Theatre and drama artists, along with the critical press, may be too busy with festivals near and far to respond in their usual manner to a few international crises of the past week (as well as the domestic crisis): that is, to bewail the lack of theatre or drama that wrestles with the political, cultural and spiritual dimensions of all of these crises. There will no doubt be a little hand-wringing about how little the theatre or drama is responding to these global events, as well as new promises and good intentions to respond to them now or in the future. Ultimately, however, the progressive ideology of most theatre artists will paralyze them and render them empty-handed — all of the theatre from Aeschylus’ day to our own has not lessened the potential for these catastrophes in the least, and it won’t do so in the future. Most political theatre struggles with the how, not the why — that is, why the species continues to indulge in the self-destructive, violent behavior that it does, even as science and the intellect have been unable to stem this indulgence either. A few theatre artists, however, do speculate on the reason, rather than the result; Erik Ehn’s Soulographie project, which I briefly noted just a few days ago, does so from a spiritually Catholic perspective. Certainly the work of Beckett (perhaps more in his novels than his later plays, though these too are appropriate to this discussion), Barker, Bond, and Kane have all wrestled with the catastrophic and post-catastrophic vision of the world, and the status of the spirit and body within that world — with violence, starvation, colonialism, power personal, political and corporate. The product of this theatre is experience and knowledge, not progressivist utopias. Hope is a mere word, a cruel insult, one of those that turns to ashes in the mouth when one reads the headlines and meditates on the suffering in Africa and elsewhere.
The Marxist or Hegelian, who conceives of the world as a struggle between thesis and anti-thesis towards the goal of an Absolute culture of the ideal of the state (even if that state, as Marx would have it, evaporates upon the immanence of the ideal culture) or the proletariat, is left with little, perhaps the Nietzschean with less. Turning to any of these three philosophers, one is flummoxed by the lack of recognition of, it seems, irreversible decline and unending spiritual trauma. If I often turn to Schopenhauer in these entries, it is because Schopenhauer’s philosophy recognizes not only the possibility but the inevitability of 21st-century catastrophe: in his thought we have the “why” that we seek. Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation comes to seem, more than expository prose, a dramatic monologue of the most sublime tragedy in its structure and lyricism, and the most “realistic,” if one can use that term, in daring to confront the world as it has been, as it is, as it will continue to be. Theatre and drama alone cannot be blamed for this continuing ignorance of the single truth of the world: the willful ignorance infests all art, all science.
Anger, name-calling, and good intentions do not suffice. Our compassionate peace must be in imagination and knowledge, the end of drama and theatre itself, which cannot save the world, if it is worth saving.
If you “save” the world — by whatever means and whatever “save” means — then wouldn’t that very saving then make the world that is thus saved worth the saving? That is, if by saving we mean some kind of victory over, or a gaining of sufficient control over, the forces that continually produce the various catastrophes, then by achieving that state of the world, we have made it worth saving. If we stand within the present moment and survey the world that we observe with unblinking eyes, then the answer can only be: fuck it! Blow it up, reverse the Big Bang, or whatever, but this world is not worth saving. What is worth “saving” can only be a world that has only been prophesied or otherwise envisioned, the world of “beating their swords into plowshares” or the subduing of the Will, or on whatever terms any particular party might prefer. Scary thought: To get to that worth-saving world, it appears that much of the present one would need to be — shit, must be — destroyed. Destroy the destruction — hmmmm, there’s a loaded term. In any case, that saving will require a lot more from all of us than “Yes we can,” or workshops about reading Deleuze & Guattari through Zizek’s lense or whatever.
The question is how to live in a world beyond redemption. Does one seek contemplation, compassion and imagination of other worlds (and I don’t mean the easy parodies of this one found in fantasy or science fiction); or does one allow the brutalized self free rein to brutalize others in a misplaced sense of self-justification? The theatre and drama provide a unique avenue towards this speculation, as the other arts do as well.
Hi George – I think Chris Goode has had a good go at thinking about this, in ways which reach past easy nihilisms and refusals. And how is “progressive ideology” paralysing? What do you mean by that? (You’re not turning into David Mamet, George?)
Lots of people have serially understood the “why”. Lots and lots of people confront the “reality”. Again and again, smart people explain what the why is about what’s wrong. Isn’t that the promise of Enlightenment? Wasn’t that the promise that Musil found crumbling as he attempted to pen an essay defending the Jews against the stormtroopers in the universities, and realised that rational argument meant nothing in the face of brute power? Of course we should understand the why, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that that alone will make any difference.
