The Pursuit of Knowledge & The Arts:
How It Effects Members In A Society
OBSERVE.
Just think about everything you see and hear everyday: Cars going by, signs and markings on the road, the statues and street lanterns, grafitti on the wall, advertisements on the bus, the cover of your CD, the sounds of your favorite artist or band, the buildings that you see outside the window; your MP3 player and all the wireless phones you ever had, the clothes you wear, the style of sneakers on your feet, the glasses that you wear. or the shape and style of your knapsack--that cool logo for your group on the button that dangles from your bag . . .
If you are religious, imagine all of the icons that play a part in your worship: the sculpture or symbol of God, the depiction of angels, scenes from verses in scripture, the symbolism and style of the text itself' on the cover of the Holy Book, the gold or silver embossing or leafing on the cover--the goblets, the benches or pews, the color of the rug leading to the altar--if you are Baptist or Catholic you might visualize the stain-glass windows; the objects for sacrament, the robe of the priests, or the garments of the officials in any religion and their mystic symbols. . .
Or if you are at home, just look around at the objects: the style of the couch and the television's appearamce; the surrounding furniture and table; the color of the rug; the logo and photos on the newspaper or advertisement for your soft drink; the theme song of your show; moods being created by the background music; the bric-a brac on the wall, the vase near the door, the cover of various books on the shelf and magazines--the comics on the table, or the show that you are watching--then imagine all these images and designs gone! That would be a little bit like how it would be, in a world without the influence of art or artists.
This is how art impacts upon the world. Designs, blueprints, melodies, stage performances, acting, and much much more are produced by artists. Next to the Supreme One who is referred to as the Creator and Grand Architect, artist are the world's image makers. Artist create things that others can identify to--evoke feelings from the work that they do. How things appear and sound and operate are greatly influenced by artists. The shades of color, the mood several notes make--what is secular, what is religious--you guessed it; all influenced by artists. Through the use of symbolic imagery, an artist delivers "pictures" for others to digest; moods to conduct or influence how others feel; evoke responses; or make people feel warm, needed and a part of: they can also evoke the foulest of feelings (as poets, playwrights, and writers often do). As a matter of fact, all art is supposed to evoke or solicit feelings and involvement. Art plays a crucial role in the image of a society: its fashions, architecture, interior design, how it illustrates its books, the graphics it uses to tell a story, the story being told, the actors who perform it--right down to the use of color, style and size of type that symbolically represents it; A picture is worth a thousand words they say. "And Every picture Tells A Story, don't it?" Well so says Rod Stewart. . . Art delivers the moral of the story.
Artist are part of the cultural matrix. All of society's cultural values, its' folklore, traditions, sacred aspects and taboos are at the artist's disposal. The artist in society utilize society members' own imagination to boost themselves--to teach its' members have faith in what they believe. They illustrate to others how things can be, and help others to visualize where they want society to be. They use their imagination to bring you some of the most fantastic ways to instill cultural and moral values to your children. Artists bring things to life within the conscious realm of their audiences. Artist illustrate and/ or manifest things to represent how conditions are (or will be)--and how conditions are, are greatly influenced by the artists, the world trends in general, and government you live under. They also create fictional works to symbolize affairs that need our immediate attention (like that Black man called Aesop through his fables), as well as give us worlds of fantasy, relaxation, and cultural inspiration--and as well as--aspirational development .
Forget what the West taught us concerning "Art for Art Sake." All art is social, political, or economical--no artistic piece is done without delivering a message. The rich in American society will always finance diversions for the common man (it helps to anesthetize and pacify the crowd): You will always have your favorite heart throbs, most favorite movies, strongest super heroes (in which you can vicariously live through)--you will always have your Lil Waynes and Nicki Minaj-es. . . And in five to ten years you will be provided with something or someone total different from that, to lead you on further into the direction that the rich (slave-makers) want to lead you. Art sets trends, fads, normalcy and revolutions. Art gives us insights into the temporal world in which we live.
