{"id":21729,"date":"2024-05-03T17:28:33","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T00:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=21729"},"modified":"2024-05-03T17:31:39","modified_gmt":"2024-05-04T00:31:39","slug":"how-art-and-education-are-not-about-making-people-feel-comfortable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/05\/03\/how-art-and-education-are-not-about-making-people-feel-comfortable\/","title":{"rendered":"How Art and Education are Not about Making People Feel Comfortable"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li> Today&#8217;s reading is about art and education and how they&#8217;re not intended to make students feel comfortable, but rather to challenge their parochial assumptions and expand their worldviews;\n<li> And a bunch of everyday items, today mostly about the right&#8217;s conspiracy theories, religion, and morality, in a more concise format.\n<\/ul>\n<p>Today&#8217;s reading is a guest essay in today&#8217;s NY Times by Jen Silverman, playwright and author.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/28\/opinion\/28silverman\/28silverman-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Jen Silverman, 28 Apr 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/28\/opinion\/art-morality-discomfort.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pE0.9XVo.4ARSfGOScD9h&amp;smid=url-share\">Art Isn\u2019t Supposed to Make You Comfortable<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The writer discovers a social media account &#8220;dedicated to collecting angry reader reviews,&#8221; including those of works long regarded as classics. <!--more-->The trend detected is how often readers disapprove of works because they disapprove of the characters.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Here on my screen was the distillation of a peculiar American illness: namely, that we have a profound and dangerous inclination to confuse art with moral instruction, and vice versa.<\/p>\n<p>As someone who was born in the States but partially raised in a series of other countries, I\u2019ve always found the sheer uncompromising force of American morality to be mesmerizing and terrifying. Despite our plurality of influences and beliefs, our national character seems inescapably informed by an Old Testament relationship to the notions of good and evil. This powerful construct infuses everything from our advertising campaigns to our political ones \u2014 and has now filtered into, and shifted, the function of our artistic works.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it\u2019s because our political discourse swings between deranged and abhorrent on a daily basis and we would like to combat our feelings of powerlessness by insisting on moral simplicity in the stories we tell and receive. Or maybe it\u2019s because many of the transgressions that flew under the radar in previous generations \u2014 acts of misogyny, racism and homophobia; abuses of power both macro and micro \u2014 are now being called out directly. We\u2019re so intoxicated by openly naming these ills that we have begun operating under the misconception that to acknowledge each other\u2019s complexity, in our communities as well as in our art, is to condone each other\u2019s cruelties.<\/p>\n<p>When I work with younger writers, I am frequently amazed by how quickly peer feedback sessions turn into a process of identifying which characters did or said insensitive things. Sometimes the writers rush to defend the character, but often they apologize shamefacedly for their own blind spot, and the discussion swerves into how to fix the morals of the piece. The suggestion that the values of a character can be neither the values of the writer, nor the entire point of the piece, seems more and more surprising \u2014 and apt to trigger discomfort.<\/p>\n<p>While I typically share the progressive political views of my students, I\u2019m troubled by their concern for righteousness over complexity. They do not want to be seen representing any values they do not personally hold. The result is that, in a moment in which our world has never felt so fast-changing and bewildering, our stories are getting simpler, less nuanced and less able to engage with the realities through which we\u2019re living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The essay goes on with the writer&#8217;s experience in Hollywood, where executives pass on screenplays with characters who are too morally ambiguous (i.e. not obviously good or evil). And concludes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But what art offers us is crucial precisely because it is not a bland backdrop or a platform for simple directives. Our books, plays, films and TV shows can do the most for us when they don\u2019t serve as moral instruction manuals, but rather allow us to glimpse our own hidden capacities, the slippery social contracts inside which we function, and the contradictions we all contain.<\/p>\n<p>We need more narratives that tell us the truth about how complex our world is. We need stories that help us name and accept paradoxes, not ones that erase or ignore them. After all, our experience of living in communities with one another is often much more fluid and changeable than it is rigidly black and white. We have the audiences that we cultivate, and the more we cultivate audiences who believe that the job of art is to instruct instead of investigate, to judge instead of question, to seek easy clarity instead of holding multiple uncertainties, the more we will find ourselves inside a culture defined by rigidity, knee-jerk judgments and incuriosity.<\/p>\n<p>In our hair-trigger world of condemnation, division and isolation, art \u2014 not moralizing \u2014 has never been more crucial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here again is the simple vs. the complex. The simplistic Old Testament morality of good and evil, clung to by Americans perhaps in reaction to the changing world in which their own tribe must struggle to get along with many others.