Why to expell the poets? The art in Plato's Republic
“...if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable;” - Plato
Plato's “Republic” is one of those fundamental books of the Western world that managed to have some popular parts. In this book, written around 380 B.C., the most famous piece is the The Allegory of the Cave, but here we're going to explore a less known but also popular part of the socratic dialogues: The expulsion of the poets from the city.
The book is narrated by Socrates in first person. Plato was his pupil but doesn't appear on the narrative, the Republic is divided in 12 books with dialogues debating a lot of themes necessary to lay the ground for a good city.
When it comes to the expulsion of the poets, basically what's in discussion is: what's the appropriate level of autonomy for the art and the poet's speeches? Art should be free from moral, ethical and political restrictions?
In the first book Socrates listen from other people some definitions of Justice, but he ends up questioning all of them and gets to the conclusion that it's good for you to be just and bad to be unjust. Despite that he still don't have a satisfatory definition, as he admits to Thrasymachus.
Not convinced by Socrates arguments, in the second book the other friends keep using the arguments proposed by Thrasymachus. To him there are cases where being just can be a problem and being unjust can offer benefits. However, Socrates believes that they only agree with this because they are looking at city as whole not individually. Furthermore, the city he is proposing depends on a class of guardians to defend the laws and the justice. Then he goes discussing the importance of the education of these soldiers.
The debate gets to a point where they consider the content and the form through which the stories are told. As always, the focus is on the concepts of true and false, justice and injustice:
“Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain—these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite.”
Socrates goes back to the problem of justice, or better, the lack of a definitive concept at this moment in the dialogue:
“That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not.”
Socrates tell Adeimantus that the poets always talk about facts, be they present, past or future. And these informations have to be transmited through simple exposition or imitation. These are the styles and he want to decide which of them is the most suited to the Republic:
“Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any?”
“Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy—did you not just now call them imitations?”
Developing the idea that to imitate is to be influenced, Socrates says:
“Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,—I should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it.”
But the infamous expulsion of the poets isn't necessarily hostile. The fact that the poets doesn't have a place in the Republic isn't related to the use of force or an excuse to violate the customs towards a guest:
“And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city.”
Socrates explains the kind of poets and orators are needed in the Republic:
“For we mean to employ for our souls' health the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers.”
It's hard to define where ends the narrator Socrates and begins the writer Plato, but this book is now beyond the question of authorship, being a essential reading to any intelectual enterprise. There's a lot of historical value, but also a atuality in many of these concepts that, despite the influence of time, still permeate our lives.
Other readings to complement these themes are the discussion about the Death of the Author by Roland Barthes and the views of James Joyce about the effects of the art produced in the Renaissance over the modern man.
I was face to face with the Abaporu and I barely looked at it
“And what can I do with it if in the room there’s a line to take selfies with the painting, if there’s a bulletproof glass between me and the painting and the lights of the gallery prevents me from seeing the canvas?”
Since a small child I learned in school to recognize and value Tarsila do Amaral’s paintings, but they never put me closer to it, I never got closer to it’s huge idealistic pedestal, I wasn’t even told that I could do it. I speak like that because I know that my formative experience is common to most student who some (if any) contact with arts classes in their earlier years
And at August 2nd I got myself face to face with two of her most iconic paintings, Anthropophaghy and Abaporu. It would be dishonest on my behalf if I acted like my academic formation and my artistic interests kept me in the same childish level of innocence/ignorance after all these years. When I got the exposition “The color of Brazil” at the Arte museum of Rio (MAR), it’s wasn’t as a layman, much less as a someone who causally deals with art. I went there very interested in studying the involvement of the visitor and the experience museums proportionate to the public.
With Rio de Janeiro about to host the Olympic Games and the city full of tourists, there in the museum I found the same crowd filled with energy, joy and curiosity. Still, few of them were there due to the exposition opening that day with great brazilian artists displayed, many people walked around these works like they were the same as the others, which do not desserve less attention, but this absence of mind or indifference were na extension of environment. Located in the Mauá Square, now part of the Olympic Boulevard, the public divided itself between the MAR and Museum of Tomorrow in huge lines, maybe without knowing exactly what to expect from these institutions beyond the photos they were about to make with the artworks and the exotic architecture of both the museums.
