“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.”
— T.S. Elliot, The Hollow Men (part 1 only)
In thinking of our times, these words from T.S. Elliot’s poem seem to resonate. When so many are suffering — poor societies stricken with tragedy, war and famine, rich ones paralyzed by perpetual anxiety and narcissistic exceptionalism — it is hard to just think about art, never mind expend the extensive time and energy to make it. When the world feels so barren of love, meaning, justice and compassion, its expressions reflect the emptiness. Today, the most dominant artistic forms such as film, contemporary art, writing and music seem little more than exercises in technique, stuck in pastiche and superficiality, a repeat of similar stories poorly retold with new materials. We are drowned paradoxically by the constant preoccupation with capital (survival) and the need for connection (meaning). No wonder making art seems like an act of compromised futility. Deep in our subconconcious, a terrible sense of hopelessness reigns.
But then, just as the night feels the darkest, I remember that it is precisely during such times that we need art the most. I remember that the artist is a bearer of light. A self-selected member of society, the artist deals with challenges that are pertinant; he sees beforehand, seemingly clairvoyant in the midst of cultural and social chaos. Now, rather than elaborate on this dilemma any further with my own clumsy words, I relay you to the words of a better spoken individual, former U.S. president John. F. Kennedy from his 1963 address to the graduates of Amherst College:
“Strength takes many forms, and the most obvious forms are not always the most significant. The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us. […]
Robert Frost coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state… In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role.
If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth… In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society — in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost’s hired man, the fate of having “nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.”
— John. F. Kennedy