What We Don't Know

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is:

be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."
~Elbert Hubbard

I just want to mull something over with you today. On Thursday, the end of our class brought about the questions "Do we have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like?" and "Do we have a responsibility to expand or multiply our pleasures?" In my last post, I was almost touching these questions, so let me revisit a few of my points at the end of it. Wimsatt and Beardsley believed that we are in no place to judge a piece of literature on the grounds of our emotional response to it. Yes, we will have emotional responses, but we must justify those through the medium of the poem itself. In essence, Wimsatt and Beardsley say that we must be critical readers, and it is the reader's job to "fit" into the whole... the immediate emotional response you find is not the only important thing in regards to the poem, and in regards to judging it as a work of art. In a sense, the reader is called to change, to look beyond what makes them feel happy or sad and see what the actual poem is doing and why it is producing those responses.

And that brought us to the two above questions. And in my last post, I brought up the Christian take on literature and art (in many cases)... it is judged as "evil" or "good" depending on the content, the way it makes us feel, etc., etc., etc. We are appalled at the sexuality or the language and do not look passed that to the actual work of literature itself. Is this saying we are not good critics? And does that also mean that we have shut ourselves off to works of literature that are truly "great" if we cannot get passed their vulgarities? Do we really have a responsibility to look beyond that and see the genius of the work, despite its moral flaws?

Let me just give you a small example, one that was actually brought up in my Writing Seminar the other day. We had a guest speaker, art professor Donald Forsythe, and somehow, we got on the topic of "good art," and what exactly that was. One of my peers asked about the Blue Painting that so many people come from miles to see (I can't really remember the artist's name), and Prof. Forsythe commented that it was an incredible painting. It looks something like this:
Yes, this blue piece of canvas by Robert Motherwell is labeled as one of the greatest works of art in the twentieth century. Prof. Forysthe went on to say that it was the background of the artist's life that made it so great (which would have me go into a lot more than the Formalists of literary criticism would ever wish me to do, so I will respect them in sticking with the topic at hand). Most of my peers wrinkled their nose or laughed, thinking how this could truly be one of the greatest paintings of the century. And I wondered the same thing.

But then I thought back to our class... do we really have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like? I would not hang this painting up in my house, but can't I say that the subtle shades of blue Motherwell achieves are enchanting, and the lights spots in the middle give me the feel of a ship on the ocean? Can I not appreciate this work of art for what it is - a work of art? I don't have to like it, but I can still appreciate it.

I have found that I often do this with literature. And I truly think we do have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like. Just as the above Hubbard quote says, we will remain in ignorance if we can't open up to things we do not know. And what implication does this have for Christians? No, I absolutely do not think we should condone overtly sexualized and vulgar topics in literature, art, theatre, music, etc. But I do think we should learn to look critically. Because really, if we just speak as "Christians," saying something is moral or not moral, and that's all we tell the world, how will they ever listen to our message? We need to give them concrete reasons why such a work is good or bad... and not just from a moral standpoint. Critically reading something ensures that we know how it works, and then we can go and tell people publically what we think of a piece of literature... armed with the intelligent ammunition of a "why."