<\/p>\n<p>I have two adjacent thoughts. One, education isn&#8217;t supposed to make you comfortable either; you to go university precisely to expose yourself to others&#8217; experiences, other points of view, and to learn new things, and grow as a non-parochial person. Otherwise just stay at home and go to church. Two, &#8220;classics&#8221; of the arts, of literature especially, but also paintings and music, are precisely those that challenged conventions of their time, and created something new. In all these forms, there are the popular bestsellers and crowd-pleasers that made their creators lots of money. But it&#8217;s the new things created that are remembered.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Let me try a more compact format for the numerous links I collect every day. Links and brief comments.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2024\/05\/mtg-i-voted-against-the-antisemitism-awareness-act-because-it-rejects-gospel-that-jews-helped-kill-jesus\/\">MTG: I Voted Against The Antisemitism Awareness Act Because It Rejects \u201cGospel\u201d That Jews Helped Kill Jesus<\/a>. I&#8217;ve never understood the logic behind this story. If Jesus came to earth to save mankind from its sins, then wasn\u2019t his death foreordained? Why blame jews for it? It was supposed to happen! No doubt casuistic theologians have explained this, over and over.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2024\/05\/aunt-lydia-orders-state-to-defy-new-lgbtq-protections\/\">Aunt Lydia Orders State To Defy New LGBTQ Protections<\/a>. Conservatives *want* to discriminate.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2024\/05\/megachurch-pastor-no-such-thing-as-mental-illness\/\">Megachurch Pastor: No Such Thing As Mental Illness<\/a>. Yes there is: exhibit A.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/post\/tim-barton-spreads-false-christian-nationalist-history\/\">Tim Barton Spreads False Christian Nationalist History<\/a>. This is news?<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2024\/05\/newsmax-host-nixon-did-nothing-wrong-watergate-was-just-deep-state-plot-to-take-him-down-video\/\">Newsmax Host: Nixon Did Nothing Wrong, Watergate Was Just \u201cDeep State Plot\u201d To Take Him Down [VIDEO]<\/a>. When Republicans\/conservatives commit crimes, it was really just a deep state plot.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2024\/05\/03\/floridas-attorney-general-mocked-after-bashing-biden-for-2020-protests-when-trump-was-president.html\">Florida&#8217;s Attorney General mocked after bashing Biden for 2020 protests \u2014 when Trump was president<\/a>. Conservatives, as always, are factually challenged. Honest mistakes&#8230;?<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2024\/05\/03\/distorted-gospel-marjorie-taylor-greene-jesus-and-the-jews\/\">Distorted gospel: Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jesus and the Jews<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Greene&#8217;s claim about Jesus being &#8216;crucified by the Jews&#8217; is one way to read the Gospel \u2014 with a long, ugly history&#8221;. This goes not to the paradox I mentioned yesterday, but to Matthew 27:25, &#8220;the most notorious verse in the Bible&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bigthink.com\/the-present\/worlds-values-diverging\/\">Globalization was supposed to align the world\u2019s values. Instead, they\u2019re diverging.<\/a> Well because, I would say, poor nations are closer to tribal morality, not worldly values.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2024\/05\/01\/fertility-rates-record-low-reproductive-care\/\">Opinion | Americans are having too few kids. The GOP made the problem worse.<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Fertility rates just hit a record low. These policies certainly didn\u2019t help.&#8221; My take: Republican policies driven by tribal morality are having counter-effects in a global society.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2024\/04\/30\/family-size-big-families\/\">Opinion | The ideal number of kids in a family: Four (at a minimum)<\/a>. Tribal mentality: grow the tribe. This can&#8217;t work forever. Do they not understand why?<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2024\/04\/auto-industry-pushes-back-on-mandate-for-am-radios\/\">Auto Industry Pushes Back On Mandate For AM Radios<\/a>. I just find this hilarious.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/24139147\/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution\">The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with ridiculously large cars<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Dangerous, polluting SUVs and pickups took over America. Lawmakers are partly to blame.&#8221; As I noted in my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/04\/29\/our-trip-to-austin\/\">first report about our trip to Austin<\/a>. Rows of massive F150s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\\\\<br \/>\nEvery day I reread and copy-edit my post from the evening before. If this comment is still here, I have not yet done so for this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s reading is about art and education and how they&#8217;re not intended to make students feel comfortable, but rather to challenge their parochial assumptions and expand their worldviews; And a bunch of everyday items, today mostly about the right&#8217;s conspiracy &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/05\/03\/how-art-and-education-are-not-about-making-people-feel-comfortable\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21729"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21736,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729\/revisions\/21736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}