Salazar is a third-year sociology student.
By Rick D. Salazar
Many people sharing simple perspectives about art tend to think
it should be relegated to portraits of historical figures,
landscapes or bowls of fruit. But this is not consistent with the
true spirit of art: to search for individual truth and to make a
political or social statement.
Ben Shapiro doesn’t seem to get what the point of art is;
he instead attacks it by making references to extreme artists and
suggesting the entire National Endowment for the Arts should be
shut down because he considers some of the artists’ work
inappropriate (Art
is not always art in the eye of the beholder, masses“
Viewpoint, Feb. 11).
It’s true the boundaries of what is considered
“art” have been pushed in the past to support such
things as gratuitous pornography. And it is also true that
sometimes people willfully say something is “art” as an
excuse for doing something meant to offend a community of people,
even though they have no real artistic intentions in mind.
However, the fact that some people may abuse the freedom of
expression we each have doesn’t mean it should be denied to
everyone; or, that a committee of moralists should decide what is
approved as art and what is not. This debate is in a similar nature
to the conservative argument in favor of gun rights: although some
people use guns in a dangerous and criminal manner, this
doesn’t mean we should outlaw them for everyone. Thus, just
because a random artist in San Francisco considers having public
oral sex art, as Shapiro mentions, doesn’t mean no one should
be allowed to express their view.
Trying to decide what art is appropriate is the same as saying
we’re trying to decide what speech is appropriate ““ if
that sounds a little unconstitutional, that’s because it
is.
There’s no fair way of comparing art, because
there’s no right answer to it. It’s wrong to compare Da
Vinci’s Mona Lisa to something by Jackson Pollock or Claude
Monet because there’s no axis of similarity for it to occur.
It’s like comparing apples and oranges, as the saying goes.
Art goes beyond painting pretty pictures now, too ““ it
extends to doing three dimensional visuals and performance.
This further complicates the notion of trying to decide what is
artistic and what is not.
Shapiro says art is something the common man should be able to
understand, but he forgets that it is the common man who is
actually doing the art. It’s the common man’s
expression of what it feels like to be in his society. The reason
art is so abstract is because feelings are that abstract, neither
are easy to comprehend, otherwise we’d have social harmony
and world peace by now.
Whatever happened to the notion of challenging the common person
intellectually, so that he or she can achieve new levels of
understanding? It seems like Shapiro ““ rather than bring
“reason to the masses” as he eloquently says ““
wants to prevent the masses from interacting with art and
challenging their mindset.
Shapiro’s condemnation of art has happened before with
other conservatives, such as Rudy Giuliani. But the only motivation
behind this is political; why are Shapiro and Gulliani allowed to
express their political ideology in suppressing artists (or writing
columns for the Daily Bruin), but others are not allowed to express
their politics in their own way?
Part of the rationale behind art (such as Shapiro’s
example of the public gay sex), is to do just that. People usually
feel helpless, like they can’t really do anything to change
our country and its laws, so they use art as a medium for
expressing their dissatisfaction.
The reason it’s shocking is because we’re not used
to thinking about things in the way the art presents them ““
it gives us a different perspective. You’re entitled to feel
offended, but others are just as entitled not to feel that way.
I’m sure no one would like a world in which the government
decides what we all think, and who should express themselves and in
what manner ““ a world like the one under the Taliban. The
open expression of ideas ensures that all possible perspectives and
viewpoints are available, so that we don’t have to conform
with society if it makes us unhappy. If Shapiro were living in a
world run completely by liberals, would he want them deciding on
whether or not conservative art should be displayed, and if so,
what content it should have? I think not.
Thank goodness some people have the courage to disagree with the
establishment and with ordinary ideas. Thank goodness for
artists.