Another such moment arose today, driving down the highway in the pouring rain with a new colleague who used to work in sales and is currently finishing a Masters on Greek tragedy. He's studying how to use art, such as Greek plays, as a tool for teaching. He says, it's because you can say things through art that you can't (daren't) in other social fora. His point is refreshingly radical, I realize, when he elaborates, "For example, you don't question democracy in a parliament. By participating you are already saying you believe in it. But in art, you can explore such questions."
You can imagine I'm getting excited, and not just for the thrill of discussing Greek tragedy with someone who really loves the stuff. It's that he's bringing together two thoughts that have been bobbing around inside my head for awhile. First is a frustration, really. I've been feeling this frustration with work. I try to articulate. "My work is mostly about rhetoric," I say, "about saying something in a way that will make it appealing to people, and I change what I say depending on whether it's HR or a worker, or a rep, and so on. But sometimes, I get frustrated because I can't tell the truth. With art, you can tell the truth." This brings us to the second thought. "The older I get, the more I realize that the art I value most is art that's truthful," I go on. I can identify it most easily in literature, my natural element, but I get glimpses in other media too.
Because he's a regular conversationalist, he catches the ball I've tossed and tosses it back with an easy underhand. A superb conversationalist, like you, catches the baseball and transforms it into a little puffball of a white bird that flits over and perches on my shoulder and pecks my ear, waiting for me to take it and fashion something equally intriguing.
In other words, he says "Well it's still true, everything you're saying. You're just saying it differently. And lots of art is subject to limitations of various sorts. For example, in the 15th Century if you wanted to criticize Christianity in painting you had to do it through a Christian painting."
He is correct, of course. I fall silent a bit. Our exit shows up. It is barred and we have to take a detour. The conversation shifts. It's when we arrive at the sodden campus that my thoughts click. My frustration is not that I feel I have to lie. It's that I feel unable to tell the whole truth. I noticed it during the federal election, when in the leader's debate each leader spent most of his time repeating the same catchphrases. You can't be subtle. You have to come up with a version that's simple, direct, clean. A version like an Ikea table. I don't usually have trouble doing this, even enjoy it mostly. Sometimes, though, I wish we could take a moment to explore the gray areas. These are areas I simply cannot ignore. The most successful people in my line of work, however, are those who live in an Apollonian world of bright, directed confidence. They reassure people; their beaming self-assuredness scares away the grays and confusions.
Sure, I have a few fire brands of confidence I can wave aloft. And I do so. But I see lots of grays. I have questions about the entire system, some basic assumptions that underlie this work, even a few dearly-held beliefs. But there is no space to pursue these, not in my work. It taxes the energy and mind, and no-one can afford to seem unsure for fear of undermining the entire project. Instead, I wrap them away inside me and grab my torch.
I suppose this is why people return to school to undertake Masters degrees, or become artists. In a book, you can explore intricacies. You can let contradictions and confusions stand, breathe. You can take the time to examine them from various angles. You don't need pat answers or slogans.
So maybe this is what I'll say to my colleague tomorrow: I like your thesis a lot. I like it because I feel we've given up on convincing people through art. And by art, I mean the kinds of pursuits that show an uncomfortable, or uncomfortably whole, or oft-overlooked and complex, truth. We go for the quick answers, for whatever image or sound or phrase gets the gut reaction we want. Yet, for all that these gut reactions win elections and sell millions of shampoos, mustn't they be less powerful than truthful expressions? Surely, deep down, despite our insecurities, we all thrill when we see the flashing multi-faceted diamond that evokes how things actually are and not how we wish they were or feel most comfortable seeing them. Surely, this is why in this age of bloated capitalist utilitarianism we still pay to hear Johnny Cash sing, to see Ed Burtynsky's photos.
In conclusion, I wish I were an artist. I wish I were brave enough to step from the well-ordered world of rhetoric into a canoe of my own fashioning and launch into the sea of unflinching honesty.
A really good conversation
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