Some Ideas on the Social Role of Art

by Ardea Skybreak

Revolutionary Worker #1117, September 2, 2001, posted at http://rwor.org:

In general a deeper sense of the distinction of politics and ideology as pertains to art should help us to more correctly assess the social impact of any given work, including works from the past, other classes, various cultures, etc. All works of art, of all times, continue to have some social significance, if only because they are part of our historical legacy, snapshots reflecting the interests of various social forces and recording the continuity and ruptures of our social life through time. And in that sense it is never true that there is nothing to be learned from a particular work.
Most works of art (and most scientific works as well) do not maintain great social impact over long periods of time, and eventually fade into obscurity. (And of course some never have much impact to start with!) This is not primarily because society can't absorb the growing stores of artwork in some kind of quantitative sense, or because the new banishes the old in some absolute sense. It is because the social relevance (to resurrect a useful phrase from the '60s!) of a particular work-including its aesthetic impact-on different social forces, in different social contexts, will change.
Vanguard and visionary art that was deemed "too radical" and outrageously controversial in an earlier time may become broadly accepted, or even be co-opted by its former detractors, when overall societal conditions change. In addition, the sphere of art, as well as other spheres of human activity, is littered with "experiments that failed" (at least ultimately) and pathways that led to dead-ends, regardless of how "important" or "successful" they may have appeared to be in their times. Then again, some works of art from other historical periods, or produced by classes which are no longer vanguard social forces, may maintain "social relevance" even if the content of that social relevance is no longer exactly the same.
Of course it is not just the social characteristics of the art which ensure its preservation: after all, barring some instance of cataclysmic destruction, it would have been difficult for the awe-inspiring pyramids of Teotihuacan to "vanish from view," whereas ancient scrolls or bark paintings for instance would be much less likely to survive the passage of time, regardless of their social characteristics! But such obvious differences aside (and including the fact that contending social forces also have sought to suppress and eradicate art works deemed to concentrate opposing ideologies) it seems that some works maintain great social relevance in large part because of their high level of artistic standards, their "power" as art, meaning by that primarily their ability to sharply capture, concentrate and typify some contradictions in nature or society, returning them to society on a higher level, "nearer the ideal."
Such powerful works of art, which of course may be more or less in line with various social interests at any given time, become part of our global social experience as human beings-chroniclers and purveyors of that historic legacy-and this, I suspect, is why they can be drawn on ideologically and appreciated aesthetically (although usually in very different ways and for different reasons, etc.) by even politically opposed contemporary class forces. All this says there is much we can gain from the art of past times or of other social forces, and that it is not necessarily wrong, and often very correct, to deem such art "beautiful" and not just dryly "instructive."
But this doesn't change the fact that we need more than the best of the art of past times and opposing social forces. We need art which corresponds to our own particular social perspectives and interests, and which corresponds to and aids the pursuit of our own social objectives. We need, today, the art of the future-that is, art that calls forth the future. As that Party document (previously referred to) powerfully puts forward, it is part of the magic of art that we can do in this sphere what is not yet realizable in the sphere of material social relations. Lending material expression to our dreams in the form of artistic works will contribute to laying the basis for these fundamental social transformations we aspire to.
Today the bourgeoisie also needs art. It needs art which can contribute to the maintenance of the social (especially political and ideological) status quo, and which fires off missiles against any signs of breaking ranks in either sphere. The proletariat needs just the opposite: art which reflects, portrays and, most importantly, helps to forge, a whole new worldview and outlook corresponding to the interests of what are objectively the vanguard social forces; art which acts as a harbinger of the future, which anticipates and calls forth a whole new social life-and in so doing contributes to its realization.
The problem in the past with much of so-called "proletarian art" is not that attempts were made to create specifically proletarian works, themes and characters, etc., nor that some of those works were declared to be models: the problem was often that the content (and form) of these works did not in fact correspond to the highest historical aspirations of the proletarian class. Perhaps art derives much of its ideological power from the fact that it doesn't have to be "accountable to reality" in the strictest and most immediate sense, but its "departures" from reality should at least serve to distill the complexity and richness of social life and highlight aspects (contradictions) which encourage broad and sweeping vision, which challenge and provoke, call for the casting away of old ideas and so forth...
Certainly all those godawful icon-like pictures and statues of "The Workers" with bulging muscles and a breadth of vision defined by the sweep of their hammers and chisels accomplish none of this! And here it is not just a question of primitiveness (of technique, etc.) but very clearly a question of the influence of an incorrect political line, or incorrect political tendencies, concerning the nature of these aspirations, the means to bring them to light, and so on. The problem is not that "politics is in command" of the art in such cases (it always is-the point is to be more fully conscious in our understanding and application of this basic truth), but that in such cases the politics in command are wrong or flawed.
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