What’s a museum?
Considering only what’s too obvious makes it easy to blame the public for not paying attention, for being too casual and superficial, however, it’s important to investigate how the museum gets involved in this experience.
Rio Art Museum (MAR).
An interesting starting point is to observe the image and the expected funtion assumed by museums nowadays. The secularization of the western society seems to be connected with the ascension of the museums as they come to have reverenced and meaningful objects and the religions face a symbolic emptying, therefore part of the value atributed to museums comes from a transference of this deep human need, be it psychological or spiritual, which we want solved by a secular art.
The consequence of this art valorization is the elevated status assigned to museums today as holders of a invaluable cultural patrimony and the obscene pricing of these originals hanged in museums and houses and galleries of certain millionaires. Something so important creates a complicated situation for the visitors who want to get closer and actually understand the importance of art to our lives. Complicated because we revere the museum and the things in it, we treasure all those works and we learn that only a few illuminated people can create those incredible objects, but how can we understand Tarsila if we consider her to be so different and superior? How can we dive in Di Cavalcanti’s paintings if we considers ourselves unable to do it because the essential can only be seen by specialists? In the museums the only help comes from these almost catalographic texts explaining the collection the small plates telling us about dates, artist and material.
At the museum, facing the vibrant colors of the huge cannibal I couldn’t care less about year, ink and owner. I see a huge and absurd creature in a simple, almost schematic, environment, with colors I know familiar to my daily life, but also familiar to everything official and canon about Brazil. And what can I do with it if in the room there’s a line to take selfies with the painting, if there’s a bulletproof glass between me and the painting and the lights of the gallery prevents me from seeing the canvas? I wait until they stop taking selfies and leave, but there’s no seat or something like that also, because apparently they didn’t think any viewer may need more time and confort to do a deeper evaluation of the painting.
MAR isn’t a problem, it isn’t about crucifying an individual museum when in reality it’s a pattern. The exhibitions are risking being only this, art showcases, where the most intelligent visitor is the one photographing the small plates, so later he can research about it and find a digital version to analyse, interpet and really bring it to his life and mind routines.
To talk about art
Before going ahead I have to make it clear that I recognize many functions exercised by museums beyond this one I’m discussing. I understand that the museum is also an institution responsible by reasearch, restoration and many other essential cultural and academic activities which by themselves justify the existence of dedicated entities. But if I’m dealing only with the contact of the visitor with the collection it isn’t due to unawareness or to attack a weak spot, it’s because I want to discuss the layman experience and not the museum as a whole. I understand It’s impossible to think the museum without these other aspects, but I’m leaving them to another opportunity.
This “experience” I’m talking about isn’t necessarily attached to any academic limitation. I consider it openly knowing there’s a multiplicity of manners through which we can relate to art, therefore I’m thinking about how to make it possible, independent of the form. I believe this contact happens when art becomes revelant in someone’s life.
An example of this situation is when we feel sad and listen to depressing music which in principle would only deepen the problem, but in reality it help us, through a momento of introspection, to elaborate that feeling because they guide us and work as a meditative framework for the mind. We understand music because in shows we’re allowed to dance, sing, drink and use drugs, there’s no pomposity or reverence before music, we listen it a tour homes and in the bus. It’s true that it may prevent us from completely enjoying it at all times, but we must admit it’s constant presence and familiarity is better than an overly serious approach.
Complexities, obstacles and a light at the end?
The museum, like a cathedral,should prioritize the personal experience and the relationship with the artworks before attempting to become a touristic icon. An example of how to do this is the Rothko Chapel, located in Houston, built with the painter to be a contemplative space now displaying 14 of his black paintings. In the chapel Rothko’s paintings work as tools to create a space able to guide reflection and the visitor’s introspection. The investment to create something more elaborate isn’t necessarily a problem, or shouldn’t be, if we consider that only the Abaporu’s insurance costed almost 300 thousands dollars, according to Jones Bergamin, presidente-director of the Rio Art Stock Exchange.
