Culture

Lives of The Orange Men: A Retrospective

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As of late, I’ve been experimenting with an idea: after watching a video, reading a book (or chapter), and so on asking “what did I learn.” So as part of this experiment, I’d like to talk about “Lives of the Orange Men” by Major Waldemar Fydrych.

The book is about the Orange Alternative, an anti-communist movement in the 1980s that used surrealism, “situations,” art, and mockery against the government. Though most famous for their guerilla paintings of orange dwarves and doing protests wearing orange “dwarf hats,” they did far more. From what I can tell, historians consider them to have played a notable role in Poland’s freedom (or being free-er). So you know that a book on art, culture, protest, and surrealism is going to get my attention.

The book is not a typical historical book – being made by surrealists it’s also a surrealist piece. Written in an overblown style reminiscent of State Communist propaganda, it follows the lives of certain members of the Orange Alternative and their actions. How much is true and how much is made up? Well, that’s part of the challenge the book presents to you, even if it has some handy appendices.

The Orange Alternative also had a kind of pseudomilitary organization, which leads to both grandiose statements and even more ways to mock things. I’m not sure if some of the members are making fun of themselves or not. Maybe that’s good.

So what did I get reading this work of both history AND art? What lessons can I share?

Some Things Have To Be Experienced: Whatever I summarize here this is over half for my benefit. The way to get the full benefit of this book is to read it – and I recommend you do. This book has to be experienced.

Style Can be Substance: The parodic nature of the writing, the overblown style, actually helped me “get” the Orange Alternative intuitively. They knew how to get people, how to make an impression (and how to annoy the authorities). Style matters.

It’s A Lifestyle: The Orange Alternative members lived this stuff. Yes they had lives (which they document) but the book and some of the acts recorded within speak to this protest and movements being a lifestyle. So dive in, people.

Know the Culture: Hijack cultural elements, historical events, pop culture, etc. Understand what you are hijacking, and how it works. Culturejacking also can lend cover to your action, further confusing authorities.

Not Everything Transfers: Reading about the protests and situations set up to confuse Polish authorities, some ideas do not transfer to other situations and contexts. It became clear that certain stunts wouldn’t fly elsewhere because of cultural, economic, racial, and other issues.

Everything Is Art: You can hijack anything to be art – including the people trying to stop you. The Orange Alternative saw the world as their canvas, and it helped them think bigger. It also meant they had a mindset on co-opting things and taking control.

Kindness Is Protest: The Orange Alternative sometimes did giveaways of useful things like toilet paper and sanitary pads. That got attention, got good will, and helped people. Toss in their surrealist attitudes and they did good and confused the government agents. How do you stop guys in costumes distributing toilet paper?

Spectacle Matters: The Orange Alternative did some pretty damn colorful stuff. Fake reenacted naval battles. Marches wearing all red. Protests and writings that tried to be “more patriotic than thou” to further confound authorities. The utter silliness clearly mattered.

Persistence Matters: The Orange Alternative’s constant painting of dwarves, handing out handbills, etc. paid off. Some events were done one after the other. Protest – and art protests – need persistent activity. It also wears the bad guys out. Speaking of . . .

Wear Them Down: It’s clear the Orange Alternative knew how to exhaust the authorities. How do you track down people wearing too much red when other people might be wearing red? Why is this cross-dresser being so nice to you? Where did the cardboard battleship come from and what do you do about it? What the hell is it with all those dwarf paintings? It’s clear the Alternative knew how to exhaust authorities because it’s hard to know what they’re doing.

Destroy Dignity: How do the police address folks wearing funny hats who are handing out toilet paper? Why are you even here? The Orange Alternative had the authorities dealing with stupid situations and trying to act like they were a threat. But there was no threat, no violence, not even cruel words. Agents both obvious and secret weren’t sure how to handle these people and felt a little stupid.

Have Fun: Pretty obvious. It was clear the Orange Alternative crew was enjoying this.

So that’s my summary. I recommend you still read the book, but perhaps this will give you ideas of using art politically and socially – and what art can do. In this case, it played a role in liberating a country.

-Xenofact

Religious Art Without Either

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My own experiments in surrealist art and how art connects with spirituality have graced a few of these pages. Until I started doing my own art I hadn’t given much consideration to art and spirituality – as most of my interest was written work and meditations. Some art inspired me and I did find “project plan” type diagrams like The Six Realms useful, but I hadn’t thought of it until my own work.

But as I started doing art I started viscerally appreciating the power of art and spirituality. I appreciated my own inspirations much better, as I got them. There’s something powerful about art, bridging all those gaps between feelings and ideas, going where words cannot. The hyperdetailed art of the Six Realms of Buddhism, awe-inspiring pictures of gods, hilarious art of the Eight Immortals – all of those can be rationally analyzed and felt.

Just as spirituality connects things together so does art. No wonder they go together – and are really inseparable.