Btw, that’s a pretty gratuitous swipe at SFF, which somewhat too easily dismisses the China Mievilles and John M Harrisons and Le Guins whose critiques are far from “easy parodies”. I read recently that speculative fiction has been banned in China, as it seems the mere imagining of alternative realities threatens the state. Bizarre, but I guess one can see something in that. Certainly I would say that “contemplation, compassion and imagination” exist not in other worlds, but in this one, and that they have nothing to do with redemption and everything to do with being alive.
Well, my politics are no one’s business but my own, though I do note that any ideology is paralysing in that it cannot confront the a priori assumptions that do not lie within it, and this is as true of progressive as well as reactionary ideology.
I’m afraid that I must disagree with you that lots of people have understood the “why”; clearly, they haven’t. Many “smart” people (whatever that means) haven’t (unless they’re “stupid,” in which case we’re engaging in self-serving name-calling again). You imply in your final sentence that this knowledge should be somehow utilitarian in “making a difference,” and as you know, I deny a utilitarian end of art. What if Musil had completed his essay, whether he used rational argument or aesthetic rhetoric? Would that have have brought down the Nazis?
If the world is as it is because of the nature of existence itself — that “why” — it does not necessarily mean that we do not have an obligation to contemplation, compassion and imagination. Of course not — I said it quite bluntly at the close of this entry. But it will not change the nature of existence. It is beyond our ability to change it.
In an early episode of House, the misanthropic diagnostician is trying to find his oncologist friend Wilson, whose sympathy for his patients reaches nearly pathological heights (it can’t be empathy, because Wilson has never had cancer). Finally, House reaches Wilson’s office, in which Wilson is silently cowering behind his desk. “Open up! I know you’re in there!” House yells, banging on the door. “I can hear you caring!” I can hear artists caring too — loudly, almost too loud to stand; their caring leaps about the stage and produces a ringing in my ears. It may be true. But it changes nothing — the cancer remains.
Hi George – the nature of (human) existence is that at some point we die. That is, yes, inevitable. What’s not inevitable, but is being made so, is that we destroy the planet along with it. All over the world for decades now scientists are telling us how and why we are doing this. Quite clearly, in this argument, certain interests have the upper hand. This is not inevitable: they have worked very deliberately for decades to make it happen. Likewise, there are endless social analyses which clearly show why certain social movements happen. The London riots were entirely predictable (and were predicted), and therefore avoidable. They map almost exactly over the poorest suburbs of London, which have been hit by conscious government policies that make them even more outside the commonality of social relationship. It’s not complicated, it’s very very obvious, although huge machineries such as FOX News deny that obviousness. And if those circumstances can be made, they can demonstrably be unmade (and on occasions have been). This has nothing to do with art, btw. Being an artist means being a human being, part of this world. I think this is the capacity in which we respond to such things. Which is why I thought Chris’s post so moving: it was very scrupulous and by no means was “leaping about the stage”. It’s probably easier to deny that agency, but it’s real too.
Let us be blunt and admit that in destroying the planet we are destroying ourselves, and that we do it through destroying the environment is only one dimension of that willful destruction. We can’t stop with blaming “certain interests” and FOX News and must admit our own complicity, not only in that, but in the African famine and the riots in the UK besides. I do not believe that it’s not complicated; all of Marx and all of Freud demonstrate that it isn’t, at least.
Indeed, the events of the past few weeks call for response for anyone who witnesses these things; Chris has done so, with unique eloquence (and to be clear I did not characterize Chris’s post as “leaping about the stage” at all and did not intend to characterize it that way); so have I. And I am not as certain as you that this has nothing to do with art, for if the human spirit is as creative as it is self-destructive, it seems to me that it has everything to do with art. But I’m sure I misunderstand, yes, yes.
A friend forwards this assessment of the UK riots from Steve Richards at the Independent, and there is this editorial from the Guardian, which reads in part: “The riots are a product of the lives which the rioters choose or feel constrained to live. Blaming the riots on individual wickedness, conspiracies or on government spending cuts is too glib for such complex issues, though they cannot be dismissed altogether even so. Both conspiracy and deprivation are part of the complex and grim story, as is the cult of violence, especially guns, and a rage against exclusion from consumerist fulfilment.” Of interest.