We still have to discover if museums really are capable of making this change since everything is result of a complex conjuncture raging from economic, cultural and political questions. With na international art market breaking records at auctions, a government using art as a spectacle and the lack of mass art education, it’s no surprise that museums struggle being in the middle of the crossed fire, in one side our huge expectations and in ther other the limitating environment they’re submerged.
While these questions remains open, we must occupy the spaces offering some valuable experiences despite the obstacles. To see art not as something to consume but as something alive we need to get hold of so it don’t become only a museum piece, disponible for selfies. In all it’s weirdness the Abaporu still have a tremendous intensity, of roots, of a growing towards the earth and a serenity profound even for such a powerful figure. If there’s something Tarsila do Amaral taught us is how we are able alone and there’s greatnesse even in the smaller things. It doesn’t matter what’s expected from us, we can always create if we’re brave enough to try,
On pigs and censorship, a declaration of intent
“It's despite this destructive impetus that the selection of ideas pays off and the internet can be the best outcome.”
Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
When we think about evolution and about how genes replicate themselves it's hard not to associate it only with chemistry and biology, but genes are basically information, therefore, evolution is a process which selects the best codes or sets of information. From this it´s possible to find other flows of information present in our daily lives that we usually don't see under evolutionary lights. This other category of information refers to the ideas itself or memes, term created by Richard Dawkins. Here the definition of memes includes but doesn't restrict itself to what the internet understands by meme: viral texts and images. The meme is the smallest functional part of an idea and could, in a rough manner, be considered it's gene.
To cook wasn't always common, hundreds of thousands of years ago a work of genius was to discover that, for example, a pig could be food and probably would be much tastier after cooking. According to the primatologist Richard Wrangham, cooking allowed us, by improving our digestion, to develop our brains to the point they exist today. This meme still exists and was selected for being well adapted and although in this specific case it's a beneficial meme it doesn't mean that any well adapted meme is good for us. History shows us that memes related to slavery, misogyny and racism are also very resilient and hard to be abandoned
Before the invention of writing we had to rely on oral tradition and visual methods like drawings, dances and representations through clothes and masks to preserve and propagate memes. Some memes don't last, others, like the meme of cooking, can last for a long time and just as similar genes can exist in different species also a meme can perpetuate itself on a variety of forms, be it paintings, music, poem or even architecture.
On the other hand ideas are active (or alive, if you prefer) only while handled by the human mind, like the living beings, they depend on the environment to propagate. These memes get popular not because they're “good” or “bad” but due to their level of adaptation and their environment is the mind and the society of each human being that's dealing with them.
It's easy to identify ideas that behave like diseases. Homophobia, for example, is a prejudice whose memes are being fought in Brazil creating the need to disseminate other memes that refute and deconstruct this source of stupidity. This process isn't simple nor fast and nothing can grant that it will last.
Waterbearer. Lorna Simpson, 1986.
The fight against racism began a long time ago and from a historic perspective there's some changes, although far from any passable level. These changes happened because the memes that supported the most radical forms of this prejudice are less present in our society now. It only happens due to a conjunctural transformation that goes beyond the existence of theorys and ideas that tackle the problem. To create the right memes and systems of repudiation isn't enough because they must be shared and replicated by the majority of the society to be effective.
Libraries, museums and cinematheques preserve and expose memes that sometimes were circunscribed to their time, region or culture and can't find space to perpetuate themselves, like happens with works of ancient societies and religions or with the art produced by minorities. Museums are gathering so many people because this diversity of memes shows us a broader concept of humanity. The technical hability matter less because in a museum it's the perception of our own fears and aspirations depicted in works of people we regard as “they” that generates empathy. Sadly the term “they” doesn't include only extinct societies, usually it's about our contemporaries also and this is the reason why these institutions must be open to what's being created today. To perceive that “they” are like “us” is one of the greatest feats of art. This understanding arises not only from the exposed pieces. The collection being cured by the institution benefits from the predisposition to empathy from the visitors to create an environment that would hardly be possible outside these plural spaces.
