PROBLEM 0007: Generalization Hamstrings the Art

In which the author pauses to consider the problem of Problems. In which that problem is labeled Generalization. And where the author admits to being a bit stymied even while talking like he’s not.

GENERALIZATION ISN'T VERY NICE

One obvious problem with this whole “how to like art” malarky is that you can’t say one thing and expect it to apply to everything. That would be racism. Against art. Well, not racism exactly. That would be a stupid thing to say. It would by analogy be racism. Against art. That’s never gonna read right. I need an editor.

This problem is incredibly hard to get past. If I say, for instance, that “Art should be Beautiful”, I’m immediately holding 100% of artworks created to that silly criterion. What do we do with Hans Bellmer or Matisse in this instance? Yes, there is some beauty in Bellmer, but not everyone is going to see his work as anything other than criminal. And Matisse may have given us a new way of seeing, feeling, and touching, but beauty isn’t necessarily the most obvious of adjectives. Either “Art should be Beautiful” is true, which would  annihilate the meaning of “beauty”; or it’s a different kind of true, annihilating the idea of “criteria.” Likewise if I say, “All Art is stimulating.” Maybe I expect art to be stimulating to this brain of mine (and how stimulating, and to what degree, and does Californication count?), but sometimes I want it just to be entertaining, or simply there, proof that other human beings exist and “get it.” I’ve said both things at one time or another, but if I take a book like Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, I find I can agree at times with the former and always with the latter. It just doesn’t work consistently.

[Clearly I’m expecting too much of language. Makes sense. I’m a writer after all. I expect a lot of myself as a father, too. Because I’m a father. It’s all super natural.]

So, when we generalize at all, we have to be willing to face the inherent danger: that the generalization may be limiting our experience of the thing we are generalizing about, ultimately limiting Life and cutting short our true experiences. I have tried with the first six Problems on this website to be fair to art (hell, I even defined art as “all creative output”—how freaking fair is that, I ask you). But have I?

It is so easy to generalize, so easy to hamstring millions of works by millions of people for the sake of a fancy phrase.

Join me next time for, "Problem 0008: Generalization is awesome!"

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