Art and Empire

Why art? In answering that question yesterday, it was mostly about what the authentic engagement that art gives to us, both on stage (or in our living room) in the making of it and in the audience receiving its bounty. 

 

But there is another dimension as well that is equally important and that it art’s power to confront the lies and brainwashing and toxic practices of Empire, with its servants of Patriarchy, White Supremacy and unchecked Capitalism. People who struggle to tell their own authentic story, to express the ineffable and aim themselves towards truth, are people hard to control, hard to trick, hard to bamboozle. Their refusal to march to the herd goosestep, to accept unquestioning what the media dishes out, to distrust their own genuine instincts, all “deprives empire of the oxygen” it requires. Without a song or painting or poem or dance having any overt political meaning, the act alone of making it can be subversive. 

 

Below are some Facebook quotes/ posts that shed light on this side of the arts. Consider them.