Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. ‘Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals and Notebooks 1852-1855
I shared this post ten years ago as the 2016 election cycle was coming to an end. It was, as I write below, a nightmare election season, one that was unlike any before, with the twisted concept of alternate facts coming to bear. Russian Kompromat and a desire for oligarchic rule was in the air and though many dismissed it as election season noise at the time, the reality of it is now nakedly apparent. The years after that have been a struggle to deal with a constant daily onslaught of misinformation, disinformation, lies, empty promises, corruption, criminality, cruelty, brutality, and treason.
That nightmare election season from back then has continued as an ongoing national nightmare to this very moment.
But we still stand- for now. Today is an opportunity to change the direction of this nation. A choice to begin to bring this nightmare to a close with true justice and accountability. To begin to bring about change that serves the masses and not the privileged few.
As I said, I shared this 10 years ago. It’s short so I hope you’ll take a minute to take it and the Rockwell images in.
Well, we’re finally nearing the end of our national nightmare. With that in mind, I thought I would show a couple of paintings concerning our election process from Norman Rockwell who chronicled this country for many, many decades and often seemed to get to the core of things in his work.
I have also included a couple of his most famous paintings to show that our elections are something more than popularity contests. They do indeed have consequences. They shape our daily lives as well as our view of the world and our place in it.
Voting is our right, one that has been hard fought and bled for. But more than that, it is an obligation. For a democracy such as ours to survive, each of us must play our part. We must let our voice be heard in the form of our vote, so that our democracy might continue in a way that best serves the people.
Do not take this right and obligation lightly. Let your voice be heard. Vote.
It partook … of eternity … there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures.
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
I am running a little behind this morning. I thought I’d share a post, slightly reedited, from a several years back about the painting above, Chaos & Light, that is currently hanging as part of my solo show at the West End Gallery. This painting has held been held in high regard in my heart since it was painted, mainly because I think it well represents a major them in my work, that we exist between worlds of chaos and order, light and darkness, the earthly and the ethereal. Between time and the timeless.
We are teetering at this moment from descending into a level of chaos that would throw the balance on which our lives depend out of order. Ad I write chaos is sometimes a virus that evades all our natural defenses. I thought this was an apt read for today, the Monday before an election that definitely represents the struggles to hold back chaos, an election that may bear grave consequences for this country and the rest of the world.
I am also enclosing a song at the bottom from Marc Ribot’s 2019 album, Songs of Resistance 1942-2018. It is his version of the old hymnal Ain’t Gonna Let Them Turn Us Around, that became one of the anthems of the civil rights movement. Sung here by Steve Earle, it’s a good song to keep in mind during our march away from chaos and towards the light.
[ From 2022]
Chaos has been a theme in my work in recent times, showing itself in the random slashing brushstrokes that make up the skies in many of my works. You see such a sky in the painting above, Chaos & Light. It is above and around us all the time and we try to find some sense of order, some means of tolerating it, in the lives we live beneath it.
This theme of chaos is most likely a result of my perception of the times in which we live. I say perception because maybe chaos as a state of being is based more on one’s tolerance and resistance to it. Maybe chaos is the natural state, and we have internal mechanisms that keep it at bay, that keep it barricaded away, unseen, from that part of us that allows us to live and even thrive in some orderly fashion in this world.
The broken irregular rhythms of chaos go unheard and unseen as we attempt to live our lives, simply and naturally.
Sometimes, however, chaos, like a virus, gets past those internal barricades. Chaos becomes apparent, visible and heard. Its rhythms disrupt, infect, our own internal rhytms. Life then becomes more and more filled with chaos. Finding order and simplicity becomes more and more difficult.
Maybe that is the purpose of art, to serve both as a vaccine and a curative to hold chaos outside our selves.
I don’t know.
I know that it makes some small degree of sense to me. I sometimes feel like chaos has infected me, that it runs rampant through my system and my own rhythms have been replaced by those that seem unnatural to me.
But then a dose of art, simple paint on a surface or the sound of a simple tune or the arrangement of words in a book or even the image of light breaking over the horizon in the morning, restores me for at least a short time.
