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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

Art and Propaganda « Previous | |Next »
March 9, 2004

Gary is away in Canberra so it’s up to me to keep the punters interested this week. I thought I’d take up the issue raised by Gary in his last contribution and to which I replied in a rather knee-jerk way yesterday.

Here’s the cartoon that caused all the kafuffle:
CartoonBrownaph.jpg
Dave Brown

It is by Dave Brown and it doesn’t paint Sharon and Likud in a very good light. You have to extrapolate from there if you want to see it also painting Israelis or Jews in a bad light. Lots of people don’t like Brown’s cartoon, almost all of Gary’s respondents anyway. I could go on analysing it but I don’t want to upset the troops any more than they’re already upset so I won’t, although I will make some brief points in concluding.

I’ll begin by saying some things about art and propaganda. I’m with Adorno on art. Art is a windowless monad. The idea of a monad comes from Leibniz via Benjamin. In the Trauerspiel book (p. 47) Benjamin writes of an idea as ‘an indistinct abbreviation of the rest of the world of ideas, just as, according to Liebniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics (1686), every single monad contains, in an indistinct way, all the others. The idea is a monad – the pre-established representation of phenomena resides within it, as in their objective interpretation.’

If I use Klossowski’s ideas, which I’ve already discussed (14 January, Klossowski on Art), it might help to clarify the idea of a monad. Klossowski said that artworks were simulacra, the expression of some instinctual obsession and intersubjectively meaningless. The code of everyday signs is made up of simulacra that have become detached from their instinctual basis. Elements of the code that take on a symbolic function have become stereotypes. In works of art the instinctual obsessions are expressed through the vehicle of stereotypes, which is why they seem to be intersubjectively communicable. They’re not just meaningless splashes of colour and unrecognisable form. Indeed, they are very specific. The stereotypes of the nineteenth century weren't much use in the art of the twentieth century. Artworks can be seen as a consequence of the struggle between the instincts and the specific stereotypes of an era. It is in this sense that, to quote Benjamin again, ‘every idea contains an image of the world’ (p. 48).

What Adorno added to this was the notion that artworks, at least the modernist ones, do not look out at this world. They are not models of society because they comment on, say, the current Israeli situation. Rather, they are inward-looking, concerned with form, with the tradition to that point, and this is the source of the struggle between the instincts and the stereotypes.

The dialectic of art is an internal dialectic in this sense, but its products, that is the artworks themselves, are representations of the world out there, including all the blood and guts stuff. That is why artworks are windowless monads. They don’t look through the window because there isn’t one, and so unlike Dave Brown the artist never sees a window of opportunity – it’s a horrible phrase and I am ashamed to use it because of its fascist-speak connotations but it makes the point.

To all you supporters of Zion out there who think that Dave Brown’s cartoon is propaganda I’ll say this: you are completely right. It’s not art, even if it is well-drawn, or powerful, or deeply offensive, or all three. The point is, these are all properties of artworks and other things. Cartoons are other things. In fact, they are propaganda. Gary wrote that cartoons like this ‘show just how powerful images are in political argument’. They shouldn’t be. It all goes to show the low standard of political argument. In fact, I don’t think they have arguments in politics in any real sense. The thing that’s keeping Gary from contributing to Philosophical Conversations is a circus, or better, a theatre but not a forum of debate. Where does this leave the powerful and offensive cartoons? It’s a good question.

Dave Brown’s image is like Goebbels’ images, as one of Gary’s respondents has claimed, but it is also like John Heartfield’s anti-Nazi images of the 1920s and thirties. Truth is not a criterion here. Goebbels might have accurately portrayed some Jew doing something reprehensible but that is not the point. Unlike the art image, whether true or false, the propaganda image aims to persuade. Propaganda is about persuasion and art is about truth, and never the two shall meet, whether it’s Heartfield, Goebbels or Brown who is trying to be persuasive.

One more point: Brown’s image is of Likud, Goebbels’ is of ‘the Jew’, Heartfield’s are of ‘the Nazi’. There is as little reason for considering Brown anti-Semitic on this score as there is for considering Heartfield anti-German. Brown’s propaganda is anti-Likud propaganda, just as Heartfield’s was anti-Nazi propaganda – let’s call it by its proper name. Lots of Likud’s supporters aren’t Jews and lots of Jews aren’t Likud supporters. Someone should point this out to George F. Will. An anti-Semite is someone who aims to persuade others to turn against Jews and Muslims. Brown’s aim is to get people to turn against Likud.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing. Well, it all depends on the available alternatives. The trouble with the political circus in Israel is the same as the trouble with the political circus in Australia: essentially, we only get to choose between different groups of representatives of corporate interests. In Australia, ‘ATSIC’ is an acronym for ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission’ although an Aborigine I once met in Melbourne told me that it really stood for ‘Aborigines talking bullshit in Canberra’. Perhaps it’s time to broaden the scope of the acronym to mean ‘Australians talking bullshit in Canberra’. The problem is not just Likud. The problem is corporatism in the public sphere, and corporatism in the public sphere is fascism.

| Posted by at 11:55 AM | | Comments (2)
Comments

Comments

One thing the cartoon brings to mind is Sharon rolling around on the beach only in swimming trunks, accompanied by another minister to be, on the front page of a newspaper a few days before the election that brought him to power. "We'll have fun" seemed to be the message, as well as "I will take my clothes off to achieve power". I remember the refrain in England ages ago that the right knows how to use images. Just dropping in actually chasing knowledge about Adorno's Windowless Monads.

I would prefer if you don't publish my email with the previous comment; mark