Don't be afraid of extremes

Erik Lokkesmoe has some good points -- 10 of them to be exact -- regarding the approach conservatives take to art. Here is Mistake #10:

We like safe art. Soggy may be a better term. Easy to digest. Nothing that causes heartburn. Do we really want art that never challenges our convictions, wrestles with our beliefs, or questions our faith? Let’s not forget: beauty is hardly safe, truth is never tame, goodness is anything but trite. Author Franky Schaeffer said it best : “The arts ask hard questions. Art incinerates polyester/velvet dreams of inner healing and cheap grace. Art hurts, slaps, and defines. Art is interested in truth: in bad words spoken by bad people, in good words spoken by good people, in sin and goodness, in life, sex, birth, color, texture, death, love, hate, nature, man, religion, music, God, fire, water, and air. Art tears down, builds up, and redefines. Art is uncomfortable” Finally, and most profoundly, he writes: “Good art (which, among other things, means truth-telling art) is good in itself, even when it is about bad things.”

So, is he an ankle-biting critic of critics or a wise seer of things largely unseen?

In the late 90s, when I waded (dove) into the Christian subculture, I was quite frankly shocked at the disparity between what was AOK (Art, Ostensibly Known) by the larger culture and the "art" which bore the CRAP (Christian Republican Art Product) seal of approval. I found it hard to reconcile the 2 via my aesthetic sensibilities. What I found worse, however, were the attitudes of some I met within that subculture. Often, they tolerated lower-quality music, films, and other artforms simply because of that CRAP stamp on the packaging. Some would even acknowledge the inferior quality of the art, but aver a commitment to the CRAP. In their view, if a Christian is to listen to XTC, then the members of XTC should not only convert to Christianity, but start singing about Christ in glowing terms (unlikely).

In some regards, as new media have appeared and the cost of production has dropped, better quality art from conservatives and Christians has appeared. But this has uniquely been a consequence of the grassroots (bottom-up) modality Lokkesmoe mentions in his piece. Big budgets have not been associated with quality art - but I do not think this is unique to conservative or Christian ventures (read: Titanic).

The recent film, "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" had a much publicized undercurrent of Christian themes and was generally a pleasure to experience. It was indeed art. But it left me wanting more -- not more of the same -- but more from the film (art) itself. Having read the book, I felt the supernatural powers of the Witch needed more of a *POP*. The lure of the Turkish Delight was not well linked to the bent lure of sin, as Lewis made it in the book. There needed to be a hunger in Edmund's eyes that there was not. The film was a little too afraid of extremes to be great art, which is a shame, as Lewis' book is great art. But then Lewis at his best was unafraid of extremes.

My prescription for better art in conservative circles: don't be afraid of extremes, recognizing them both in art and -- yourself.

Or, as Pascal put it in his Pensees:

Greatness and wretchedness.--Wretchedness being deduced from greatness, and greatness from wretchedness, some have inferred man's wretchedness all the more because they have taken his greatness as a proof of it, and others have inferred his greatness with all the more force, because they have inferred it from his very wretchedness. All that the one party has been able to say in proof of his greatness has only served as an argument of his wretchedness to the others, because the greater our fall, the more wretched we are, and vice versa. The one party is brought back to the other in an endless circle, it being certain that, in proportion as men possess light, they discover both the greatness and the wretchedness of man. In a word, man knows that he is wretched. He is therefore wretched, because be is so; but he is really great because he knows it.

This twofold nature of man is so evident that some have thought that we had two souls. A single subject seemed to them incapable of such sudden variations from unmeasured presumption to a dreadful dejection of heart.