I am sure this sounds crazy to some. That’s okay. Those folks who think this most likely have kept chaos away their whole lives and can’t even begin to understand the plight of those infected by chaos.
This holding off of chaos is what I see in this painting. In many of my paintings, actually. Does it translate as art? I think it does but that’s not for me to say. However, as a soothing balm in troubled and chaotic times, it serves the purpose.
Maybe that is one of the purposes of art? Maybe.
Reminder: This coming Saturday, November 7, I will be giving my annual Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery. It begins at 11 AM and finishes up with a free drawing for one of my paintings. Or maybe two. Who knows? It’s usually a good time. I encourage you to stop in for an hour on Saturday.
It is, as always, free and open to all. We suggest you get there early to get a insure you get a seat since seating is limited. Doors open at 10:30 AM.
Now as I look around it’s mighty plain to see This world is such a great and a funny place to be All the gamblin’ man is rich and the workin’ man is poor And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore
— Woody Guthrie, I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore (1940)
First day of November. Phew, time flies.
Time flies. Time stands still. Time waits for no man. Time is money. Time heals all wounds. A stitch in time saves nine. Time is on my side.
Time just is.
We’re timeless beings built of eternal light trapped in a dimension ruled by the time on a clock.
Fortunately, we still get to choose what we do with our limited time here. We get to create the world in which we live through our choices. Who we love, how we make our living, where we live, what we believe– they’re choices we make and all contribute to the condition of our world.
Most of us make simple choices. We want a comfortable life along with the love of family and friends. We want a peaceful world in which to spend our precious time. Most of us want to see all the other people of the world not suffer or struggle for the entirety of their time here. It hurts us to see the pain of others.
Then there are those whose primary choice for their time spent here is acquisition. They want all the money, land, and power they can get their grubby mitts on and do so blind to the suffering of others. People are either assets to use and abuse or obstacles to eliminate.
I think the election on Tuesday, more than any other, may well be the turning point in the struggle between regular people who simply want a comfortable, peaceful world and those who wish to greedily grab it all and hold on to it until the time their clocks expire.
This election is all about greed of the highest order. The greedy have expanded their reach in governments around the world to the point that dictate laws. most which are written to favor them alone.
More, more, more is their credo.
Some might read this and think that I am anti-capitalist or against attaining wealth. That is hardly the case. I want everyone to do as well as they can with the time in which they are given.
No, I am against those whose sole purpose in life is constant attainment at the expense of all others. Those for whom enough is never enough.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a poem called Joe Heller that addresses this:
True story, Word of Honor: Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?” And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.” And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?” And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” Not bad! Rest in peace!
As long as there are people with this sickness of extreme greed that goes unchecked, such as the near-trillionaire (I don’t want to write that name) who feels this election is important enough to have reportedly spent over 440 million dollars on it, we are not safe. That amount is something like the lifetime earnings well over 100 people.
Say that out loud– lifetime earnings of well over 100 people. You think this asshat doesn’t think this election is important?
If this level of greed is not restrained now, we may not have another chance. And if that happens, they will continue to attain and attain unencumbered. The wealth of this world is a finite resource so in order to get more and more, they will eventually come for everything from everybody.
Money, land, and time.
That means your time here will in effect become their time as well.
As for myself, I am not ready to cede my limited time to anyone. Certainly not these motherf****rs.
I hope I camouflaged that enough so as to not offend.
In short, I am saying vote as though your time here on this earth depends on it. Because it just might.
Here’s a song about the already disaffected. It’s a Woody Guthrie song, I Ain’t Got No Home in This World, performed by Billy Bragg. If we don’t take a stand now, it could describe us all in the near future. Maybe it already does, to a point.
Vote. I am, of course, implying that you vote blue. I think if you’ve read this blog, that will not come as a surprise or offend you.
On a lighter and more upbeat note, I want to remind you that this coming Saturday, November 7, I will be giving my annual Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery. It begins at 11 AM and finishes up with a free drawing for one of my paintings. And more, of course.
More, more, more– that’s my credo. Of course, the more I refer to is more giving.
It is, as always, free and open to all. We suggest you get there early to get a insure you get a seat since seating is limited. Doors open at 10:30 AM.
