supporters of civilisation
(and they are legion)
would rather have Great Art
than actual happiness.
"There you are, content and happy,
which is the last thing you should be,"
said Clive James (on the radio last night)
about the effect of psychiatric drugs
on writing.
Let's face it :
supporters of civilisation
don't want happiness around at all
because it's productive
only as an unreachable goal.
4 comments:
They want the prospect of happiness around, though. It is very productive – one of the carrots held out in front of people to make them chase goals that never really make them happy… Perpetual motion solved! (Well, almost.)
People are led to expect happiness only on certain well-defined conditions. Do this, that, and that, and then you will attain it. They are sold “happiness recipes”, which are about as good as schemes to lose weight. I am beginning to suspect that those were right who said, in essence, that there is no such thing as conditional happiness.
As for me, I do not even know anymore what the word happiness means. And I have never understood all this hoopla about so-called art.
Of course you're right. I have now changed the poem accordingly. I added "actual" to the first stanza, and I improved the ending. Many thanks.
Art is, of course, rubbish compared with serenity. But art (the visual and auditory arts) can seem to impart serenity... Certainly Indian Classical Music makes me feel very good.
ANTHONY
Oh, it was just a comment, nothing else. I liked the original poem too.
And, of course, I have nothing against finding serenity in art. What I do not like is when they hype it all up, trying to turn people into consumers of art.
There's more than consumerism at work in the ghastly "art world" - the main engine there is snobbery, or to put it in a more polite way, Status.
I love Cézanne, the then-despised painter, for his reply when cheerfully asked 'And what are you painting at the moment ?' by the celebrated Monet at a Paris show to which they both contributed: 'A pile of turds.' ('Un pot de merde.)
'Art', like mind, is only shit. And what's not beautiful about turds carefully deposited ?
You might like my new web-page on the subject : www.beyond-the-pale.co.uk/art.htm
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