For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life.
I finished reading ’The Soul Of A Man Under Socialism’ this morning and I felt it was one of the best works of Wilde’s I have read. Much, if not all of the essay was completely identifiable to me and made me feel even more of a kindred spirit with the man that ever before.
Whether or not Socialism itself was supposed to be taken as the main subject of the work, I am not sure. It seemed to be secondary to me, especially through the last several pages where Wilde dove deeply into his concepts of artists and art.
One main statement he kept making, which I have always known and thoroughly agreed with, is the idea that an artist cannot truly create art unless it is something he does for himself. Only by doing something, first for himself, is he being true to the task and not influenced by outside expectations or sources. It is the very concept behind my frequent writers block down to the lame reason I give for why I don’t go to the gym. There is little nobility in attempting something simply for the praise of other people.
In fact, he vehemently pointed out the ill-affects of the public and their opinion on art.
”And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity.”
I cannot help but to continue on quoting because I feel so passionately about what he is saying here.
”We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them they leave them alone. In the case of the novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest, the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely ridiculous. No country produces such badly written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, such silly, vulgar plays as England. It must necessarily be so. The popular standard is of such a character that no artist can get to it. It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are concerned, are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him.”
Even over a hundred years later these statements continue to ring true. All one needs to do is turn on the television or go to the movies to see the same plot and idea redone again and again for the simple sake of the almighty dollar. Though it may be entertaining, summer blockbusters and mainstream music often times is rarely unique and generally all useless crap that gets passed off as art but the judging public.
I’m sorry, but boy bands and Britney Spears and Puff Daddy Diddy are not artists. What do they create that they do not engineer specifically for the sake of financial gain. Six-year-olds could write the lyrics to their music. They play to the public with skin and strategically placed fabric allowing them to show just enough to keep the FCC from panicking.
A thought I had myself some time ago was the concept of using one’s art for money. (Not that I have ever been presented with the possibility) But, all the same in my analysis it almost seemed like a betrayal of the ability to sell it out right. And it seems here that Wilde agrees with me to an extent.
”A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.”
He continues on to describe the publics favorite words to use when critiquing art; unintelligible, immoral and morbid. His description of the use of the word ’morbid’ was especially humorous. He was basically pointing out that the public often label an artist dealing with dark subject matter as being such.
”To call an artist morbid because he deals with morbidity as his subject-matter is as silly as if one called Shakespeare mad because he wrote King Lear.”
He continues on to discuss the complete tyranny of journalism and the media and it’s influence on the easily swayed public. He also lambasts the public for something I once complained about myself; which is this concept the masses have that they deserve to have knowledge of other people’s lives; especially people of status and popularity.
”The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”
Then as I read on I got to a statement that made me laugh out loud:
”People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous. It has been stated that under despotisms artists have produced lovely work. This is not quite so. Artists have visited despots, not as subjects to be tyrannised over, but as wandering wonder-makers, as fascinating vagrant personalities, to be entertained and charmed and suffered to be at peace, and allowed to create. There is this to be said in favour of the despot, that he, being an individual, may have culture, while the mob, being a monster, has none. One who is an Emperor and King may stoop down to pick up a brush for a painter, but when the democracy stoops down it is merely to throw mud. And yet the democracy have not so far to stoop as the Emperor. In fact, when they want to throw mud they have not to stoop at all. But there is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.”
He continues on to discuss concepts of Individualism and the negative reactions such people get. A perfect example is one we see everyday in modern times, and a position Wilde himself placed himself in often; the idea of dress and ’fashion’.
Then he goes on to the very behavior of the Individual and how it is often times seen as offensive by the majority. Acting in a way that doesn’t seek to appease another is automatically labeled as selfishness. It stuck a chord with me because of my own experiences with people and their expectations of me that often times in the past year caused drama to explode in my face (though I should have known better most of those times than even become involved in those situations).
”Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one’s neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions... A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”
I could go on quoting the entire essay. I found it captivating. It spoke as much to my sense of my individuality as Thoreau’s ’Walden’. I did not realize how much I was enjoying it and feeling it until I found myself on the last page looking for more.