What might we profitably do on Halloween? Look backward, and consider those who went before us. The road ahead is inevitably dark, but to see where we have been may offer unexpected hints about who we are, and where we should be heading. Triviality about the past leads certainly toward a trivial future.
–Robertson Davies, “Haunted by Halloween”, New York Times (31 October 1990)
Man, that sounds like the perfect advice for this particular Halloween in this country as we head towards an election day that will no doubt determine how dark the road ahead will be. But at some point, we must look back and reexamine these past years to determine how we became who we have been over that period of time. The misdeeds and crimes of our recent past cannot be normalized or trivialized.
Without total accountability, it will become our destiny.
Happy Halloween. Who needs monsters, zombies, or witches when we have such a fine group of ghouls and creeps already in place?
Moving on, I am going to leave today and head one week into the future. You probably didn’t know I could time travel here on the blog. Well, it’s true. My blog, my rules. While I seldom go into the future, I often travel backwards but for today I am jumping ahead in time.
It’s Saturday, November 7. I would like to tell you what happened in the elections but if I give away the results, but that would put my whole power to time travel at risk. Let me just say that I am smiling on this particular Saturday. I would like to say that was hint as to Tuesday’s results, but it really isn’t.
I often smile when things go haywire or seem too awful and absurd. I smile a lot, much like the village idiot, a job I once applied for. Fortunately, they felt I was over-qualified or we wouldn’t be having this one-sided conversation now.
Anyway, it is, as I said, Saturday, November 7. I have just finished that day’s blog urging people to come out to my Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery that begins later that morning at 11 AM. I begin to pack up the painting shown here at the top, Seeking the Design, which I will be giving away in a free drawing at the end of the talk. It’s a bittersweet moment since it’s a painting that has been a favorite of mine for a while now.
As I have said before, the paintings that I give away at these talks have to hold meaning for me or the whole act of giving is kind of moot. It has to hurt a bit to see it go away. And this piece hurts as it leaves the studio.
I also am packing up some other things that I might giveaway at the Talk. There might even be another painting, if it’s a good, fun crowd. If not, to hell with them! I feel I have to point out that this is a joke. I imagine somebody reading this for the first time, seeing me write to hell with them, not knowing that I sometimes say stuff like that for effect only.
Let me just clarify: The painting at the top will be given away in drawing that is free and open to everyone who attends the talk. There are other things that will given away, as well. For example, I have an old Makita drill that needs a new cord that will be given away. Okay, scratch the Makita off the list. The stuff I am packing up is pretty good, if I can say that.
Though I am smiling, I am a little nauseous. The prospect of standing before a crowd of people is sometimes a little overwhelming for someone who locks themselves in their studio away from world for most of the year. But the folks that come are always great which helps considerably. Makes me reconsider which mask I will be wearing, even though ti s a week removed from Halloween. I am thinking I might not even need one this year.
I guess you will have to catch up in time with me next Saturday if you want to find out which mask I will be wearing. Or not. Who knows? Well, I do since I have already been to next Saturday this morning but who besides me?
For this Halloween I thought I would play a classic from that supremely weird band, The Cramps. This is I Was a Teenage Werewolffrom their Songs the Lord Taught Us album which I bought back around the time it came out in 1980. It is an album you could just put on and play over and over again as the soundtrack for a Halloween party. I was going to share TV Set from this album but felt that it was a bit too gruesome even if it is a catchy tune.
She says nothing at all but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.
–Neil Gaiman, Stardust (1998)
Slow moving this morning. Not exactly slow dancing. More of a slow shuffle.
Things on my mind and things that must be done have me sitting here this morning with a small, dull headache that doesn’t seem swayed by the second cup of coffee. Wasn’t sure I wanted to write anything but there were two things compelling me to do so. The first was my self-imposed obligation to promote my current show, The Jubilee Dance, at the West End Gallery and the upcoming Gallery Talk there. The show itself ends Thursday, November 12 and the Gallery Talk takes place next Saturday, November 7 beginning at 11 AM. I will have more details tomorrow including which painting will be given away at the end of the talk.