On a side note, I just watched a movie called Guilty By Suspicion, starring Robert De Niro as David Merrill--a popular Hollywood filmmaker/director who got caught up in the whirlwind of the McCarthy era. What I mean in particular, is the harassment imposed by the House (of Congress) Un-American Activities Committee. It is hard to imagine the paranoia experienced by the government and its' citizens during the 1950's, now-a-days--but there it is (courtesy of Irwin Winkler) in Black & White! This era was known as the Second Red Scare, characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions. What I found very interesting about this movie, is that this movie incorporated the government's beliefs vs. the beliefs of its' citizens-- the traditional American structure, the movie industry, and the society's own growth and development. The other point is, it didn't include Blacks (as a people). As a matter of fact, No Blacks were hurt or killed in the making of this film (please excuse my tongue-in-cheek humor--hee hee).
As America looks back on its' past--it's law makers, congressmen (and congress women), major industry big-wigs and its' citizens--for certain--many of them should have plenty of regrets for what they did, how they acted towards certain members of their own society. . . But in all fairness, a lot of what was done, was executed out of a psychologically immature mindset--which is hard for the world to imagine today: But if you read slave narratives and abolitionist accounts of their respective time periods, you would have the same impression about its' people as you have for the Second Red Scare: It kind of reminds me of the Richard Pryor comedic exploits on attempting to be a boxer: " [He] came out at the bell, beating [himself] up. I said, well he don't give a f*#k about me. . . he's kicking his own a**. . ." Then I said to myself, "If America Whites can do these things to its' own people, how in the hell can we trust them to be fair. . ."
All reality gets interpreted: Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. The eye receives transmissions of light through the optic nerve and then has to let the brain make sense of it all. Your eye does not take the object in within itself--it produces a facsimile (as a matter of fact the image the optic nerve receives is upside down). The artist, on the other hand, tells you how the object feels, how to interpret what you perceive. . . The ear receives pounding on the ear drum and hairs aligning the canal--and this too gets interpreted by the brain: but musicians evoke moods by note, tempo, and spacing--chords, syncopation, melody, and orchestration--by putting the net result into the air--which in turn, temporarily reaches the ear to form a more permanent mental picture in the mind of the beholder; especially when accompanied by a singer who's lyrics are arranged by spacing and word projections sung in notes. The ear receives, but it is in the sphere of the things in which we are aware of, that the symbolic imagery projected at you gets interpreted (through your keen reasoning ability). Your sphere of awareness allows you to get the message and make sense of it all. But don't worry, I'm sure another artist will come up with some brand new thing to confuse you all over again. . . and again...
Forget what the West taught us concerning "Art for Art Sake." All art is social, political, or economical--no artistic piece is done without delivering a message. The rich in American society will always finance diversions for the common man (it helps to anesthetize and pacify the crowd): You will always have your favorite heart throbs, most favorite movies, strongest super heroes (in which you can vicariously live through)--you will always have your Lil Waynes and Nicki Minaj-es. . . And in five to ten years you will be provided with something or someone total different from that, to lead you on further into the direction that the rich (slave-makers) want to lead you. Art sets trends, fads, normalcy and revolutions. Art gives us insights into the temporal world in which we live.
On a side note, I just watched a movie called Guilty By Suspicion, starring Robert De Niro as David Merrill--a popular Hollywood filmmaker/director who got caught up in the whirlwind of the McCarthy era. What I mean in particular, is the harassment imposed by the House (of Congress) Un-American Activities Committee. It is hard to imagine the paranoia experienced by the government and its' citizens during the 1950's, now-a-days--but there it is (courtesy of Irwin Winkler) in Black & White! This era was known as the Second Red Scare, characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions. What I found very interesting about this movie, is that this movie incorporated the government's beliefs vs. the beliefs of its' citizens-- the traditional American structure, the movie industry, and the society's own growth and development. The other point is, it didn't include Blacks (as a people). As a matter of fact, No Blacks were hurt or killed in the making of this film (please excuse my tongue-in-cheek humor--hee hee).
As America looks back on its' past--it's law makers, congressmen (and congress women), major industry big-wigs and its' citizens--for certain--many of them should have plenty of regrets for what they did, how they acted towards certain members of their own society. . . But in all fairness, a lot of what was done, was executed out of a psychologically immature mindset--which is hard for the world to imagine today: But if you read slave narratives and abolitionist accounts of their respective time periods, you would have the same impression about its' people as you have for the Second Red Scare: It kind of reminds me of the Richard Pryor comedic exploits on attempting to be a boxer: " [He] came out at the bell, beating [himself] up. I said, well he don't give a f*#k about me. . . he's kicking his own a**. . ." Then I said to myself, "If America Whites can do these things to its' own people, how in the hell can we trust them to be fair. . ."
