Politics
Since learning about them in 1980, I've been a member of the Libertarian Party, so I usually vote Libertarian. On occasion I vote for Green candidates, so it's safe to say I'm a very idealistic person -- in fact that could be considered a bit of an understatement.
I maintain that this idealism is a distinctively American trait, and the following quote proves I'm not the only one:
The real American is not a gold chaser or money lover, as the legend classes him, but an idealist and a mystic.
From My Life,
by
Isadora Duncan, 1927.
Figuring out which candidates an American like Isadora would vote for this year is left as an exercise for the reader.
Regardless of your views, please be sure to register and vote.
As
Bob Weir
of
The Dead
said during their shows at Red Rocks this year,
it may be your last chance.
Imagine turning the tables
What if the history tables were turned? That is, what if high school history teachers, instead of teaching the history of politics and war, taught the history of art and science? And I mean all arts and all sciences!
As someone who's lived through a few wars, it's obvious to me that art and technology reflect the realities of living in a society at least as much, if not more so, than governments and conflicts. Moreover, all these things go hand in hand.
Shifting the focus
Shifting the focus to heroes in the evolution of communication and
expression would still allow students to learn plenty about
governments and conflicts.
But imagine if children were taught about the people
who move Wassily Kandinsky's
triangle
and
pyramid,
rather than those who contribute to and directly cause tragedy,
death, and destruction.
Do you honestly think things would be better
or worse?
Of course the history of politics and war would be specialty classes that interested students could take in college, much the way art history and science are taught today. I'm not talking about any sort of censorship, just a shift of focus to healthier, more positive material, at the age when kids are trying to figure out what they want to do when they grow up.
Continual progress vs. continual change
Politicians often rationalize various nanny-state laws, such as those concerning seat belts, smoking tobacco, and keeping certain drugs illegal, by stating that these compromises of our freedoms are justified if we can save just one life.
How many lives might be saved if we shifted the focus of the teaching of history as described above? How might this affect our daily lives? Would this also shift the focus of research on new technologies and the content of news programs?
How many lives might be saved if the length of a war was shorted by a day or a week or a month, or avoided altogether?
When we view the tragic events of war, pessimism overtakes us and makes it difficult to think of culture. The effect of actual events weakens our confidence in the progress of life. Where is to be found, despite this, a true optimism concerning humanity's future?
If we are able to understand the culture of plastic art as a continuous growth toward the full utilization of its freedom to express pure life, then one way to optimism is open to humanity. The culture of art reveals to us that life is a continual growth, an irresistable progress. In spite of all, human culture must manifest what the culture of art demonstrates: continual progress. But subjective factors prevent this from being seen. It is seen only as continual change.
[Emphasis added.]
From Liberation from Oppression in Art and Life,
by
Piet Mondrian, 1939-40.
Translation: if you want to be optimistic, ignore the news and study art.
Know what I'm sayin'?
Maybe I'm just miffed because we've all heard plenty about slavery in the south before the Civil War, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, et. al., and I had to learn about people like Piet Mondrian, Isadora Duncan, Wassily Kandinsky, and Miles Davis pretty much on my own.
That seems backwards somehow.
Ya feel me? Or am I all alone here?
You may say I'm a dreamer,
hopefully I'm not the only one.
Anywho, now you know what I mean when I say I'm very idealistic!