The other reason for writing today was the fact that I am within sight of the end of a year in which I have posted something every day here. It’s been like 340 or so straight days. It doesn’t mean anything, of course. Just a private goal that won’t get me a prize anywhere or anytime soon. Just something I feel I need to do right now.
Part of that goal is to write something meaningful every day. I can’t attest to whether that part of the goal has been met. I would like to think it has but who knows? I am sure there have been days when I felt like crap and tried to glide by with some sort of nonsense.
Kind of like today, I guess.
But you know what? Even if it is light on content or deep thought, there’s some good stuff here. Take the painting here, Slow Dance in Blue, that is part of the West End Gallery show. As I have been writing this, the image of it takes up the right side of my screen and it has been very soothing. Maybe even easing my headache a bit. Well, maybe not that but I do feel calmed by it. All I could ask this morning.
Then there’s the short passage from Stardust. Though I know Neil Gaiman has lost some of his luster, he has written many damn fine books. Stardust is a good read and was a very enjoyable film.
And to tie it all together, here’s Willie Nelson with his version of the Hoagy Carmichael classic Stardust. I don’t know that I have ever heard a bad version of this song which has been covered by a vast multitude of great singers over the years. But there’s something about Willie’s version from his 1978 album of songs from the American Songbook, also titled Stardust, that works beautifully for me. His phrasing and tempo fit it so well. I bought this album back in 1978 and it is always a good listen.
See? It’s not all just fluff this morning.
Now don’t make me say git this morning, okay? Just do it.
How does part of the world leave the world? How can wetness leave water?
Don’t try to put out a fire by throwing on more fire. Don’t wash a wound with blood.
No matter how fast you run, your shadow more than keeps up. Sometimes it’s in front. Only full, overhead sun diminishes your shadow.
But that shadow has been serving you. What hurts you blesses you.
Darkness is your candle. Your boundaries are your quest.
I can explain this, but it would break the glass cover on your heart, and there is no fixing that.
You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.
When from that tree, feathers and wings sprout on your soul, be quieter than a dove. Don’t open your mouth for even a cooooo.
–Rumi, Tree of Awe (13th century)
Your boundaries are your quest…
That line stopped me in my tracks.
What are those boundaries?
Are they the same for each of us?
Can we ever reach them and, if so, will we even know?
Should we know?
So many questions.
Maybe this one of those instances where our questions don’t serve a purpose and don’t require an answer.
Perhaps they simply make us realize that they are keeping us from being still and listening to the light and dark as we lay under the Tree of Awe.
Maybe.
It’s not for me to know.
That’s all.
And enough this morning.
Here’s Iron and Wine with his song Tree by the Riverperformed at the Kennedy Center in 2019. Remember when the Kennedy Center was a place of joy and music?
The painting at the top, The Natural Life, is now at the West End Gallery as part of my 25th annual solo exhibit there, The Jubilee Dance. The show hangs until November 12.
There is also my annual Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery taking place next Saturday, November 7,beginning at 11 AM. If you plan on attending, the gallery is advising that you arrive early in order to insure you get a seat, as it is limited. Doors open at 10:30 AM. I am in the process of choosing which painting will be given away at the end of Talk in a Free Drawing. I will reveal my choice sometime in the next few days. Plus, as always, there is always a little more as folks who have attended before will attest. Hope you can make it.
The Gallery Talk and the Drawing are free and open to all.
All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
— Bertrand Russell, The Science to Save Us from Science, New York Times (19 March 1950)
Read that again: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
I started writing a whole thing on Russell’s words this morning but realized, he didn’t require anything from me to get the point across. It is plain and simple.
If everybody is not safe and secure, then nobody is safe and secure. Nobody is free unless everybody is free.
I think that it might very well sum up what is at stake in the election here and in the elections that have taken place around the globe in recent days that seem to refute the assertion of power by strongmen leaders that have bedeviled and threatened us in recent years. I believe the people are calling out for leaders who will work to protect all people and not simply serve in the best interests of the ultrawealthy or of one religion or race.
It seems too obvious to even write this, but recent years have taught us that far too many of us think that so long as we get ours, we can turn our backs on others. It might seem that this works in the short run for some, but eventually there is a reckoning.
