From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Aug 20 2002 - 20:23:32 MDT
Mike Lorrey writes
> As an artist myself, I can say that any artist who creates something
> that either communicates the artist's ideas to the viewer, or causes
> the viewer to elicit said ideas by the stimulation of the art upon the
> senses, is creating propaganda. Whether that propaganda is information
> or disinformation is another debate entirely.
I have to admit that the first two examples that came to mind,
Norman Rockwell and Chesley Bonestall, could be said to be
propagandists of a sort. In Norman Rockwell's case, the theme
seemed to be comforting and reassuring endorsement of tradition,
or perhaps of the status quo. And one might say that Bonestall's
amazing (for the 1950's) pictures of space were pro-technology.
That is, it probably made some Luddites a tad uncomfortable.
But I still cannot agree with the sweeping statement that "all
art is propaganda" for two reasons.
The first is that I can imagine paintings, movies, sculptures
and so on that have no political or philosophical content
whatsoever. To project such on them---in other words, to
force them into category of propaganda is a misuse of
language. One, can easily verify my claim in two ways:
one, by going to the dictionaries and thereby attempt to
learn what one is usually communicating by the term
"propaganda", and two, to think how well you would react
if someone called your work propaganda.
Second, to surrender to this usage of the word fits nicely
into (usually) leftist political agendas, or at least into
the agendas of all those out to revolutionize society some
way. For after one has conceded that, quote, "all art is
propaganda", it gives free reign to all the assholes who
want to wax tendentious in every movie, painting, and other
art work, resulting in the kind of sickening situation that
arose in the U.S.S.R. I want to still be able to denounce
a work as "propaganda" when it's obvious to me that its
purpose is only to sneakily advocate some particular
political or philosophic position.
Lee
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