[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I actually do subscribe to Althusser's views on art and production, it's just that I've not (been able) to give them full expression here. Althusser does hold to the idea that there is such a thing as human imagination, and that this is able to contest the boundaries that we put around ourselves. In effect, he argues that we can 'break free' and that creative art 'adds' to human experience.

The limitation he sees on this is that the only thing art can clearly 'show' us is the fact or manner of our 'imprisonment' (he actually calls it "interpellation": being singled out, made and individual, by our culture). That is, the creative artist is able to view the world in such a way as to show us with 'new eyes' the real contours of the structures that surround us. . .and this is the first step toward changing those structures. Of course, being a committed Marxist he insists that this change cannot come from a single person, but from mass movement. So, in the end, his argument becomes quite interesting:

the artist is a special individual (not a privileged one) who is able to see and thus express the world in a new way; this new way shows how the world is to other people, and if the expression is compelling enough and reaches enough people, then a community can develop around the work of art (but not the artist) in which this new awareness becomes part of the human/social fabric, thus altering it and changing it. Of course, over time, this change becomes part of the fabric and thus once more invisible (that is: so normal that we no longer notice it) until it is seen anew by another artist or creative thinker.

His view is not really despairing at all -- not at least of the human condition or of societies. Althusser merely takes issue with the idea that a single person can act as an orginary genius and single-handedly 'change the world'. All the individual can do is reflect through her- or himself something that is already in society in such a way that it gains larger purchase until there is sufficient mass movement to have that minority view effect the way we live.

I've always though how elegantly this goes together with Tolkien's own view of fantasy as being motivated by recovery and 'seeing the world anew'. Of course, the one HUGE difference between Tolkien and Althusser, is that the reality Althusser sees reflected in art are the material conditions of human existence in society, whereas the reality that Tolkien sees reflected in art is a divine and spiritual reality. What is compelling for me is that neither man had great faith in the ability of the individual to really have an impact on the world -- and that goes right to the heart of most of the ideologies of western democracies, in which everyone "makes a difference" and all it takes to change the world is "one good idea" or "one remarkable person."

I still don't go with the "test of time" theory either, insofar as the 'bad' art might not be as widely known, but that is simply to appeal to the other spurious argument of popularity: I just can't see an equation like. . .

been around a long time + popular = good

having much use, insofar as the two terms upon which it depends are both highly questionable -- maybe it's been around a long time because it suits the political purposes of a powerful group, and maybe it's popular because it's got lots of prurient sex and violence.

What I can say is this: I prefer Mozart to Salieri, and Tolkien to Brooks.