Perhaps we are at the beginning of such a reckoning?
I don’t know. I sure hope so. But I don’t put too much stock on hope alone.
Vote. Not just for your own self-interest but for others, as well.
Read that sentence one last time: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
Here’s a song from 1967, Get Together, from the Youngbloods. I was surprised I hadn’t shared this song her before. Its message is much Russell’s. Plain and simple, almost naively so. But that might well be its greatest strength.
Art, after all, is meant to reveal and clarify, not to complicate and obfuscate.
I am amused to see from my window here how busily a man has divided and staked off his domain. God must smile at his puny fences running hither and thither everywhere over the land.
–Henry David Thoreau, Journal, Feb. 20, 1842
As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (1850)
I couldn’t resist going with the tag team of Thoreau and Emerson — an undefeated team, by the way– this morning for this post on an early painting from 1994 called Don’t Fence Me In.
The first passage above from Thoreau might have served perfectly well on its own but I thought the added spice in Emerson’s words made a statement that is applicable now as it was 176 years ago. Namely, that the greed and hoarding of the few that is shaping society and dividing the haves from the have-nots will be our downfall. That the only good that should come with great wealth is that it is used to serve and better all men.
I would imagine the people in the Red Hats would call that communism or socialism or some other word that they have not the foggiest idea of what it really means. Just a buzzword used to attack things they don’t or won’t understand.
Sorry for the short detour. Let me talk for a moment about the painting. It was painted in 1994 when I was still adapting the wet process that I had developed that best suited how I think. I was also at that time looking at a lot of Georgia O’Keeffe work which I greatly admired. I was especially taken with her work that often showed trees bisecting the painting’s surface, often with an animal skull, such as the piece shown here. Sometimes there was just a skull hovering over a desert landscape. The colors were clear and strong while her compositions were simple yet not uncomplicated, evoking a deep response.
Strong color and complicated simplicity were those things I greatly desired in my own work, so I made several attempts with her work in mind. One was the piece shown here. It certainly was not up to O’Keeffe’s mature work and didn’t reach the level of color intensity that I wanted. I was still not yet to a point where I understood how to harness color for its greatest effect. I was still grasping in the dark.
But, overall, this piece still works for me, even today. It has clarity and an implied message in its strands of barbed wire with the bottom one broken and going to the ground. Much as O’Keeffe’s skull with its regal antlers speaks of the temporary nature of all things, this says to me that the boundaries and fences that we build to divide us are not natural and will eventually succumb to the weight of time.
As I said, even though it is not a great piece, it is one that still works for me. It gives me a degree of satisfaction each time I pull it out in that it accomplished what I wanted from it at the time. It was an indicator to me that I might have an ability to translate deeper feeling in simple terms.
And that was what I really desired. Still is.
Actually, this is all a subterfuge to play a song that might be the polar opposite of yesterday’s song from Måneskin, I Wanna Be Your Slave. Though I am a fan of that song, I thought perhaps something a bit more calming might be in order this morning. The song is, of course, the Cole Porter classic Don’t Fence Me In. How could it be anything else? I had tons of choices because, like most Cole Porter tunes, everybody and their brother has covered it. But I settled on the Ella Fitzgerald version. You can never go wrong with Ella.
This is a line from a different song but I still have to say it– git along, little dogies…
I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: the world of art is the only such realm. I entered it without any apparent talent, a thorough novice, incapable, awkward, tongue tied, almost paralyzed by fear and apprehensiveness.
–Henry Miller, Reflections on Writing (1940)
I have often said that I am doing what I do now because it is the only thing I do well. This always peeves Cheri a bit because she knows I have other abilities that I could turn to if needed. And to an extent, that is true. I have lived and worked in the real world. I have built a house (well, kind of a house), started and ran a business with over twenty employees, and held several jobs of varying degrees of difficulty, from day laborer to finance manager. Hell, I was even a union steward for the Teamsters.