The aim of preserving and sharing not only old memes but also this less obvious sense of empathy is achieved both by the physical space and the subjective existence of these institutions. At museums it's not hard to find less important pieces, sometimes almost irrecognizable fragments of ancient civilizations that would pass unnoticed anywhere else, having lines of people to see, even with certain reverence, a degraded piece of clay. We visit musems with a good will towards the exposed pieces and their creators, being disposed to appreciate their culture, to understand them and see their mistakes and atrocities not as something that devalues them but as important lessons.
It's this feeling of human congregation and reverence for art that any form of censorship, be it for moralist or political interests or in the name of some divinity, struggle to destroy and when it comes to memes it isn't the same as banishment or disuse. Few societies today even tolerate a serious discussion about slavery because this meme is out of circulation as a achievable idea and simply isn't accepted. However, Aristotle advocates in favor of slavery at his “Politics” and we still study his books instead of destroying them or censoring these parts. Freedom includes responbilities like knowing how to deal with informations and how to ensure that our descendents will not be penalized by our acts. Obligations that cover the constant caution with bad memes but also the preservation of their history. We would be poorer without this knowledge, the suffering that ideas like this have caused is a lesson which we can't forget without accepting the risk of having to learn it all over again, maybe with greater hardships.
That's why we don't erase the holocaust from history and that's why we have holidays like the black awareness day. It's hard to understand a holiday as something important, specially when the fight has changed without being updated at the colective social mentality as occurs, for example, with feminism at International Woman's Day. Having a day like this is to grant that at least once a year this debate will not be ignored. Holidays are a colective tool of exposition and rescue of memes, reason why we should give more attention to the meaning instead of the free time they allow.
Young man preparing a pig's head after sacrifice. Vase.
The disrespect to freedom of speech and the religious radicalism aren't new, groups like ISIS exist to prove that we will not be free of this threat anytime soon. At Brazil the operations of the Military Police during the protests showed beyond their usual unpreparedness also a disrespect towards the political expression. Those groups don't enrich the debate, their violent actions are the own denial of the dialog, they're anti-meme agents. It could have been catastrophic if in the past some kind of police force repressed cooking because they felt empathy for the other pigs or simply desired to maintain the conservative custom of eating raw meat. Happily the means to avoid the repressive constraints were always one step ahead. It's despite this destructive impetus that the selection of ideas pays off and the internet can be the best outcome.
On the digital media the information isn't at such a precarious situation like what happens to single manuscripts of ancient epics carried by the minds of elders. The wild destruction and the censorship are still no match to the internet. The least we can do is to occupy this space to digitize all the memes we can, not because to read a e-book or to appreciate a 3D render of a sculpture are better than the originals, but because this is a way to preserve and share memes and a method to undermine the censor using his own ignorance. While online ideas mate and collide with the same importance that death and sexual reproduction have to living beings, ideas are breed on the internet. Here gods bleed and authorities fail and it's up to us to realize this subversive potential.
Bottles in the sea: online communication and the receiver with a thousand faces
“...but if we want the potential benefits to become real it's essential that we focus on less funny things and make efforts towards greater complexities and new contacts with unknown ideas.”
It's common to discover a new hobby or unusual subjects and when we search for them on the internet we soon discover many pages and communities dedicated to them. Despite being small sometimes they're composed by people from many countries sharing the same interest. Specialized fóruns can be disorganized but they also have a surpring amount of information coming from people who share their knowledge for free, sometimes inadvertently, giving the internet it's fame of having all kinds of informations at a very low cost, if any.
Panther Modern. Digital art gallery by LaTurbo Avedon. (Click to see)
As sealed bottles with messages floating in the sea waiting for the casual meeting when the comunication will finally abandon it's mere pontential state, being on the internet doesn't mean it'll be accessed since there's always barriers like search engines, content agregators and the market tactics used by social media to enforce payment if the creator wants to reach his audience. Even though these do not deny the access they can strongly restrict the contact with a wider public. It's excessively optimistic to say that everything can be found on the internet, but the internet at least touches everything. Here we reproduce our connections from outside of it, therefore there's the possibility for any content, even if it depends on other aspects to leverage it's relevance.
