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Re: art vs propaganda

Fred asked:
<<  Does this mean that Oedipus is a bad play?
 >
 > How about Romeo?
 > >>
to which Bethany replied:
>>f we wanted a warning against feuding we could just say "hey!  Don't be
feuding.  Your kids could fall in love and then kill themselves or something" 
we don't need a play for that.  But the story itself is what the play is for,
and the greatest value in it.

great example, story says things that mere lectures, abstract reasoning, 
etc., just can't do.  One short parable would take a good 50 pages to cover 
everything it does in a few sentences and even then it'd be missing something.
  We live in story, it may be true story but it's still story.  So story is 
what brings things home for us, helps us to understand eachother communally.  
As our minds work in images and symbols, story is the stringing of these 
together in such a way as to give breath to them so the reader can enter in 
and dialog with a living thing whereas propaganda sacrifices the life of the 
story by stuffing it's own agenda down it's throat before it can even breath. 
 Moving on to other forms of art - The famous painting of the war at Guernica 
- can't remember who painted it right now -- touches us more than a didactic 
speech saying war bad, peace good.  Cue the old cliche' "a picture is worth a 
thousand words."  Now take that same thought and transfer it to poetry.  A 
brilliant poem on war helps put it into our lives by moving us far deeper 
into the experience of it than hearing a lecture about war ever could.  At 
the risk of redundancy (oh no too late) to apply it to song, how about the 
crappy Degarmo and Key tune - God good, Devil bad.  Not good art because it 
just says its thing point blank, like a simple Sunday School lesson.  It 
doesn't breath so we can't bring it into our lives as we can a good story, 
poem, painting, song, whatever. 
  I think also something could be said here about the inefficiency of words 
when it comes to speaking to us without getting too unfocused.  Since words 
are only carriers, shadow images of the real stories being lived, not 
equivocal but analogical, they can't help but be somewhat inadequate.  I 
think that's why music and other nonverbal art forms can sometimes touch us 
in ways that are much more difficult for words to do.  Nonverbal art moves 
directly into us, letting us touch the essence of the thing without it having 
to be translated through a grid of words first.  It's like looking at a 
mountain range and staggering away stunned by the beauty of it all then later 
trying to come up with some words to describe that experience.  Can't.  
Perhaps a great poet can move us towards the thing but it's still only a 
shadow of the real thing.  The best stories I'd say are ones that move us 
beyond the words used directly into whatever common human experience they are 
trying to convey.  Having said this, I'll just say, without going off again 
but just to qualify, I do understand that all art forms use a type of 
language i.e.; painting uses colors and shapes to carry it's message, but it 
seems to me that nonverbal art has a bit of an edge at expressing the 
inexpressible for reasons mentioned above, especially music.  Might just be 
me.
 Sorry if you know all this and I veered off of what you were actually asking 
but I have been known to ramble. To actually answer your question, no, I 
don't think Romeo is propaganda.  And, if I didn't make any sense chalk it up 
to the fuzzy head of a guy with a couple years of chronic sinus problems 
under his belt attempting thought again and just shake your noggin a few 
times and it'll be all better. :-)

peace,
kevin
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