But all of those attempts came with a shelf life. I was often the exemplary employee– until I wasn’t. And that usually came when I got to the point that monotony set in which often began once I was no longer allowed to freestyle in whatever job I held at the time. I tried to reshape every job I held into one where I had total autonomy, where I was the boss. Oddly enough, most of my employers were fine with this, allowing me great latitude in how I did my job, allowing me to bend the rules a bit. For example, in my job as car salesman, the manager allowed me to okay my own deals without bringing them to him for approval. This allowed me a degree of freedom and creativity that satisfied a need in me.
But at some point, every business owner or manager needed to reestablish control by reining me in. Once I was back in the herd, the clock inevitably began ticking on the shelf life of that job. Monotony and boredom replaced the little zing that I had created for myself in the job.
It was only in the world of art where I could find a job that allowed me total freedom to do what I wanted to do in my own way, with or without my own rules.
I could be the Boss. The Master.
And with the autonomy that came in being the Master, I was also willing to be the Slave.
The Master’s will and my own as the Slave were inseparable. When the Master wanted more, the Slave in me was willing to give more without question or revolt. Since the Slave, being the Master as well, understood the needs of the Master, he was always willing to respond with total effort.
And the Master, knowing intimately what the Slave was thinking and feeling, had a high degree of understanding and benevolence. When the Slave was tired, the Master allowed him to rest. When the Slave was distracted, as he often was, the Master sought ways to stimulate his mind.
I came to realize that this Master/Slave relationship was one that could only exist for me in the world of art. And even though I needed to sell my art to make my living, it was always more about creating work that satisfied my autonomy, my own needs. That was the Slave’s task.
If people thought they worthy of buying, then more the better. Sometimes they did and when they didn’t, it was the task of the Master to find a way to reward the Slave’s efforts.
I’ve had the passage below (that also contains the opening paragraph at the top) in my files for some time now. Though Miller is talking about writing, his words easily apply to anyone in any creative field which also refers to any small business owners who had a personal vision they followed, becoming Master/Slaves themselves. There is so much in the paragraphs below, from beginning to end, that speak directly to my own experience. I think it is a remarkable essay is worth a read for anyone who ever felt the desire to have creative autonomy, to be both Master and Slave in their job and life.
Of course, I understand this is not for everyone. There is a great degree of uncertainty and risk in being without a safety net or the life preserver of a regular job in the regular world, as Miller writes. You are often the only thing keeping your head above the water.
But as the René Crevel line, which he quotes, says: No daring is fatal.
I like to think, as Miller writes in the final paragraph, that I have arrived at the mysterious X position of the artist, and it is this anchorage which no one can describe in words but yet subsists and exudes from every line that is written. Of course, for me, I would substitute every painting that is created for every line that is written.
It works either way for me.
I chose the painting at the top, Totality, from my current West End Gallery show because I find it very symbolic of my experience. The worked fields in the foreground represent the hard work of the Slave and the Red Tree overseeing it all is symbolic of the Master. Here he admires the work before him, knowing that he is both Master and Slave.
And appreciative that he has found such a place.
I hope you can take a minute or two to read the whole passage below from Miller’s 1940 essay. If you want a song, I have included the fittingly titled I Wanna Be Your Slave, at the bottom. It is from the Italian band Måneskin who gained wide fame, especially in Europe, when the won the 2021 Eurovision competition. The song is a big worldwide hit and goes pretty hard for a Monday morning. Maybe it’s what you need to kick ff your week? Maybe.
I think I should also confess that I was driven to write because it proved to be the only outlet open to me, the only task worthy of my powers. I had honestly tried all the other roads to freedom.
I was a self-willed failure in the so-called world of reality, not a failure because of lack of ability. Writing was not an “escape,” a means of evading the everyday reality: on the contrary, it meant a still deeper plunge into the brackish pool—a plunge to the source where the waters were constantly being renewed, where there was perpetual movement and stir.
Looking back upon my career, I see myself as a person capable of undertaking almost any task, any vocation. It was the monotony and sterility of the other outlets which drove me to desperation.
I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: the world of art is the only such realm. I entered it without any apparent talent, a thorough novice, incapable, awkward, tongue tied, almost paralyzed by fear and apprehensiveness.
I had to lay one brick on another, set millions of words to paper before writing one real, authentic word dragged up from my own guts. The facility of speech which I possessed was a handicap; I had all the vices of the educated man. I had to learn to think, fed and see in a totally new fashion, in an uneducated way, in my own way, which is the hardest thing in the world. I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink.
