politics

Art Is Unstoppable

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We’re all used to hearing about how oppressive governments crack down on art. They don’t like free expression. They want to control information. They also like to destroy joy because they are controlling assholes.

But I’d add something else to these control freaks – art is terrifying to them. Art is something that is a threat to dictators and they must control it.

Think about what Art is – not even good art, but sincere art. Art is personal expression, thoughts and feelings turned into another form. It often combines different media forms, like sound and visuals together, or penmanship and words. Art is a bundle of ideas, of feelings, that works it’s way into your head – that’s what art is, and even intentionally obscure art can intrigue people to actively engage.

Art spreads. Art infiltrates. Art infects. Art can be symbiotic with the people who encounter it. This is the kind of thing that unsettled a would-be tyrant.

A play, a stunt, a book, a song can soar across the radio waves and the internet and change people. Art is communication, and communication will go as fast as it can (and sometimes as slow as needed). A piece of art can change people fast and dictators don’t like change and they aren’t happy with fast either.

And you might not know they’ve changed. Someone may have become changed by a book or by a TV show or a bootleg tape and you won’t know! People become different people but you can’ tell. Well, can’t tell until too late, and dictators fear people not being what they seem.

People infected with art might even make more art. They get inspired to do things. Art combines with the appreciator’s own ideas to make something new. That fast-spreading art can produce even more art that risks the control a dictator wants. Von Neuman’s catastrophie with bright brushes and a poison pen.

Finally, dictators are not creative people. They’re not imaginative. Art is creative. Art is imaginative. Dictators can’t understand it, can’t deal with it, so the have to destroy it or control it.

(Some Dictators even posture as artists, but you know, they never really are.)

So of course they feel threatened by art. They can’t control it, can’t stop it, can’t do it and it’s lurking right behind them.

Of course that means if we keep doing art we keep breaking dictators. And as I’ve noted art and spirituality are pretty much the same thing, who knows what you can do to would-be tyrants with just some innocent art with spiritual elements . . .

-Xenofact

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

Musings On The Lonely Men Who Hate Each Other

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The “Male Loneliness Epidemic” is something I see discussed a lot. Men feel lonely and isolated. Men fall under the spell of grifters. Men don’t find what they need and get bitter and angry. Being a pretty generic guy, I take interest in this for many reasons, including the fact a lot of (white) guys voted for Donald Trump who, as of this post, is sort of ruining everything.

Having lived many, many decades I get the concern about male loneliness. I also however was raised with the idea that you can find and make friends. I suspect some of this is really that I hit a sweet spot of how I was raised, role models, connective nerd culture, and region. I grew up thinking about making friends and connecting, and that it’s my job to do it. I guess some people missed that.

Beyond my very broad experiences, I’m not sure I can comment on the fine details of this supposed epidemic, if it is an epidemic (I don’t think so), and so on. I think what is obvious is there’s a grifty, fascistic part of Online Male Culture that uses this sense of disconnection to give vulnerable men a pathological and unsustainable role model, what one person on Tumblr called wittily the Buff Scammer.

The Buff Scammer is a sort of capitalistic/fascistic/comic book ideal of a guy as a jacked hustler always making scores and gains. You don’t actually enjoy yourself, you just have to keep up the gains and the money to show off . . . to other men. Even relations with women are ways to show off to men, meaning that you enter into the bizarrely homoerotic sphere of men thinking of men in their wooing of women. These men don’t have friends or lovers, just targets of various kinds.

What is funny is that, with my (ever-advancing age) and interest in history is I’m used to seeing far different ideals of male role models that are not the Buff Scammer.. A lot of them involved an idea of citizenship in many ways, even if there were other pathologies. The idea of a man was an idea of being engaged and part of things (even if there was plenty of toxic masculinity otherwise). It’s weird to see that in, say, 2500 year old writings, but also remember it in my youth and feel like it’s sort of been pushed aside in my lifetime.

Citizenship gives one some grounding, some sense of place – and you feel less lonely. You’re playing or seeking to play a role. Maybe it’s just me getting old, but I honestly see that completely lacking in large parts of culture, including some of the male grift-o-sphere. I meet plenty of engaged citizens who are happy, but there are zones where the idea of citizenship seems long gone.

Citizenship as an ideal leads you to not be alone and to seek connection. You have an ideal of belonging. The Buff Scammer and his ilk have none of that. That has to not just be lonely, but it resists a traditional gateway for not being lonely – the idea of being an active citizen. I mean you may not like everyone but you’re part of something.

This makes me think of the events of the first few months of the Trump administration. Trump destroyed alliances and trade deals built over decades – indeed over a century. He isolated the country in a temper tantrum, trying to look tough. He was, in short, a Buff Scammer (well, not that Buff) who has no concept of friends, of citizenship.

And then I think of the lonely men who voted for him. They have no concept of friends either. No concept of citizenship. No concept of belonging.

It’s just lonely people in a temper tantrum, disconnected, isolated, and running things, leaving them even more alone. Citizenship may be a solution, but people will have to learn to be active about it. Certainly they just found some grifter is going to make them more lonely.

-Xenofact