Should literature serve as a vehicle for social change?

[La Pluma]

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[Eryk]

The Jungle, 1984, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Invisible Man, The Handmaid's Tale... Dickens, Solzhenitsyn... novels are part of history. Margaret Mitchell shaped historical remembrance by glorifying Southern planters and the KKK.

In the novel Mao II, Don Dellilo said that novelists no longer had the ability to provoke large numbers of people, and that terrorists had taken that function in an age of spectacle.

[hellsapoppin]

I have not kept up with today's literature and am surprised to see that socially responsible writings are still in vogue. Let's hope that it can serve as the same stimulus for good that other writings such as Stephen Crane's ''Bowery Tales'' had in awakening the social conscience as to the many injustices that existed in society.

While this is happening, it would be great if society would again read other books from Crane's era such as Charles M Sheldon's famous In His Steps which started the Social Gospel Movement and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Live which began the muckraking era.

Literature can and should be a force for social good. May it always be so.

[La Pluma]

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[stlukesguild]

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.
For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

No artist desires to prove anything.

Even things that are true can be proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.

No artist is ever morbid.

The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.

From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.

The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

-Oscar Wilde

The artist has no more nor less social responsibility than any other human being. The notion that the artist has a larger responsibility or duty to society to engage in the creation of a socially responsible art that "engages with the communities in ways that promote a more respectful coexistence" smells to high heaven of the sort of utilitarian notions behind the the propagandist arts of the Soviet Union and Maoist China and their accompanying censorship of all that did not meet such needs. I believe I'll sit this dance out.

Literature can and should be a force for social good. May it always be so.

Literature... ART... should be whatever the artist decides it should be. I have no used with dictates about the artist's responsibilities and what he or she should be doing. Not even my own.:rolleyes:

[Lokasenna]

I agree with Stlukesguild. The artist should never be censored, at least at the point of creation. If, after the art work is finished, people choose not to acknowledge it, then thats fine. Just don't try and enforce some system of belief on the creative process.

[mal4mac]

George Orwell has a great Essay titled "Why I Write," in which he proceeds to sum up why authors write, into four categories (yes, that was quite daring of him): Sheer Egoism, Aesthetic enthusiasm, Historical impulse, and Political purpose-- meaning the "desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after."

He basically say's he writes mostly for political purpose-- , though he does not deny that that the other three reasons have also lingered in his creative thought processes.

I wish they had lingered more :D Apart from 1984, his novels show little aesthetic enthusiasm. Why should literature act as an agent of social change? Isn't that the job of political pamphlets? In practice, literature has not usually been an agent of (explicit) political change. States, like the USSR, that tried to make it such a thing don't have a good record...

[The Comedian]

Sure literature can be a force for social change. A lot of things can help change society: people, books, guns, sex. . .and so on. For me literature is a lot like the people who write it -- some is socially influential, some is spiritual, some is beautiful, some funny, some is sad. . .

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes I go along with the general consensus of the majority of posts in this thread, I don't like shoulds in art, it can be a vehicle for social change, but it isn't necessary to be so, it isn't necessary to be anything as dear old Oscar points out.

In a way though, all important literature does shape the way we view the world (according to the some theorists that is) because it becomes part of history, or helps to shape history, structuring behaviour and all that...:)

[La Pluma]

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[hellsapoppin]

''Literature... ART... should be whatever the artist decides it should be. I have no used with dictates about the artist's responsibilities and what he or she should be doing.''


I did not say that literature should be exclusively for social change. The topic here clearly deals with socially responsible literature. Within that context, it certainly can and should serve in that capacity.

Had the topic asked, should ALL literature serve as social vehicle, my reply would have been a resounding ''no!''

[OrphanPip]

Although I personal enjoy novels, by authors such as Orwell, who consider themselves socially responsible artists, art itself should NEVER be fettered-- I did not mean to imply that.

Like stlukesguild said, "The artist has no more nor less social responsibility than any other human being."