The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life preservers around their necks, and more often than not it is the life preserver which sinks them. Nobody can drown in the ocean of reality who voluntarily gives himself up to the experience. Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.
“No daring is fatal,” said René Crevel, a phrase which I shall never forget. The whole logic of the universe is contained in daring, i.e., in creating from the flimsiest, slenderest support.
In the beginning this daring is mistaken for will, but with time the will drops away and the automatic process takes its place, which again has to be broken or dropped and a new certitude established which has nothing to do with knowledge, skill, technique or faith.
By daring one arrives at this mysterious X position of the artist, and it is this anchorage which no one can describe in words but yet subsists and exudes from every line that is written.
From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.
— Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, (Volume VI: The Reformation)
There was an article on the Religion News Service about a poll released this past Tuesday from the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute that really hit me hard. While the poll asked questions on a couple of issues of concern for would-be voters in the upcoming election it focused on the place of empathy in our society.
According to the article:
According to a PRRI report released Tuesday (Oct. 20), Democrats (84%) and Independents (70%) are more likely than Republicans (53%) to see empathy as a benefit to society. Forty-three percent of Republicans see empathy as a danger if it leads society away from God.
43% of Republicans see empathy as a danger if it leads society from God?
That blew my mind as I was under the belief that empathy was one of the most basic tenets of all religions. In fact, the poll asked just that question: Is empathy a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society?
In the poll, which consisted of 5200 respondents, only 43% of White Evangelical Protestants agreed with that statement.
In recent years the idea of Toxic Empathy has taken hold in some corners of the evangelical community. Their reasoning is that empathy can be manipulated to induce people with emotional appeals into supporting destructive policies, which is something that that the far-right Evangelicals would never do.
That’s sarcasm, for those of you who need to have it pointed out. Weaponizing empathy and morality is their go-to move. As the Russian philosopher Lev Shestov wrote in his 1920 book, All Things are Possible:
Moral people are the most revengeful of mankind, they employ their morality as the best and most subtle weapon of vengeance.
To demean the place of empathy in a society seems to me to be both cynical and dangerous. What kind of world would it be without empathy? Certainly, a much colder and less humane one. As Gustav M. Gilbert, the prison psychologist at Spandau prison, here Nazi war crimes defendants were held, wrote in 1945:
I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.
This empathy gap doesn’t surprise me. Rather it was an affirmation of something that I have noted here several times over the 18 years this blog has been online. In a 2011 post I first wrote about it here, citing a University of Michigan study that began in 1979 and is still ongoing that aims to measure empathy among college students. They found that there was steep decline in empathy among student over the first thirty years of the study. I don’t know what the results show for the fifteen years since then but would be surprised if there was a sudden increase in empathy among the newer sets of students.
But I have a certain amount of faith in the younger generation that they have the ability to recognize empathy for all that it brings to our society. I don’t think I want to live in a world where empathy has little meaning or effect on its citizens. I think that would mean that Will Durant‘s words at the top were coming to fruition, that we would be on the fast track to barbarism.
Maybe that is where we are at the moment– on the brink of barbarism. Unless we are vigilant and fight with whatever means are at hand, it will be here in the blink of an eye. Right now, the most valuable tool we possess is our vote. I hope you all are voting early or have a plan to for voting. Do not think your vote or voice does not count. Your vote and voice mean more at this time than perhaps at any other time in our history.
Here’s a song that I shared here about six years back. It’s Joe South and his 1970 hit, Walk a Mile in My Shoes. It’s great and catchy callout for our need for empathy. I had the single when I was a kid and it may well have informed the worldview I still possess. The power of art, folks.
By the way, the painting at the top is from my Outlawsseries from 20 years ago– man, time flies! It hangs in my studio and is in my sightline when I turn to the right from my seat at the desk. Though some see the character in it as a predator, I see him as someone filled with an unrelenting sense of terror. I used it today because that is what I envision our life might be like if we descend into barbarism– always fearful, forever on guard and untrusting. I, myself, see this painting as a warning, a symbol of the loss of society.