Which is what brings me to religiously kitschy art. You know the kind, the stuff that is standard, pandering, sometimes pseudo-realistic, and where the message is extremely obvious. The kind of stuff that Queen Coke Francis mocked in one of her videos (also she’s just hilarious and here makeup is on point).

Kitschy religious art kind of fascinates me. It feels dead to me. It’s message is obvious, sometimes in the title or spelled out. The look is often cartoony but without that “edge” where the style brings a benefit of inspiration or feeling, or so realistic it might have well been a photo. The kind of stuff AI churns out because so many people churned it out. I mean I’m talking still work, but I suppose it applies to media like TV.

I always wondered why people would enjoy this art because there’s nothing there. There’s no inspiration to it, nothing to fire you up or inspire you. There’s nothing stylized, no edge to the art to catch on your mind and make you think. It’s just so simple . . .

. . . and then I realized that’s the point.


Kitschy religious art is not about helping you feel or get inspired or go deeper.. It’s about reinforcing what you’re supposed to feel and what others want you to think and feel. In most cases I think about signaling, showing who you are and what you think, it’s not there to help you you think anything deeper.

Which is the point.

In fact, this”art” has to be short of any detail, any extra, any edge. If you take any liberties, get a bit stylish, etc. you risk inspiring people. Anything playful, any attempts to be really artsy risks getting people to feel something, to speculate, to feel something. Kitschy religious art has to avoid any risk because for all you know it might actually do something for you. No wonder so much of it is simple.

Of course this leads me to wonder how kitsch can be used to conceal inspiration or how one might inspire people to put a bit more into their kitsch that may produce deeper thoughts . . .

–Xenofact

Win One For Confucians

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Win One For Confucians

Last column I talked about how Taoists irritated with detail-obsessed Confucians reminded me of how people got annoyed with conspiracy theorists. It was a strange revelation, and one I’ll probably analyze for awhile to understand underlying human behavior. But let’s talk about something I learned from my (limited) reading of Confucian thought.

First, I want to be open about my opinions – and limits on my knowledge – of Confucianism. I took an interest in it due to A) Taoists arguing with them and B) an interest Chinese history, usually communications. I’ve read a few texts, a few historical documents, and a larger amount of Taoist mockery or fellow-feeling depending on when said texts were written. I’m no expert.

I would sum it up as “anal-retentive humanism about cultivating morality.” Confucius himself seems to have been a thoughtful, witty, pleasant, but at times anxious or neurotic person who didn’t seem to really intend to found a religion. In practice it has often served power and patriarchal culture, but through it run elements of counter-culturalism and principle. My limited experience have been more “WTF” than I expected.

But in my limited readings, a story stood out – one that, years later, taught me a lesson. So let’s give the Confucians a win.

In my readings there are often stories about the importance of mourning one’s parents when they pass. It’s important to recognize their sacrifice, the duration of mourning, and so on. There’s enough dead parents in a casual reading Confucian literature to make you worry you stepped into a Disney film. Yes I get filial piety and all that, but still.

Once or twice I’d encounter a story of an king who’s father (who had stepped down) passed away. This meant big public ceremonies and so on because, hey, dead king. What stood out to me is people being impressed at how sad the living king was, how he wept and mourned so aggressively. At first I thought the stories were annoying, performative – I mean, you know, let’s not make a show of it, be honest.

Years later, as I contemplated politics in America in the 2020s I thought about all the transgressive politicians. The ones that were basically online Influencers, the ones acting like they were Shock Jocks. The ones who were supposedly both the best of us and hideous assholes and in no way role models.

They were being performatively against what we supposedly valued.

. . . and suddenly I got the king and his Big Mourning.

I don’t want leaders who violate our principles, I want them to embody them. I want the continuity and stability of society, not its fracturing. Wanting leaders that violate everything you say you care about means you’re both an asshole and destructive – and stupid. Even if a leader is, dare I say it, a bit performative, it’s saying there’s an agreement on what matters, even if things might get a tad fuzzy around things in the “best face forward” way.

Moral performances of certain kinds – what people might call “virtue signaling” – are ways of communicating and reinforcing values. They are reflections of the agreement that hold society together. It may be a janky agreement, it may have edge cases that aren’t on the edge, but unless a society is totally screwed, it matters.

Then I got it. These kings were virtue signaling, but about stuff important to the community, the love of parents, the proper activities. King and peasant were bonded together in “when we lose our parents, we respect those that created us.” A weeping king was, at that moment no different than a farmer who lost his mother and father.

So know what? Chalk one up for the early Confucian writers. Some moral and ethical continuity, via ritual, is important. Yeah it might not be 100% true or honest all the time, but if it’s enough for society to grow and function, then it’s important. It might not seem like a ritual, but there is a time to say “we are on the same side” and act on it.

Because we’ve damn well seen what happens when destroying everything is lauded, and violating what actually works is worshiped.

-Xenofact