Published on Saturday, February 6, 2021 by Agitator Co-operative

Art: A Way Out of Nihilism

by Josh Mei, Agitator member

What is the role of art and the artist during these turbulent times? If you are an artist or a supporter of the arts, and if you asked yourself this question time and again over the past four long years, then I would tell you: you are not alone. America recently survived a right-wing extremist coup on January 6, 2021, the world is still fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and the uphill battles seem to be never-ending. Feeling despair, angst, and powerlessness is normal and, I think, necessary for us to become stronger and better people. Along with the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, I argue that nihilism is still a great threat to our time, and we must overcome it.

What is nihilism? According to the philosopher Albert Camus, nihilism is not so much the belief in nothing; rather, it is not believing in anything. His formulation of the elusive concept is helpful in two ways. First, nihilism does not have something for us to believe in. Second, nihilism is an act of not believing. And the behavior seems to be pervasive in American society. This is no surprise, given the vast amount of information (and misinformation) we consume daily. Thus it is challenging to even determine the truth without constantly second-guessing what the media present to us. This culture of doubt can potentially translate into nihilistic behaviors, into not believing in ourselves, in our abilities, or in the work we do. 

My proposition for us, as artists and supporters of the arts, is to understand why art is important, as well as the many possibilities art can offer, to give meaning and significance again to the things we do. After all, a painting is not just pretty colors on a canvas. There is so much more to it than that. In what follows, I will discuss briefly the ideas of two philosophers regarding art, beginning with Aristotle. In Poetics, Aristotle had a high regard for art, in this case poetry:

The difference [between the historian and the poet] is that the one tells of what has happened, the other of the kinds of things that might happen. For this reason poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars. (68-69)

Of course, I do not underestimate the power of studying history, for to understand the present and to prepare for the future we must learn from the past; however, history in this respect is limited to knowing what was and what is, but not exactly what potentially could be. And artists can “know” this with the creation of possible worlds and kinds of people they wish to see through visual art, music, literature, etc., and their works can without a doubt inspire experiencers of their works to feel, think, and behave differently, even if it means imitating the good qualities of characters in Greek tragedies, according to Aristotle.

For example, recently I have been watching the Hong Kong television series The Rise and Fall of Qing Dynasty with my mom during her days off. The series chronicles the lives of the founders and emperors of China’s Qing dynasty. Although it is based on history, it is also undoubtedly a conglomerate of folklore and the writers’ imagination. In one instance, the Yongzheng Emperor, who was ethnically Manchu, contemplates whether it is morally and ethically acceptable for his son, who is revealed to be not only not his biological son, but also Han Chinese, to succeed him as emperor. It was considered the norm for dynasties in China to be of the same, “pure” bloodline. In this case, having his adopted son succeed him disrupts the traditional Manchu bloodline and essentially transfers power over to somebody not in the emperor’s biological family, an outsider. The Yongzheng Emperor reflects deeply on this dilemma, and he eventually comes to the conclusion that one’s ability to govern prevails over one’s ethnic and biological origins. Thus he names his adopted son as his successor, the future Qianlong Emperor. Interestingly, this thought-provoking arc highlights the issues with identity politics and their relevance even in our lives today. As important it is to consider one’s social identities (e.g., race, class, gender, etc.) in the roles people play in society, it is, I think, equally crucial to not lose sight of their merits and abilities in determining whether they are well-suited for those roles. Of course, there are no easy answers to these concerns, and they are worthy of further thought and discussion.

Now suppose art lost its magic to edify experiencers, or artists do not create art to make the experiencers of their works better people in apparent ways. Should we surrender to art for art’s sake, then? Nietzsche did not think so. In the aphorism titled “L’art pour l’art” in Twilight of the Idols, he wrote:

When the purpose of moral preaching and of improving man has been excluded from art, it still does not follow by any means that art is altogether purposeless, aimless, senseless. . . . A psychologist . . . asks: what does all art do? does it not praise? glorify? choose? prefer? With all this it strengthens or weakens certain valuations. (529)

We see here that Nietzsche thought art is purposeful in its ability to praise, glorify, choose, and prefer things. It could be an artist’s liking of something and thinking it worthwhile to share their perspective of it with the world. Nietzsche called this attitude “the desirability of life,” and art “the great stimulus to life” (529).

But it is not only the good that Nietzsche thought artists have preference to depict, but also the bad: “[Art] also makes apparent much that is ugly, hard, and questionable to life” (529). The very fact that some artists choose to do this with their art shows that art is capable of facing reality directly, no matter its lack of beauty and glory, no matter its lack of a utopian vision. Far from the denial of life as nihilism is, art is the affirmation of it, a love of fate. And Nietzsche praised the tragic artist thus: 

What does the tragic artist communicate of himself? Is it not precisely the state without fear in the face of the fearful and questionable that he is showing? This state itself is a great desideratum. . . . Courage and freedom of feeling before a powerful enemy, before a sublime calamity, before a problem that arouses dread—this triumphant state is what the tragic artist chooses, what he glorifies. (530)

Even if an artist depicts life’s bleakness and misfortunes in their own works, their works are still nonetheless praiseworthy according to Nietzsche because they reflect the artist’s own state of the absence of fear, dread, and powerlessness. This, I think, is worthy of imitation as well.

My creation of the recent piece amor fati mei shown in the beginning of this article is a reaction to the ideas of Nietzsche in his aforementioned aphorism. The title translates to “the love of my fate,” and the use of various depictions of Greek mythological figures represents not only misfortune, loss, and reality’s ugliness in my life experiences, but also having persistence and hope in the face of these (sometimes absurd) obstacles. Above all, my use of a color palette full of saturated colors was intended to convey the idea that we should love our fates and what life and others have thrown at us. This is not simply an optimistic attitude, an acceptance of misfortune, or succumbing to fatalism; rather, it is having the courage to see what is there and to act upon it based on the meanings it has on us.

Now, let’s return to our original question: what is the role of art and artists during these turbulent times? If we can summarize it all into one sentence, then it would be: The role of art and artists during these turbulent times is to improve people’s character, to create better worlds, and to look at the one we know without fear. Whether or not people and the world will change for the better is a separate discussion (and I think the answer is yes, albeit not immediately), but if the potential is there, then we should still give it a try despite the discouraging words of our inner voices and others. Sometimes, we just need to take a leap of faith.

References

Aristotle. Poetics. In Classical Literary Criticism. Translated by T. S. Dorsch and Penelope Murray. Penguin Books, 2004. 

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. In The Portable Nietzsche. Edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann. Penguin Books, 1976.