# All Art is Political-Discuss
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 27, 2011, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125 "2011-03-27T06:51:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/41 "2011-03-28T06:49:41Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Ah, but you, of course, are part of bourgeois society, and therefore bourgeois politics influence everything you do, including the art you just created.
This, I think, is the argument that the OP’s problem would be advancing. In which case, I’d say “nuts to that”. I’d certainly agree with someone who said “\*\*Most \*\*art is political” on exactly those lines, in the Po-Mo sense, something like:
"Works of art, like all utterances, carry information on the connotations of the \*Weltanschauung \*of the Artist re: the signified and its objects. Inherently, the creation of a work of art indicates an overweening desire on the part of the Artist to capture the Gaze of the Other, to direct that Gaze at a semantically-laden Text and impart to the Other some fraction of its [Intension](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intension) with regard to its Referent. It is always and inherently an attempt to take the Internal, the Private, and project it into the Real.
In this sense, every work of Art is a Speech Act by the Artist designed to Impose their own Will and \*Weltanschauung \*on the Viewer. Albeit in a fragmentary fashion, it remains an act of of _[metanarration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative)_ in whatever form the artwork takes. Since all Politics is, is the interaction of the Individual Will and Society, it follows that constructing a Work of Art is also a Political Act."
Or something like that. But I disagree that all works of art carry that Intensionality. Some are accidental or automatic. Others are so mundane that they signify
Although the question, then, is “are accidental works Art?”
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/42 "2011-03-28T07:06:34Z")
> [@zoid](#):
>
> In the case of the second statement, yes anyone trying hard enough can read viewpoints into a work the artist never intended.
Never _consciously_ intended. \*Most \*semantic content is [subtext](http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticity_%28philosophy%29).
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/43 "2011-03-28T07:09:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> Others are so mundane that they signify
…nothing, is what I meant to say.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/44 "2011-03-28T07:14:16Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> If all art is political, is all art _ **equally** _ political?
This is a much better question, IMO. I’d say “No”. No 5yo’s fridge scribblings could be as political as _Guernica_.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/45 "2011-03-28T08:56:23Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> If all art is political, is all art _ **equally** _ political?
Yes, but some art is more equally political than others.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/46 "2011-03-28T10:53:32Z")
Oh, and didn’t Otto van Bismark say “politics is the art of the possible”
Now I realise that may not have relevance for your essay. Though it could be construed to mean that all politics is art, it doesn’t follow that all art is political.
Anyhow, I only mention it because it is a quotation from a famous person making a connection between art and politics. That is gold dust my friend. If you find yourself short of inspiration and word-count come the end of your essay that should be good for another 750 at least.
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### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/47 "2011-03-28T22:34:19Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#):
>
> Is it possible that often we choose aesthetic experiences not solely because they’re entertaining to us, but also because they are part of how we construct our social and political identities? If someone says he’s a classical music fan, that carries certain social and political overtones. It’s an expensive taste, old-fashioned, complicated, sophisticated, nuanced, aristocratic, European. You hear classical music in the background of commercials for luxury cars, not at tea party rallies. There’s not a conspiracy to make classical music = upper class, but the pattern of signification still exists.
True, except that the last line kind of sounds like the pattern is arbitrary. There are historical and economic reasons for classical music belonging to the upper class. Classical music originated in a culture of court composers and rich patrons. Ensembles of more than just a few musicians were and remain expensive propositions.
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/48 "2011-03-28T23:47:05Z")
> [@spark240](#):
>
> True, except that the last line kind of sounds like the pattern is arbitrary. There are historical and economic reasons for classical music belonging to the upper class. Classical music originated in a culture of court composers and rich patrons. Ensembles of more than just a few musicians were and remain expensive propositions.
Oh I agree completely. My wife is a professor of music history and one of the things she likes to look at is how shifting business models have affected compositional and performance practices.
While classical music has its roots in the aristocracy, I think it’s interesting how it ballooned in popularity with the rise of the middle class. A full modern symphony orchestra was too expensive even for many noblemen – in order to justify keeping that many musicians around as coherent group you needed a prosperous bourgeoisie that you could sell tickets to. So for more than 200 years classical music has been the soundtrack of social climbing – people who work for a living pretending to be royalty.
