Posthuman Blues

Yes, but What Does it MEAN?

Maybe the need to enlist art to the service of a social purpose comes from the streak of utilitarianism like a four lane highway that runs through Western culture, and that tends to disdain things that don't serve any obvious purpose. Or maybe there's an underlying elitism at work: the belief that we need artists to teach us about our own natures and the world we live in is, after all, based on the assumption that we poor yobs are incapable of achieving understanding and wisdom on our own - that we need artists with their special insight and unique vision to show us who we really are.

Nonsense. We need art to keep the world from sliding into the utilitarian, didactic, colorless, logical, sensible hell that it naturally inclines towards being. We need art to combat what Neil Gaiman calls "the tyranny of realism". That's a pretty big job - why make it bigger? Nothing goes so contrary to the spirit of art than demanding that it be "about" something, or serve some social purpose.