Within it I also saw a picture of the man himself; Wilde. How he exists in that same hypocrisy I do. Somewhere between hating the world and society and enjoying being a part of it. In times when I feel very removed and alone, seeing that such a mind once existed on this earth gives me hope that my own thinking, though sometimes confused and clamoring for clarity, is enduring. I am not wasting energies contemplating the things I do because they are the most basic thoughts of humankind; questions all should contemplate but most don’t.
It alleviates me of the madness I sometimes feel contained in. Even for the Individual, I suppose it is nice to have some sense of grounding.
Yet, through all the positivity, Wilde did challenge me a bit when he made a statement concerning the public:
”In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and, as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them.”
It stirred me to think about my own goals as of late concerning literature and the true purpose behind my quest to make my way through it all. I already know I devour a great deal, but sometimes I come to find that I’ve passed through it too quickly and can’t remember all that I have consumed.
I should not question my journey though. Everything I’ve read so far has led me somewhere else and I have followed this immense paper trail through out history that continues to lead me onward to some end of which I have no knowledge. I’ve said it before and completely enjoyed speaking the statement: I feel like the voices of the past are all there trying to tell me something; Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, Twain, Wilde... they are leading me somewhere. Men from decades ago whose ideas are leading me through my decades and helping me to understand my own purpose.
It is never about me envying their abilities; because I see myself as an equal to them. They are my comrades. Those who have gone before me leaving reminders that I am understood. I am exactly right where I think and where I am. With all the chaos of the world around me and all the indecision and fear that often dictates my ever mood and movement; I have never often felt too far removed from a sense that I was somewhere near where I should be in thought. The anxiety comes from my mental state being so far advanced from my physical surroundings and daily expectations.
When I sense that I should not be here; I should not be doing this or that; I trust in my feelings that they are correct. I do not trust the world around me and the mold it has laid before me to be contained in.
Whether or not Socialism itself was supposed to be taken as the main subject of the work, I am not sure. It seemed to be secondary to me, especially through the last several pages where Wilde dove deeply into his concepts of artists and art.
One main statement he kept making, which I have always known and thoroughly agreed with, is the idea that an artist cannot truly create art unless it is something he does for himself. Only by doing something, first for himself, is he being true to the task and not influenced by outside expectations or sources. It is the very concept behind my frequent writers block down to the lame reason I give for why I don’t go to the gym. There is little nobility in attempting something simply for the praise of other people.
In fact, he vehemently pointed out the ill-affects of the public and their opinion on art.
”And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity.”
I cannot help but to continue on quoting because I feel so passionately about what he is saying here.
”We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it. The public like to insult poets because they are individual, but once they have insulted them they leave them alone. In the case of the novel and the drama, arts in which the public do take an interest, the result of the exercise of popular authority has been absolutely ridiculous. No country produces such badly written fiction, such tedious, common work in the novel form, such silly, vulgar plays as England. It must necessarily be so. The popular standard is of such a character that no artist can get to it. It is at once too easy and too difficult to be a popular novelist. It is too easy, because the requirements of the public as far as plot, style, psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are concerned, are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such requirements the artist would have to do violence to his temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture, annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in him.”
Even over a hundred years later these statements continue to ring true. All one needs to do is turn on the television or go to the movies to see the same plot and idea redone again and again for the simple sake of the almighty dollar. Though it may be entertaining, summer blockbusters and mainstream music often times is rarely unique and generally all useless crap that gets passed off as art but the judging public.
I’m sorry, but boy bands and Britney Spears and Puff Daddy Diddy are not artists. What do they create that they do not engineer specifically for the sake of financial gain. Six-year-olds could write the lyrics to their music. They play to the public with skin and strategically placed fabric allowing them to show just enough to keep the FCC from panicking.
A thought I had myself some time ago was the concept of using one’s art for money. (Not that I have ever been presented with the possibility) But, all the same in my analysis it almost seemed like a betrayal of the ability to sell it out right. And it seems here that Wilde agrees with me to an extent.
”A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.”