To realize this idea of the internet free content is, by chance, to see that which is trivial or familiar to you being the unexpected and rare for others. To share your own experience and knowledge publicly, even in a limited medium to this kind of interaction, already is a way of making things more accessible. Specially because it's not necessarily a copy of something to the internet, but a true reelaboration of this subject and, therefore, dependent on who is doing it. This reformulation must ensure that the final result will be comprehensible for most people, even those who don't have the tools to reach it by themselves, making it better to lose something in translation than to allow the worries with the details block the possible dialog.
Umberto Eco considered his unread books an essential part of his personal library – containing 30 thousand books – because they were a potential research material and a clear reminder of how much he still had to learn. The posts seen but not read and the critics of books the reader may not know, as can happen here, also allow this curiosity that far from replacing the original work and profound studies, works as a intermediary for those who don't want or don't have the oportunity to reach these works and books. For those who read it's always a challenge and a invitation to devote some thoughts to it again.
With the virtual realities came the supposition that someday we'll abandon this real life as we know it, but the digital and the internet are extensions as real as the “analog” version of our existence and cannot be separated from our other life experiencies, which we still mistake to understand while insisting in considering it as something much different from our online existence. This care doesn't exclude the entertainment and the lightness common to our online interactions, but if we want the potential benefits to become real it's essential that we focus on less funny things and make efforts towards greater complexities and new contacts with unknown ideas, even if it generates that feeling of discomfort, even if it means to put aside the Facebook.
It's hard because we already do it in our daily lives, we deprive ourselves of so much in our efforts around our obligations and expectations both personal and professional that the internet appears as a relaxing tool after these harsh goals. But we also do this even despite the obligation, we spend money and time on books, parties, art, movies, theater and music and the benefits aren't tangible as in other materialistic situations. There's no clear exchange besides the experience and the contact with the work of others. Still, we keep doing it because living is also to assume that things like personal analysis, philosophy, interior reflections and imersion in art and other people's minds with the same fears, anxieties and joys are more urgent than the cheap mindless entertainment, our jobs and hedonistic pleasures, and this is the reflection we need to develop to fully enjoy our own potential with the internet.
As content creators – and in apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook we all are creators – the seduction, the tempting invitation to meet new ideas, as religions and political parties knows and teaches us very well, this invitation must seduce, convince, persuade the other to take a look at our ideas. That's the function of beauty, music, design, simple dialog, sense of community and the gratuity, be it apparent or not, in these institutions. But if their methods works then we aren't talking about condemning religions and politics because they're so good at convincing people and ploriferating their ideas. The important is that people with better proposals should pay more attention to these details, specially because many of them deem it to be vulgar or superfluous, because disarming the other and making them listen is as important as having something valuable to say.
Alain de Botton held a presentation on the Rijksmuseum exhibition Art Is Therapy.
Due to the constant dispute for our attention we end up bombarded without mercy, from Whatsapp to Instagram, cat videos, breaking news, memes, events, messages, everything fighting for our focus and this environment by itself make it harder for any attempt of a serious personal enhacement. In this virtual reality rises a service that we already know to be essential in our lives, that of the curator. Museums, galleries, literary fairs, libraries and even movie theathers, all of them act as curators, despite not always providing what we need, they allow us to navigate a complex body of work and thought while freeing us from the efforts of the specialist and the critic. Wikipedia, Google and Youtube are indeed important, but the curator can show us what we should be searching there and also convince us to give this step towards personal and intelectual knowledge.
I write from this position, as a writer and also a curator of the few things I have to share, but that I must share. From the responsiblity of giving back the learning oportunities I had, and still have, to benefit others, but also conscious of the hardships involved in sending a message to someone, hardships that I know well since they're also mine. The Pantagruelista is back with the same objective, a trustworthy and well curated content about philosophy, literature and art and the introduction of ideas capable of interrupting our mental homeostasis and this time with renewed energy to create this fertile state of cognitive entropy.