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The Collapse of Criteria and the Prostitution of Art

March 4, 2024

art, creativity, ignorance, literature, mediocrity, social masses, social media, society, writing

In an interview in 1991 (I will share the relevant excerpt translated/transcribed in this post), the Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis pointed out a sobering fact: We live in an era characterized by the collapse of criteria and the prostitution of art.

That is to say, Castoriadis argued, we live in an era with no criteria by which to gauge art. As a result, art prostitutes itself and loses its true meaning. It becomes industrialized.

There are two important elements in this very short excerpt I will discuss in this post:

Castoriadis naturally spoke before the internet and – especially – social media. I wonder what he would think about them.
Importantly, Castoriadis argues that art should create its own criteria.

If art should create its own criteria, and we observe a collapse of criteria today, what does that tell us?

collapse of criteria. image of Acropolis — The Acropolis of Athens, Greece. Each era creates its own criteria. Parthenon still stands, 2500 years later

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Shape-shifting in Nimona: Metaphor and the Subconscious

February 12, 2024

Fiction, Writing

creativity, criticism, fiction, imagination, LGBT, social masses, society, symbolism, writing

Nimona is an animated film based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson. It features “a girl” (more of this in a while) who can shape-shift into any form, from whales to gorillas and from little boys to emulating other people. As I explore in this post, shape-shifting in Nimona is a metaphor that reveals something about the role of the subconscious in the creative process.

You see, there are some metadata you need to know – if you aren’t familiar with ND Stevenson already: The first one is that he identifies as transmasculine/bigender. The second, that Stevenson was apparently unaware about his gender identity before Nimona:

There are times in my life where I feel like everybody knew what my deal was before I did, and this is one of them. But it would be years before I started to see that in myself. I guess I planted the seeds without realizing.
Time

Is that really possible? Can an author create such strong symbolism – as shape-shifting is for gender identity – without consciously realizing it? We know that books often write themselves, but as we’ll see in this post, symbolism is even more powerful, its focus more sharp, when it comes to subconscious meanings.

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Shame Will Save the World

February 5, 2024

Society

capitalism, meaning, society

“Shame will save the world” – often translated as “Shame, the feeling that will save mankind” – is what the character of Kris Kelvin utters near the end of Solaris, the film by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Can shame save the world?

For Dostoevsky, it was beauty that would perform that miracle. However, as a Greek blogger has said, beauty will save those who can see it. I tend to agree with this variation much more readily.

In any case, there is a point in selecting shame as the better candidate. I realized it going through a list of freelance jobs with ridiculously underpaid remuneration – think of $5 to produce 1500 words of text. Reading this I said out loud: “I would be embarrassed to offer that”.

And that’s when I realized the role of shame in saving the world.

Shame will save the world - image of Tokyo at night — Our societies are large, faceless, cold… There is no time for shame when there’s money to be made.

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