http://blog.absolutearts.com/blogs/archives/00000537.html
04/05/2010: "The Revolutionary Spirit"
I remember the sixties as if they were yesterday. We voiced our theories about conspiracy, and they were accepted by a unified mass of believers. We believed that together we could change the world, and although all our goals might not have been clear, at least one of them, ending the war in Viet Nam, seemed to have been achieved. We were awed by our own power when we marched on Washington, and everybody could see how many we were right there, on the television.
What about today? If we marched on Washington today, would anyone even come? The phrase, '...what if they gave a war and no one came?...' drifts back to me from the past. I look around me and see that all my fellow revolutionaries have become old and fat, bald and grey. Today, most of them are worse than those we rebelled against once were. Worse because they're so Pavlovian about what they care about, and so indifferent to anything else.
Mostly, it's money, and the symbols of wealth that they need to convince their peers that they are in fact successful. Notice I no longer say 'we'. Not that I don't need money. I do as much as anyone else does, to survive, and to feel I haven't been done in by 'the system'. But somehow I have managed not to get suckered into running 'til I drop on a mouse wheel not of my own making, like pretty much everyone I know has, except the trust fund kids.
They, mostly not due to any effort they themselves have made, are the only true revolutionaries left. They haven't given in, like all my peers burdened by credit card debt have. They haven't become cogs in a machine, and remain pretty much free to do whatever they want. I know a lot of them, because a lot of them are artists.
Jeff Koons, Fernando Botero, Julian Schnabel, are all products of extreme wealth, as well as thousands of others like them. Talent is not an issue for such people, it is an unnecessary and unimportant accessory. However, rare as it may be, when talent is required, it can be simply and efficiently bought from someone else.
If a mechanism of social control exists, and its hard to imagine that it doesn't, what is the oil flowing around its gears that keeps the whole thing running smoothly? What is the biggest risk to its functioning that the most attention is paid to? I would say, that a revolution topples it. The product it is producing cannot be anything else but wealth and power.
If I've got your attention and interest up to this point, then I imagine you'll accept that if revolutionaries have simply disappeared from the stage, when only thirty years ago there were so many of them, then there must have been a strategy executed by someone to make this happen. It is just too convenient for both government and multinational business for it to have been a coincidence.
This is not a conspiracy theory, because there is no one is indicated as a target, and I haven't said that the intent is evil. It is a general observation about what is most likely given our current state of affairs. Certainly we haven't had any big wars lately, and that is a good thing.
There is a conspiracy theory going around that Aspartame is an intentional attempt to diminish the world's population. Monsanto, one of the largest multinationals in existence, has introduced Aspartame into nearly every diet product in existence, throughout the world. If a person decided never to take Aspartame, it is virtually impossible that they could avoid it altogether. Pharmaceutical companies use it to produce a sweet coating for a lot of pills, it is in soft drinks, sugarless gum and candies, and found even in many kinds of bread and cakes. Some believe Monsanto bought the German company responsible for the production of the Zyklon B used by the Nazis for human extermination. Those who believe in a conspiracy involving Aspartame have invaded the internet en masse, you can just google it and you will see what they have to say. These people would say the oil making the gears run smoothly is Aspartame. Others would insist its the fluoride in the water.
Our role as artists is to see the world for what it is and comment on it in our art. We cannot continue to work as individuals, gazing at our own navels and pretending that whatever we choose to do is valid. The role of artists is to understand the present, foresee the future, and to arouse people to action through their work. Perhaps the current situation in which artists have virtually nothing in common with one another, is the reason why we haven't had any Man Rays, Picassos or Van Goghs for more than a half a century. The responsibility of an artist is great; they must understand the big picture about the world in which we all live, and comment on it in a way that even the simplest human beings can understand, or at the very least, feel. We should seek the spirit that unified us in the sixties, find a little common ground, think a little less about our individual struggles, and act towards a shared goal. Whatever that may be. Any ideas?
