Platonic Dialogue

 

 

'Don't you agree, Isnor, that an education in literature and the visual arts is a tremendously dangerous thing for a practitioner in either of those fields ?'

'I am certain I do not know.'

'Well, let me put it to you thus: Have you benefited at all from your education in those arenas?'

'In some ways yes, in some ways no.'

'Let us begin, then, with the yeses. In what ways, Isnor, have you been benefited?'

'Well, let me think for a moment...I suppose the biggest benefit has been the realization that, because other artists and writers don't appear to try very hard, I do not have to try very hard in my practice as an artist or writer either.'

'And you think this has been useful to your own well-being and to the well-being of the Republic?'

'I...I am not sure, Emily. It has lifted a burden from my shoulders indeed, but as to the well being of the Republic...I am afraid it is not of benefit.'

'No, indeed I would say it is not to the good of our countrymen and women. And consider this: when you do see or hear a work of great glory, which has elevated the general level of society, how does it make you feel about the prospect of you yourself making such glorious works, which in turn will guide the citizenry toward Truth and Goodness?'

'Ah, I see what you are getting at. It makes me feel very bad, very bad and hopeless.'

"Yes? And can you identify the mechanism whereby this bad feeling is transmitted?'

'No, Emily, I cannot.'

'Do you think it springs from within you? Do you think this feeling of badness is innate?'

'Well, no, because it is a feeling which arises only under certain conditions.'

'And these conditions have to do with being in society, a social subject, rather than with thinking or feeling independently of society?"

'Absolutely.'

'So it would be fair to say that these feelings of badness and hopelessness are the product of our current society?'

'Yes, that would be a logical assertion.'

'Now, can you be more specific about these feelings--perhaps by describing the emotional chain of events that leads you to them?'

'Of course. Now let me situate myself...I am either in the classroom or the library--let me confine myself to the study of poetry here, if I may--'

'You may, for the sake of simplicity'

'Thank-you Emily--I am in the class room or the library, reading say, the work of John Berryman, and I feel first a flood of identification, which could possibly also be described as 'love'; then of admiration; then a sense of the one-sided nature of the relationship; then a flush of resentment; then inadequacy or badness; and finally hopelessness or worthlessness."

'Ah, yes Isnor. I understand and empthise.'

'Thank-you for your Goodness and Grace, Emily.'

'Now, can you tell me what the foremost myth in our society is?'

'I can indeed. In every arena--Science and Medicine, Sport, Industry and Commerce, our foremost tenant is betterment and progress.'

'You did not give the Arts a place in your list, nor Education. Do they not belong there?'

'On the contrary. In those fields as much as in any of the others progress is the favorite myth.'

'Now, do you feel that the myth of progress has anything to do with your chain of response to a great work of art? Do you feel that it is not enough for you to merely express Truth, but that you must express it in such a way that more people are moved more deeply that they have been by what has come before?'

'I do! I do feel that!'

'And do you think that those feelings you have described--bitterness, envy, low-self esteem--do you think they will contribute to the harmonious functioning of the Republic?

How could they? They will only serve to undermine its goals.'

'I could not agree more wholeheartedly. And does it not stand to reason that if artists and writers feel this way upon receiving an education in the Arts, that the other citizens of the Republic would feel the same way?

'Most assuredly so.'

'Then shall we call the subject closed, Isnor, and decide that we have reached the conclusion that no education in the Arts shall be included in the cirriculum of the Republic?'

'I think we may safely make such a declaration.

 

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