All reality gets interpreted: Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. The eye receives transmissions of light through the optic nerve and then has to let the brain make sense of it all. Your eye does not take the object in within itself--it produces a facsimile (as a matter of fact the image the optic nerve receives is upside down). The artist, on the other hand, tells you how the object feels, how to interpret what you perceive. . . The ear receives pounding on the ear drum and hairs aligning the canal--and this too gets interpreted by the brain: but musicians evoke moods by note, tempo, and spacing--chords, syncopation, melody, and orchestration--by putting the net result into the air--which in turn, temporarily reaches the ear to form a more permanent mental picture in the mind of the beholder; especially when accompanied by a singer who's lyrics are arranged by spacing and word projections sung in notes. The ear receives, but it is in the sphere of the things in which we are aware of, that the symbolic imagery projected at you gets interpreted (through your keen reasoning ability). Your sphere of awareness allows you to get the message and make sense of it all. But don't worry, I'm sure another artist will come up with some brand new thing to confuse you all over again. . . and again...
One may have a product in mind, but it takes an artist to bring it to life, that is--so that your ideas can be shared with others. A building can be discussed, but it must be designed, its balance figured out (if it is to last). Clothes are developed through the imagination first. In fact, all that we do employs the imagination; which in that sense equals design. You have to figure out and imagine yourself as in the world--in order to successfully be what you see. . . We develop through the artist's imagination and projections, the cultural community, as well as, the arts and the humanities. The playwright may write the film, the actors may enact it, but it is the audience which helps it take real effect--maybe even inspiring books or other forms of creativity from other artists and the audience as well.
Artists create the image to sell the concept to the people. An artist's work embodies the feel of the concept through the symbolic representation of that work. In other words, when I draw a tree, you are not seeing that tree, but the symbolic representation of darkness and light, shadow, distance, and perspective, texture, tonality and color--it's hardness and softness. Artist use techniques in order to have you use your imagination to feel what they feel: Artist deliver messages in a Morse code sort of way.
The Church and the Kings of Europe commissioned musicians to write Classical music compositions to glorify God's majesty in symbolic musical form. They commissioned sculptors, fine artists, architects, craftsmen and stone masons to build objects of worship--so the devotee may go and receive the concept and feeling of piety. Product producers spend millions upon millions for artist to create a certain appearance and feel for the object to be sold. Television viewers are entertained by the type of "TV Programing," produced by the sponsors, the rich men behind television (like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Artists are the image makers of society and when I say artists--I mean musicians and writers as well.
The artist must have reference material, and that reference material is what is known of the subject that the artist attempts to illustrate--whether visual, written or informed. Everyone needs to be informed in order to make intelligent decisions. This is where education, information and the pursuit of knowledge comes in. The education of a society is done through scholarly work and journalism. Journalism is sort of your rapid fire current event medium. This too is where the facts get interpreted and also spun by spin doctors. If one is to get the truth out of what they read, one has to develop the sense of being able to read between the lines. We need education and education is and should be taught by informed people, but that information must be filtered by your keen mind and your mind should always be trusted to make these decisions for yourself. Never think that you are not smart enough, for you can always get smarter if you will yourself to.
If you survey the past and present of American society, you know that so-called individualism is nothing new to Caucasian people, America, or the West--the difficulty we have as a people is our Black youth have picked up on the White man's egocentric ways; The ways that have your parents paying your way through college, while you put them in an old folks home when you get older. The ways that counts relationships by days rather than years. The ways that never brings people in real close--because it is all about you and what you can get from others. Dog eat dog world. Nowadays, It's all about arrangements--not relationships--real businessmen travel light. No room for extra baggage. Real caring can lead to heart attacks. Real "Cad"-berry, huh? You bet! All taking and little to no giving.