That doesn’t mean that classical music can’t \*also \*be beautiful, amazing, or transcendent … but if you only consider it as an aesthetic experience without grasping the particular constellation of economic and political factors that allowed it to come into being and nourished it, you’re really missing an important piece of the total picture.
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### Author:  [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/surrounded_by_literalists)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/49 "2011-03-29T02:15:40Z")
> [@novelty bobble](#):
>
> oh, and didn’t otto van bismark say “politics is the art of the possible”
>
> now i realise that may not have relevance for your essay. Though it could be construed to mean that all politics is art, it doesn’t follow that all art is political.
>
> Anyhow, i only mention it because it is a quotation from a famous person making a connection between art and politics. That is gold dust my friend. If you find yourself short of inspiration and word-count come the end of your essay that should be good for another 750 at least.
awesome!
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/50 "2011-03-29T13:31:44Z")
Another possible tack:
go back to the origin of the word “politics” and its family and to man being defined as “a political animal”: society, the group… art is either intended to be shared with the artist’s group (peers, family, customers) or prompted by things which have happened to the artist - and which by definition have involved that group (“I am me and my circumstances” - Ortega y Gasset).
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/51 "2011-04-04T23:56:37Z")
> [@zoid](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure the flowers, ducks, and bunnies hanging on my fridge have no political agenda.
> You may not call this art but to my 5 year olds it is indeed a true and deep expression of what they feel.
Ah, but “all art is political” is not necessarily the same as “all art has a political agenda.” Your kids draw flowers, ducks, and bunnies, because that’s what they like, and they like those things because that’s what their environment has taught them to value. Their environment is in large part a product of their parents social class, and social class is, of course, highly politically charged. So one could argue, if one were so inclined, that while your kids’ art was not created with as a political expression, it was an expression of politics.
For the OP’s purposes, this concept can be applied to adults just as easily as children.
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/52 "2011-04-09T15:02:37Z")
Your instructor is full of shit and obviously doesn’t even understand art, let alone enjoy it.
Its like having someone who is tone deaf teaching music.
What a wanker.
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### Author:  [@xoferew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xoferew)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/53 "2011-04-09T16:15:51Z")
When a girl in my preschool class draws a picture of me (her female teacher) I will more often than not be depicted in a triangular dress despite the fact that the child has seen me zero times in a dress. This could be interpreted as a political statement: “My concept of appropriate femininity includes wearing a dress. I wish you would wear one, or I just don’t pay attention and assume you do wear one. Yay traditional gender roles.” When a boy draws a picture of his family and the dad is twice as big as the mom, he could be making a political statement about the importance and status of men vs. women. When a child draws a picture of their annoying little brother impaled on the horns of a triceratops, they could be making a political statement that annoying little brothers should be impaled on the horns of a triceratops.
Or not. But at the very least, someone’s political ideas have molded the children in certain directions which comes through in their art.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/54 "2011-04-09T18:21:51Z")
I am an artist, and my art is not at all political, by any possible definitions of “art” and “politics.” Anyone who claims that my art \*\*\*must \*\*\*be political is an ass.
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### Author:  [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/surrounded_by_literalists)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2011, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/55 "2011-04-10T06:35:51Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#):
>
> Your instructor is full of shit and obviously doesn’t even understand art, let alone enjoy it.
>
> Its like having someone who is tone deaf teaching music.
> What a wanker.
Dear Lord! I included a link to this thread in my essay to properly cite some of my souces and ideas. Oh well…if you can’t take criticism, don’t be an artist
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-art-is-political-discuss/576125/56 "2011-04-10T16:40:03Z")
> [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](#):
>
> Dear Lord! I included a link to this thread in my essay to properly cite some of my souces and ideas. Oh well…if you can’t take criticism, don’t be an artist
AH, of course your instructor realises that I was only speaking metaphorically, and that I realised that he/she would recognise the satirical, or from some viewpoints the ironic, homage to Magrittes “This is not a pipe”.
DaDaisim being so suited to this critique of the political/artistic establishment.
And is not a “Wanker”, ie. a masturbator, the ultimate in self understanding, a rebel who doesn’t need other people to direct the way that they think?
Someone who is not scared to face the world, and art , alone ?
In fact a true existentalist, a hero of individulism ?
Phew !
I think that I’ve waffled my way out of that one .
You should be allright now.
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