State of the arts

20 June 2002, 891 words

Art is always moral. Of course, to simply state that is to invite misunderstanding about both art and morality.

The misunderstanding will arise because morality is seen as the exclusive province of religion. But it is no accident that, for most of human history, religion and art have been intertwined. There is, however, a crucial difference between artistic morality and religious morality. In religion, morality is prescriptive; in art, morality is descriptive.

In an essay titled "Morality and the Novel", D.H. Lawrence - in my view the greatest English novelist of the last century - wrote, "The business of art is to reveal the relations between man and his circumambient universe, at the living moment...And morality is that delicate, for ever trembling and changing balance between me and my circumambient universe, which precedes and acquires a true relatedness."

If, as Lawrence suggests, morality is not fixed, it then follows that immorality comes from fixed moral rules. The truth of this is easily demonstrated by the actions of religious fundamentalists, all of whom, even as they fly aeroplanes into skyscrapers or torture heretics or kill untouchables, would argue that they are obeying God's law.

So, whereas religious leaders can sexually abuse children and still be considered good men by their sheepish flock, the artist who compromises his integrity can never produce good or great art. This is one reason why our society has so few outstanding artists, in any field of the arts.

Artists and arts advocates like to blame the lack of State and private sector support for the supposedly dismal state of culture in Trinidad and Tobago. They never blame themselves, though. But artistic integrity, in my experience, rarely exists apart from integrity in other areas of life. And, in this place, we have artists' organisations which break contracts without a second thought (as with prizes in competitions) or arts activists who are quite willing to tell lies in order to 'prove' their arguments (about racist agendas) or cultural critics who pass artistic judgements based on political (rather than aesthetic or technical) criteria. Such persons always produce mediocre work and, more often than not, this is what is behind their appeals for official support.

Concomitantly, this lack of integrity results in intellectual inanity.

In Beyond Belief, V.S. Naipaul writes, "Good or valuable writing is more than a technical skill; it depends on a certain moral wholeness in the writer. The writer who lines up with any big public cause like communism or Islam, with its pronounced taboos, has very soon to falsify. The writer who lies is betraying his calling; only the second-rate do that."

So when artists and arts advocates make arguments coloured by afrocentrism or feminism or post-modernism, they always lie or contradict themselves. And, when persons without artistic or intellectual integrity are at the forefront of campaigns to support the arts, it corrupts the cause.

Thus, when Rubadiri Victor argues that art has civilising effects on a society, and then goes on to fulsomely praise Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba, politicians and businessmen can hardly be blamed for wondering if supporting the arts might really be a wise idea.

In similar vein, Raymond Ramcharitar argues that the paucity of formal art in this society results in "the disappearance of humanity/humanism that the Humanities - via art, theatre, music - elicit...Art might not build skyscrapers and methanol plants, but it seems to catalyse the formation of societies (think of Elizabethan England) from gangs of people forced to live in a single place."

Here is a demonstration of both intellectual shoddiness and insincerity. Without dismissing the impact of Elizabethan drama, especially Shakespeare's popular plays, Ramcharitar's assertions betray a pig ignorance of the political, social and economic crises of England at the time, and blithely overlooks both the leadership of Elizabeth Tudor and the impact of technological developments on the society. It is also rather curious that an individual who believes in capital punishment and in beating schoolchildren to make them learn should be concerned about humanist values.

More importantly, though, even if the powers-that-be accepted these arguments, then funding would only be given to those projects which supposedly 'civilise' the society - i.e. which fall into the 'feel-good' or 'incomprehensible' categories. Such works cannot have any positive effects on our society.

Having said all that, let me make it clear: I do believe that the State and the private sector have a responsibility to facilitate the arts culture and that, properly done, such facilitation has good effects on the individual and, by extension, the society. Biologist and cultural scholar Ellen Dissanayake, who has done extensive research on the nature and role of art, writes in her book Art and Intimacy: "[Religion and the arts]...compellingly transmitted the sense of belonging, meaning and competence that evolved as integral to human nature because these ensured that human beings would find life, and life with others, worthwhile."

But artists can only rely on moral suasion to make such arguments, and moral suasion in turn relies on sincerity and - which is where art and religion part company - intellectual rigor. But almost every artist/activist in the public forum I have heard or read has theories of art which are either vacuous or contradictory. This is why they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.