I am simply of a lover of this genre-- if you could call it one! When Orwell used the term political he meant it in a VERY BROAD sense--I did not do him justice when I spoke of his Essay!

I don't think the Bellweather Prize is saying the artist HAS a responsibility to do anything-- but they are awarding this particular subcategory to authors who believe they have written something that is impacting on their community.

It reminds me of a recent gathering in Israel of Israeli artists and authors. Many of them are in the midst of civil conflict. They spoke of a pressure they felt to have to use their art as a channel to enlighten the world to the atrocities happening in Palestine and Israel. Some of the authors felt that the current situation gave them creative energy, whereas others felt it a burden. I am sure it was both.




I disagree-- I think Animal Farm and Homage to Catalonia were fantastic Orwell books, particularly the latter. It is not just the Soviet Union and China that have used artists to promote political agendas, the U.S. has done much of that as well! I remember taking a U.S. Foreign Policy class at ASU where I was enlightened to find many Presidents using American Directors to make films reflect particular agendas, some of these films were so unbelievably biased and permeated with U.S. propaganda!

I do not think ANY STATE or any organization or anything for that matter, should regulate art in any form!!! Unless of course your art causes physical damage. :P

However some artists choose to use their art as as a platform, to channel various ideas-- it could be anything really--it does not have to be political.

It should also be said that sometimes an artist working with propaganda can do wonderful things. A good example of this is Riefenstahl's film The Triumph of the Will, we may be tempted to dismiss its artistic merits because it is Nazi propaganda, but Mrs. Riefenstahl's films are now often recognize as genius.

From wiki:

"Triumph of the Will was released in 1935 and rapidly became one of the best-known examples of propaganda in film history. Riefenstahl's techniques, such as moving cameras, the use of telephoto lenses to create a distorted perspective, aerial photography, and revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography, have earned Triumph recognition as one of the greatest films in history.[1] Riefenstahl won several awards, not only in Germany but also in the United States, France, Sweden, and other countries. The film was popular in the Third Reich[2] and elsewhere, and has continued to influence movies, documentaries, and commercials to this day"

That being said, Riefenstahl is probably an example of how a great artist can overcome the constraints of the system. I agree that it is better for there to be no regulation of art.

[hellsapoppin]

''Hellsapoppin-- I have never even heard of the Bowery Tales, but I am excited to read them! There are many historians and muckraking journalists that I thoroughly recommend and enjoy, from many eras, including: John Pilger, I.F. Stone, William Cobbett, Amy Goodman, Walter LaFaber, Noam Chomsky, Ectera... Thanks for the recommendations. I like your name by the way, is that in any way related to the play or movie Hellzapoppin'??? I love Swing Dancing and there are great swing scenes in the movie that were choreographed by Frankie Manning ''


Maggie - A Girl of the Streets:


http://www.librarything.com/work/37335/descriptions/

The story was so real and its portrayal so harsh Crane could not find a publisher. This was the first of the ''Bowery Tales''.

As for the famous movie ''Hellzapoppin'', yes it was a dandy and the dance scenes were awesome. But no, it was not the reason why I took it as forum name. The name just came out of nowhere, I guess. :)

[stlukesguild]

To my mind some of the key phrases from the Wilde preface include:

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

Wilde is an adherent of art pour l'art... but this in no way should be misconstrued as suggesting that art cannot be about anything but art. Moral questions, political disputes, religious quandaries are all open to being addressed by the artist. What Wilde and art pour l'art suggests is that the merit of a work of art does not lie in taking the proper (popular?) moral or political stance... it lies within the artist's mastery of the elements and forms of his or her art... whatever is being conveyed... even if we disagree with what is being conveyed.

Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

Again ideas are but fuel for the artistic mill... a motif. Art is not to be measured by how well we agree with the sentiments being conveyed. Do we really need for a work of art to reinforce our own experiences, our own beliefs, our own values, our own prejudices... is that all art is?