I heard the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney say, "Rich people can take care of themselves," in the first candidates debate with President Obama. Romney said this, as if to say, the rest of us folks need to fend for ourselves in the current recession--he has no plans to assist! And this is coming from a want-to-be president! Quietly as it is kept, there is only the rich, those who work for a living and the poor. The business man who works for himself and is considered the true middle-class are few and far between, most of us are either rich or very near rich (true bourgeois), working class poor or poverty level. That statement by Romney was ignorant and those who consider themselves as conservatives should stop fooling themselves into thinking Romney was including you. These kind are the kind of people that most of us work for: The kind who will downsize their company, when they can't buy another limo or a Jag--no matter how many of their workers have families to support! We must learn to identify these insensitive types, for they have no sense of others.
And in these tough times, when we are feeling the stranglehold of gas prices--this candidate reminds us that the rich can afford to import gas (and consume it) at the obvious high-price and they are the people he is concerned with: He has no concern with the so-called middle class or working class: rich slave-makers that they are, and the ones Blacks still work for. Shackles removed and without a cent, my ancestors were forced to return back to the ones who stole their labor without compensation or pension. "Get yer own," is what Romney implies, and that statement was received with the audience's applause! Yes, we do need to get our own, but the ruling class needs to tell the truth: The American public doesn't really want anyone to cut out the middle man--that's a multi-million dollar industry and the backbone of Western enterprise: trade between classes: Capitalism; free enterprise: Yankee-ism.
The most ironic scene to me is to watch an ego-centered person walk into a library of literally billions of literary contributors and not get the hint or sense that he too must contribute to family and society at large! Equally that, he or she finds nothing wrong with that view. Good or bad (as is the case with common sense) is relative to the upbringing and the culture(s) which produced it. This is why I stressed, in the previous article, to always quiz anyone you mob around with to make sure you are on the same page in terms of ideology and policy. It is quite possible that the other person might not have the same sense of right and wrong as you do. A lot of what you do depends on the conditions you were raised and your response to it. A persons way of having a dinner out in the woods is different than the person who is eating at the dinning room table. Not better or worst, just different. Therefore you must know the policies of everyone around you, since there really isn't a since of "We" without it. In the example of the dining man in the house and the man in the field--you could be looking at things in two entirely different ways. But diligence is in making sure you two see "eye to eye," ensures that both parties are heading down the same or similar roads:
"Help me, I think I'm falling in love with you; are you going to let me go thereArtists create the image to sell the concept to the people. An artist's work embodies the feel of the concept through the symbolic representation of that work. In other words, when I draw a tree, you are not seeing that tree, but the symbolic representation of darkness and light, shadow, distance, and perspective, texture, tonality and color--it's hardness and softness. Artist use techniques in order to have you use your imagination to feel what they feel: Artist deliver messages in a Morse code sort of way.
The Church and the Kings of Europe commissioned musicians to write Classical music compositions to glorify God's majesty in symbolic musical form. They commissioned sculptors, fine artists, architects, craftsmen and stone masons to build objects of worship--so the devotee may go and receive the concept and feeling of piety. Product producers spend millions upon millions for artist to create a certain appearance and feel for the object to be sold. Television viewers are entertained by the type of "TV Programing," produced by the sponsors, the rich men behind television (like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Artists are the image makers of society and when I say artists--I mean musicians and writers as well.
The artist must have reference material, and that reference material is what is known of the subject that the artist attempts to illustrate--whether visual, written or informed. Everyone needs to be informed in order to make intelligent decisions. This is where education, information and the pursuit of knowledge comes in. The education of a society is done through scholarly work and journalism. Journalism is sort of your rapid fire current event medium. This too is where the facts get interpreted and also spun by spin doctors. If one is to get the truth out of what they read, one has to develop the sense of being able to read between the lines. We need education and education is and should be taught by informed people, but that information must be filtered by your keen mind and your mind should always be trusted to make these decisions for yourself. Never think that you are not smart enough, for you can always get smarter if you will yourself to.
If you survey the past and present of American society, you know that so-called individualism is nothing new to Caucasian people, America, or the West--the difficulty we have as a people is our Black youth have picked up on the White man's egocentric ways; The ways that have your parents paying your way through college, while you put them in an old folks home when you get older. The ways that counts relationships by days rather than years. The ways that never brings people in real close--because it is all about you and what you can get from others. Dog eat dog world. Nowadays, It's all about arrangements--not relationships--real businessmen travel light. No room for extra baggage. Real caring can lead to heart attacks. Real "Cad"-berry, huh? You bet! All taking and little to no giving.
