Mind Substack, Dean Abbott asked the question, “To what degree, as artists and thinkers, do we use our crafts to respond to the political and cultural events of the day, and to what degree do we focus on unchanging truths?” In his article he described what many of us feel—the reluctance to be sucked into reactionary discussions on ever-fluctuating politics, conflicting with the guilt we might feel at remaining silent. 

Andrew Snyder gave a very thoughtful reply, where he argued that to be of the most value in the chaotic, ever-changing, realm of Becoming, we need to be firmly rooted in the realm of Being. 

These were both excellent articles and I have been thinking about them ever since. (It is painfully apropos that my summer was beset with unforeseen changes, which has prevented me from writing this article before now.)

My answer to the original question is that it is a false dilemma. It is by “focusing on unchanging truths” and pursuing our crafts that we respond to the political and cultural events of the day. Andrew did an excellent job of showing how properly relating Being and Becoming leads to engagement in the world and not just detachment: 

“Any valid understanding of eternal realities will absolutely lead to engagement with the temporal. To argue otherwise is delusional pride.”

I’d like to continue this conversation, unpack it in a different way, and specifically relate it back to Dean’s focus on creatives. 

Both Dean and Andrew touched on this reluctance to get too swept up into the world of modern journalism. Here is the first crux of the issue. Journalism is a completely valid field and throughout history, we have owed a lot to honest journalists committed to doing their jobs. The problem is that the modern media has been given an authority it does not deserve. 

As Andrew pointed out:

“When was the last time you heard a presidential debate begin with the moderator asking about the candidates’ most basic understandings of goodness? No, they go straight into policies and superficial talking points without providing any foundational moral grounding.”

Thinkers have been sidelined in this country. In his book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre traces the philosophical heritage of the Enlightenment and its consequences, one of them being that Kant’s ultimate failure to ground morality in reason (and the failure of subsequent moral philosophers to offer alternative models) led to society’s belief that philosophy is irrelevant to practical living (MacIntyre, After Virtue. 2007) Thus, the most important questions in politics, culture, and society today are not handed to philosophers, but to public figures and social scientists. 

Another point MacIntyre makes, which is critical to this discussion, is that modern political and moral debate has borrowed so many fragments from so many philosophical theories, that it has become incoherent: “…when claims invoking rights are matched against claims appealing to utility or when either or both are matched against claims based on some traditional concept of justice, it is not surprising that there is no rational way of deciding which type of claim is to be given priority or how one is to be weighed against the other. Moral incommensurability is itself the product of a particular historical conjunction (MacIntyre, 70).”*

Is it any wonder that any of us might be reluctant to comment on current events when the public conversation can barely be called a conversation anymore? 

So, what are we to do? Bury our heads in the sand? 

I have an alternative suggestion. The venue for discussing new ideas used to be the university. On first glance, we might say that venue has shifted to social media. But do people really discuss new ideas on social media, or do they just go there to reinforce the ideas they already have? I know I am not the first to suggest it, but the venue for discussing new ideas in the Western world has shifted to the arts. We are an emotion-based, experiential society. It is in the arts we let our guards down and consider other points of view (something that used to be common in intellectual debate). 

Historically, the arts were not only considered a litmus test for where a society was situated, but a source of edification and moral formation, because art provides that rare integration of the sensuous and intellectual sides of the brain. This is where real change can happen because the emotion is evoked along with the intellect. 

What is the responsibility of thinkers and creators during times of political and social upheaval? Keep creating. I find it interesting that Dean described both Tolkien and Lewis as “not commenting” on the political developments of their day. They did comment. They commented so effectively through their fiction that it has echoed resoundingly throughout history. That’s part of the beauty of it. Art has an irreducible complexity to it that can make it both more timeless and more relevant than any specific response to any specific event. Plato was extremely critical of art because he recognized it as a step removed from experienced reality (which in his opinion is itself removed from the Ideal Forms)(The Republic, xi). But that slight removal from reality is also one of the most powerful aspects of artistic expression. When dialectic grinds to a halt because opposing parties can’t agree on terms or definitions, art has a way of tapping into the transcendent ideas that make us all human. 

To be clear, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop wrestling about when to speak up about political and social events. There is a time to speak out and I think that the wrestle is good. But I also think that if we engage with every news headline and social media controversy we start quickly playing whack-a-mole and get swept into that river of Becoming, forgetting to ask what Good is and what the telos is that we are aiming at in the first place. I think, in a lot of ways, art offers that balance between Being and Becoming, between specific circumstances and universal truths. Time and again we have seen that art which was produced in direct reaction to socio-political events did so much more than comment on the immediate circumstances, but tapped into greater truths which continued to be relevant to humans generations afterward:

• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Guernica by Pablo Picasso

• Breaker Boys, Coal Mine by Lewis Hine

• Imagine by John Lennon

I’m sure you can think of more. 

So, if you are a poet, keep writing poetry. If you are a Creative, continuing to create right now is one of the most important things that you can do. You are not avoiding the conversation, you are adding to it.

*MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. (Notre Dame, 2007) 

---

About the Author

Elisabeth Dawson is an award-winning author of science fiction and fantasy. Raised in the remote mountains of New Guinea, she has lived in California, Florida, the Bahamas, and Brasil. She currently lives in Idaho with her best friend and roommate, drinking lots of tea and learning crochet. She holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies and is currently pursuing a Master’s of Philosophy at Biola University.

To join the Mythic Mind Humanities Guild, head over to patreon.com/mythicmind