All art is quite useless.

Well... perhaps not all. And undoubtedly there are artists of real merit who strive toward some "higher" purpose. I highly suspect, however, that with few exceptions the older traditional art forms... painting, sculpture, poetry, the novel, the symphony, etc... are quite impotent at affecting real social change. A painting such as Picasso's Guernica brilliantly conveyed the artist's anger at the bombing of the Spanish city of the same name... but it had no impact upon the war. It was the combined forces of the Allies and not any painting or novel that defeated Hitler. I respect the artist who employs his or her efforts toward affecting social change, but I greatly doubt the effectiveness of such.

[mal4mac]

"Art for art's sake" doesn't really say much. Art is, surely, for pleasure's sake, or for the sake of creating states of mind that increase the possibility of pleasure.

The aesthetic school often suggest that art provides a "higher pleasure". Does that make any sense? If it is a higher pleasure, how, then, can you compare artistic pleasures to other pleasures and have any basis for choosing artistic pleasure?

[stlukesguild]

The aesthetic school often suggest that art provides a "higher pleasure". Does that make any sense? If it is a higher pleasure, how, then, can you compare artistic pleasures to other pleasures and have any basis for choosing artistic pleasure?

Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us,–for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits... While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or work of the artist’s hands, or the face of one’s friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch...

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of the Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. An undefinable taint of death had clung always about him, and now in early manhood he believed himself smitten by mortal disease. He asked himself how he might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; and he was not biased by anything in his previous life when he decided that it must be by intellectual excitement, which he found just then in the clear, fresh writings of Voltaire. Well! we are all condamnes, as Victor Hugo says: we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve–les hommes sont tous condamnes a mort avec des sursis indefinis: we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among “the children of this world,” in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion–that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.

Walter Pater: Conclusion to The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry

[La Pluma]

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[La Pluma]

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[mono]

In fact many actors, poets, writers, playwrights, dancers, journalists, and artists used their mediums to advocate for the Spanish people and went to Spain to help the cause, including George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, and Martha Gellhorn etc.

Many artists wrote, acted, danced and painted to promote the Republic, including, Virginia Wolff, T.S. Elliot, W.B. Yeats, Stephen Spender, Ruthven Todd, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and many many others.

The Republic did not win the war, but to say these artists and their art did not impact it would be erroneous. They inspired thousands to join the International Brigades and other Republican fighting militias, and some artists even helped inspire people to fight for Franco's Fascists.

Art can and does have lasting impressions on people, and it is one of many forces that shape who we are and what we do in life. Photography, poetry, plays, literature, street theater, choreography, music and movies have without a doubt encouraged and aided social and political movements from many genres and many eras.

Artists have been exiled, mocked, jailed, and put to death for their dissent through art. In fact, artists who have employed themselves towards affecting social change have been immensely impacting.

Think of Voltaire's Candid, Thomas Moore's Utopia, Thoreau's Walden, Picasso's Guernica, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales ("Popularized the use of vernacular English as the dominant"), Niccolo Machiavelli's Prince, Beechlor Stowe's Uncle Toms Cabin (spread the savagery of slavery--considered one of the reasons slavery ended!), Orwell's 1984 (a powerful warning against the STATE--added Big Brother to our vocab), and on and on and on.