I heard the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney say, "Rich people can take care of themselves," in the first candidates debate with President Obama. Romney said this, as if to say, the rest of us folks need to fend for ourselves in the current recession--he has no plans to assist! And this is coming from a want-to-be president! Quietly as it is kept, there is only the rich, those who work for a living and the poor. The business man who works for himself and is considered the true middle-class are few and far between, most of us are either rich or very near rich (true bourgeois), working class poor or poverty level. That statement by Romney was ignorant and those who consider themselves as conservatives should stop fooling themselves into thinking Romney was including you. These kind are the kind of people that most of us work for: The kind who will downsize their company, when they can't buy another limo or a Jag--no matter how many of their workers have families to support! We must learn to identify these insensitive types, for they have no sense of others.
And in these tough times, when we are feeling the stranglehold of gas prices--this candidate reminds us that the rich can afford to import gas (and consume it) at the obvious high-price and they are the people he is concerned with: He has no concern with the so-called middle class or working class: rich slave-makers that they are, and the ones Blacks still work for. Shackles removed and without a cent, my ancestors were forced to return back to the ones who stole their labor without compensation or pension. "Get yer own," is what Romney implies, and that statement was received with the audience's applause! Yes, we do need to get our own, but the ruling class needs to tell the truth: The American public doesn't really want anyone to cut out the middle man--that's a multi-million dollar industry and the backbone of Western enterprise: trade between classes: Capitalism; free enterprise: Yankee-ism.
The most ironic scene to me is to watch an ego-centered person walk into a library of literally billions of literary contributors and not get the hint or sense that he too must contribute to family and society at large! Equally that, he or she finds nothing wrong with that view. Good or bad (as is the case with common sense) is relative to the upbringing and the culture(s) which produced it. This is why I stressed, in the previous article, to always quiz anyone you mob around with to make sure you are on the same page in terms of ideology and policy. It is quite possible that the other person might not have the same sense of right and wrong as you do. A lot of what you do depends on the conditions you were raised and your response to it. A persons way of having a dinner out in the woods is different than the person who is eating at the dinning room table. Not better or worst, just different. Therefore you must know the policies of everyone around you, since there really isn't a since of "We" without it. In the example of the dining man in the house and the man in the field--you could be looking at things in two entirely different ways. But diligence is in making sure you two see "eye to eye," ensures that both parties are heading down the same or similar roads:
by myself? It's just a lonely thing to do: Although we've been flirting around,
hurting and flirting too. We love our loving--but not like we love our freedom."
-- Joni Mitchell's song "Help Me"
A sense of belonging happens when you coincide with others, it forms bonds and solidifies a reciprocal relationship. A sense of "We" develops--and that happens because of similar policies and ideas. You have to discuss things and find out the other persons ideas and opinions, to have a sense of whether you have a partner or not. Otherwise, you may quickly become estranged because of a difference in customary ways. Often people pretend to be down, when they really aren't--simply because there is an opportunity for success and fortune. Many times, these type of people may accuse you of some form of unfairness, merely to get some type of advantage on your enterprising--i.e. positioning you or using you out of some sense of obligation. In the above poem, you can see that same attitude as the ego-centered person in the library episode: But once again beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you want the world to turn about you, you must be part of the world--roll up your sleeves and play your part in the growth and development of others. "Don't surround yourself with yourself, move on back a square." _--Jon Anderson and Yes, from the song, "Your Move."
Scholarly work is the attempt of the society to present its subjects with knowledge and factual material in which to form their hypothesis and ideas, but as unprejudice as this approach may attempt to be, one must always watch out for the bias of the authors themselves. Books of various kinds are kept within various libraries--both public and private. There are information highways like the Internet and Information Technologies, to help bridge the gap between the informed and uninformed to provide knowledge and research material. Knowledge means to know and to know you must have knowledge and awareness of what is true. As I said, people may attempt to deliver the truth but as unprejudice as the attempt may be, there is always the possibility of human flaw and error. Don't believe everything you read. "You must learn to read between the lines."
Thanks for reading. Hope you share your comments.
Peace and Blessings,
C. Be'erla Hai-roi Myers
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