this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Well, art is political by its very nature. It is inherently filled with the views and beliefs of the artist, and it's important to point out the dangerous ones so people are aware and to prevent a potential slippery slope to radicalization. Or to prevent moments like that time Smash Mouth unknowingly retweeted art from a famous lolicon artist.
As for the rest, I completely agree. One of the ways to deal with a shitty person is to take their propaganda and meme the shit out of it.
Is it though? I once made a little tree out of wires as a birthday present because trees grow. How was that political? A friend of mine did a digital portrait of one of her friends for fun, how was that political? A whole genre of art is: "I saw a beautiful sight in nature and wanted to paint it". Nothing political about that. I mean, "Art for art's sake" was a whole movement. If it's political by nature, removing the politics would mean that it's not art anymore. And some musicians refuse to tell people what their music is about because they believe that everyone should give it their own personal meaning. But, as I said, a lot of art has no "meaning" besides: this looks/sounds nice/calming/cool/energizing.
Yes, it stems from the beliefs and feelings of the artists, but if we extend the meaning of politics so far that someone painting a mountainside transfers a political message, the term becomes pretty unusable.
what is beautiful is political. Valuing art based on beauty is political. Maybe your friend is ugly. Maybe they are not, and that’s why the portrait was done.
The act of creating is expressing power, and the expression of power and choices about who and what is valued is the core of “political.”
It isn’t always a clear cut thing, sometimes it’s a deeper philosophical idea and much less on the surface.
Maybe “political” is too far and “a collection of choices that reflect and potentially propagate culture or societal beliefs.” Is better.
Being able to make a choice is power. However small. And politics is all about power. Art is all about choices.
I mean, sure, but that absolutely devalues the meaning of the word. Absolutely every single thing you do is preceeded by a choice to do that, and choices are reflective of ones inner self, and if making a choice is power, and politics is all about power, then every single thing you do is political. Waking up before sunrise is political, waking up later is political, saying hello to your neighbour is political. Recording a guitar riff that just sounds cool is political. I created croissants yesterday, that was political.
Words are created to be used, and "political" cannot be used in any meaningful way if it refers to everything. While you probably could soundly argue that a child drawing random lines with crayons is political, it's really pointless since it's just pedantry that doesn't add value, but rather devalues the word.
I did agree that using that word is probably going to far. I was merely trying to elaborate on the sentiment you were rejecting.
A slippery slope is a fallacy
Not weighing in on the other stuff, but I would disagree with the statement that art is political by its very nature. I think it really depends on the art.