Art has been used VERY EFFECTIVE for propaganda--good and bad (as Orphanpip pointed out), for dissenting against the norm, for or against: religion, social movements, social constructions, wars, revolutions, rebellions, and ideas.
Sorry to jump into the conversation so late, not quite fashionably late, but tardy nonetheless. I hoped to make points more along these mentioned lines, La Pluma, as well as stlukesguild's concepts of what an artist "should" do and "should not" do, as opposed to what s/he can do.
I doubt one could find a clear mission statement as to what writers have an obligation to do, one containing their goals, their intentions, and their means of obtaining that goal; even mapping out such a mission statement sounds like a battle within itself. Fortunately, the abstract qualities of art prove their subjective attributes within their pursuits of creation, and Wilde spoke very correctly in saying "all art is quite useless;" what ends as an artistic product, a finished, polished gem, has a value only imbued in its creation, and what the product proves, intends, does, and should do, if anything, seems only within cerebral knowledge of its creator. What s/he feels the work of literary art "should" do, regardless, seems mostly obsolete, considering the twists and turns even one subjective interpretation from one reader, for better or worse, can do, even within an author's lifetime.
Along the lines of your wise mentions of Voltaire, Moore, Thoreau, Picasso, Lawrence, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Stowe, Orwell, La Pluma, one can certainly contribute countless more names to those, with or without intention, created a vehicle for social change. If we mostly focus upon fiction, such writers as Twain, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Pasternak, Goethe, Rand, and Milton, have made and continue to make many revolutions in social change; such topics as literary censorship continue to make great, heated conversations even on this forum. Of non-fiction, such giants as Marx, Engels, Montesquieu, Locke, Hitler, Goethe (again), Gandhi, and Gore, for better or worse, have done the same.
I have thought of most writers, to put it somewhat vaguely, as efficient representatives of their eras, cultures, and sub-cultures, the most accurate voice of the crowd, and the one hoisted higher to speak louder. In this way, not only can, but perhaps not "should," a writer bring about social change, but, especially in terms of literary censorship (take D.H. Lawrence or Mark Twain, for two good examples), social change brings about a writer, and hopefully good ones, too. The writer ends up as more than an accurate recorder and voice of the crowd, and more of an advocate, in my opinion, explaining why many great writers, beginning from the 20th century, had or still have a career in journalism (Camus, Hemingway, Thompson, Steinbeck, Wolfe, Agee), or so I would like to think.

[blazeofglory]

Literature mirrors the society it is written about

[mal4mac]

The aesthetic school often suggest that art provides a "higher pleasure". Does that make any sense? If it is a higher pleasure, how, then, can you compare artistic pleasures to other pleasures and have any basis for choosing artistic pleasure?

Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us,–for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to seen in them by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy?

To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits... While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or work of the artist’s hands, or the face of one’s friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch...

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of the Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. An undefinable taint of death had clung always about him, and now in early manhood he believed himself smitten by mortal disease. He asked himself how he might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; and he was not biased by anything in his previous life when he decided that it must be by intellectual excitement, which he found just then in the clear, fresh writings of Voltaire. Well! we are all condamnes, as Victor Hugo says: we are all under sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve–les hommes sont tous condamnes a mort avec des sursis indefinis: we have an interval, and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among “the children of this world,” in art and song. For our one chance lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion–that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.

Walter Pater: Conclusion to The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry

Thanks! Pater and Rousseau just jumped a few places up my 'to read' list. Any thoughts on which might be the best translation of the Confessions? I just read the start of the Penguin, Wordsworth Classics, and Oxford translations, and am edging towards the latter - especially under the influence of Peter France:

http://www.mhra.org.uk/ojs/index.php/MLR/article/viewFile/3/34

[blazeofglory]

The aesthetic school often suggest that art provides a "higher pleasure". Does that make any sense? If it is a higher pleasure, how, then, can you compare artistic pleasures to other pleasures and have any basis for choosing artistic pleasure?

Walter Pater: Conclusion to The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry

I totally disagree that artistic pleasures are greater than any other pleasures. Pleasures are pleasures whether garnered from artistic pursue or pursued from mundane things. I cannot say they are higher or richer emotions at all. How can you say a child getting pleasures while sucking his mothers’ breasts is getting the lesser kind of pleasure than an intellectual pursuing intellectual domains at all. It is incomparable in point of fact. I am an intellectual and get pleasures in books, novels, poems and a farmer tilling his land or working on farm from dawn to dusk is getting lower forms of pleasures. The idea is pretentious and hollow in point of fact.