Declaration of Self

In a response to a reporter asking him if he was a Bolshevik, Charlie Chaplin answered, "I am an artist. I am intereseted in life. Bolshevism is a new phase in life. I must be interested in it." To a similar inquiry he answered, " I am an artist, not a politician." His second statement seemed to be the utterance of an artist all to aware of the political game; for, he subtly stepped back from any allegiance to radicalism. But, I digress....

What has been on my mind recently is the statement, "I am an artist not a politician," which has been paraphrased to some degree by many, both famous and not. A painter and photographer friend I had in Winston-Salem used to tell me that he often feels passionatley about current events, but that he does not want to talk about politics, politics were a construct, he (as an artist) was interested in those things more visceral. It seemed to me a nice thought. Perhaps, it slowly oozes pretentiousness, but it also rings true, in my mind. When, I (a self-proclaimed political junky) watch political debates I become so frustrated at the shadow play and the formulae that I find it very hard to glean any sort or awareness or provocation of thought. That's not what politics were meant to be, I am sure.

Tonight, I was watching C-Span Book TV and Anita Thompson was talking about Hunter S. Thompson who she was married to before he died, and began their relationship as his assistant. She talked about Thompson's ranting, and his pessimism, and the anger that pervaded his later work. She said that it was wrong to view the tone as pessimism, the anger was more of an excitement. She explained that he would get so charged up at the potential of the masses, their potential to affect change, and their potential to expand thought. Essentialy, he was using his art as a political vehicle. His motifs of crudity and obscenity and downright hostility were his art; and, that art was his political voice. But, I am still not sure that he was political, maybe his art had political implications, but the current arena of politics there is no room for breaking rules. There is no room for tarnishing public image; there is no room for corroding tradition. The result is a purgatory for public thought.

Maybe the conclusion I am coming to is that it is not necessarily a universal truth that the artist can not be a politician, or vice versa, but now, in the current state of affairs, it can not be. Politic no longer exists as it did in the mind of Aristotle when he said that man is, by nature, a political animal.