He continues on to describe the publics favorite words to use when critiquing art; unintelligible, immoral and morbid. His description of the use of the word ’morbid’ was especially humorous. He was basically pointing out that the public often label an artist dealing with dark subject matter as being such.
”To call an artist morbid because he deals with morbidity as his subject-matter is as silly as if one called Shakespeare mad because he wrote King Lear.”
He continues on to discuss the complete tyranny of journalism and the media and it’s influence on the easily swayed public. He also lambasts the public for something I once complained about myself; which is this concept the masses have that they deserve to have knowledge of other people’s lives; especially people of status and popularity.
”The fact is, that the public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”
Then as I read on I got to a statement that made me laugh out loud:
”People sometimes inquire what form of government is most suitable for an artist to live under. To this question there is only one answer. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. Authority over him and his art is ridiculous. It has been stated that under despotisms artists have produced lovely work. This is not quite so. Artists have visited despots, not as subjects to be tyrannised over, but as wandering wonder-makers, as fascinating vagrant personalities, to be entertained and charmed and suffered to be at peace, and allowed to create. There is this to be said in favour of the despot, that he, being an individual, may have culture, while the mob, being a monster, has none. One who is an Emperor and King may stoop down to pick up a brush for a painter, but when the democracy stoops down it is merely to throw mud. And yet the democracy have not so far to stoop as the Emperor. In fact, when they want to throw mud they have not to stoop at all. But there is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.”
He continues on to discuss concepts of Individualism and the negative reactions such people get. A perfect example is one we see everyday in modern times, and a position Wilde himself placed himself in often; the idea of dress and ’fashion’.
Then he goes on to the very behavior of the Individual and how it is often times seen as offensive by the majority. Acting in a way that doesn’t seek to appease another is automatically labeled as selfishness. It stuck a chord with me because of my own experiences with people and their expectations of me that often times in the past year caused drama to explode in my face (though I should have known better most of those times than even become involved in those situations).
”Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one’s neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions... A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”
I could go on quoting the entire essay. I found it captivating. It spoke as much to my sense of my individuality as Thoreau’s ’Walden’. I did not realize how much I was enjoying it and feeling it until I found myself on the last page looking for more.
Within it I also saw a picture of the man himself; Wilde. How he exists in that same hypocrisy I do. Somewhere between hating the world and society and enjoying being a part of it. In times when I feel very removed and alone, seeing that such a mind once existed on this earth gives me hope that my own thinking, though sometimes confused and clamoring for clarity, is enduring. I am not wasting energies contemplating the things I do because they are the most basic thoughts of humankind; questions all should contemplate but most don’t.
It alleviates me of the madness I sometimes feel contained in. Even for the Individual, I suppose it is nice to have some sense of grounding.
Yet, through all the positivity, Wilde did challenge me a bit when he made a statement concerning the public:
”In Art, the public accept what has been, because they cannot alter it, not because they appreciate it. They swallow their classics whole, and never taste them. They endure them as the inevitable, and, as they cannot mar them, they mouth about them.”
It stirred me to think about my own goals as of late concerning literature and the true purpose behind my quest to make my way through it all. I already know I devour a great deal, but sometimes I come to find that I’ve passed through it too quickly and can’t remember all that I have consumed.
I should not question my journey though. Everything I’ve read so far has led me somewhere else and I have followed this immense paper trail through out history that continues to lead me onward to some end of which I have no knowledge. I’ve said it before and completely enjoyed speaking the statement: I feel like the voices of the past are all there trying to tell me something; Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, Twain, Wilde... they are leading me somewhere. Men from decades ago whose ideas are leading me through my decades and helping me to understand my own purpose.
It is never about me envying their abilities; because I see myself as an equal to them. They are my comrades. Those who have gone before me leaving reminders that I am understood. I am exactly right where I think and where I am. With all the chaos of the world around me and all the indecision and fear that often dictates my ever mood and movement; I have never often felt too far removed from a sense that I was somewhere near where I should be in thought. The anxiety comes from my mental state being so far advanced from my physical surroundings and daily expectations.
When I sense that I should not be here; I should not be doing this or that; I trust in my feelings that they are correct. I do not trust the world around me and the mold it has laid before me to be contained in.