I love the creative arts. From fine art and music to theatre and movies, to fashion and even the designers of our day-to-day gadgets, I appreciate the whole concept and the inspirations that trigger the machinations in the mind that sparks the frenzy of mental activity, which produces some of the most amazing creative output we have come to see over thousands of years. People who create are, in my mind, people that are a little bit more evolved than most of the rest of the population. Their minds seem to work in a manner that aims to break traditions while most other “non-creative” people’s minds tend to be wired towards holding on to old traditions and are the most resistant to change.

When I think of the pioneers of cultural change over the years, and I’m specifically talking about cultural change that didn’t involve violence here, I observe a kind of frustration on their part if not pity for the people around them who just didn’t see what they could see. It is usually always left to the younger generations to appreciate and take those ideas forward. I’m going to focus on just a few aspects I have identified and how I think they have affected wider society. My comparisons will be mainly between the arts and politics and religion. Politics and religion used to be one and the same and were only separated in the west relatively recently i.e. a few hundred years ago, so I need to use both of them in my examples when comparing the thinking of the religious and political leaders against the thinking of artists. In fact for ease I’ll call it “religiopolitics”. There you go I’ve just invented a new word. My first portmanteau contribution to the world of any note.

Let me start with the three most renowned artists of the renaissance era – Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. While these enigmas were painting, sculpting and inventing gadgets with techniques that are still being improved upon today, what was going on in religiopolitics in the rest of the world at the time? Well, in 1492 in Spain Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon signed the Alhambra Decree basically forcing all Jews to convert to Christianity or be expelled from Spain. Now in their minds at the time this would have been the right and proper thing to do, but I suggest that a lack of empathy resulting from their void in creativity and rigid Catholic dogma highlights how they were held back by religiopolitics while the creative types were sparking deep thinking and innovation in Florence. An interesting titbit I discovered before I proceed is that before the crusaders took back Spain from the Muslims, the Muslims saw Jews as “people of the book” and thereby gave them special status and privileges within society. How things have greatly changed today eh? So who knew better, the Muslims then or the Muslims today?

In the 1600s we had William Shakespeare in England and while he was creating his plays and stimulating his audiences intellectually, politically King Charles I was busy antagonising parliament and making decisions that lead to his eventual beheading. Maybe I’m naïve but I seriously doubt that Shakespeare would have had the stomach to behead or even order the beheading of anyone. Not because that wasn’t the norm of his time but because, I believe, that while all that was going on around him he would have considered it an unpleasantness he would much rather not be involved with and would be far more interested in creating than destroying or oppressing others.

During Charlie Chaplin’s adult life, while he was being creative and sparking the imagination of audiences with his films, politics was throwing common sense out of the window and engaging in the First World War out of a semi-religious belief of executing complicated treaties no matter the cost. There was a Second World War because some people basically felt they were superior to others. And then there was the Vietnam War, which most people still don’t know what the point of it was!

I remember the Taliban destroying the 1,700 year old Buddha statues in the Bamyan Valley in Afghanistan and then Iran where singing the song Happy, by Pharrell Williams was an actual offence of which the alleged “criminals” had to make apologies for their despicable sin on national television. Then you have other governments that don’t like a bit of colour in the lives of their citizens as you either wear white or black, depending on your sex. And obviously we’ve also had ISIS in Palmyra recently. Religiopolitics exhibits its procrustean might here, significantly holding back the true potential of many people in these places.

While writing this blog, Len Goodman of Strictly Come Dancing fame appeared as a guest on Channel 4’s Countdown show, and he told a story of when the waltz was first introduced in England to the aristocrats. They thought it was so “immoral and sinful” at the time and it caused a bit of an outrage. He read out an article from The Times of London which I sought out and I think it best to quote the full article:

“We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced at the English court on Friday last … it is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressor on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”

The Times of London, summer, 1816

Can you believe that? The life expectancy of men in those days would have been significantly shorter if they had seen the twerk, that’s for sure. And the twerkers of today will look at a new dance in 50 years’ time and reminisce of how decent dance was during their time. It’s crazy isn’t it? Also, notice how it says “his daughter”? Showing how women’s views didn’t matter much then, but that’s an aside.

I remember visiting the Fashion Museum in Bath a couple of years ago and seeing how fashion has come a long way over hundreds of years and something that particularly struck me was how fashionable and glamourous some clothes were, in my opinion, particularly in the late 1800s and early 1900s. When I try to square that kind of fashion creativity with the mentality of the people of the day, the forelock tugging class system, the level of inequality, the Empire and so forth; it just felt to me like those articles of clothing were more suited (pardon the pun) to a few generations later than that period.

I really admire Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He’s a progressive, decent human being with a huge heart containing a generous helping of empathy and a large dollop of cheerfulness. A man that has an open mind and is willing to listen and learn from the evidence and this is evident in his policies on climate change and being welcoming of refugees and immigrants generally. Other more “traditional” politicians ignore the evidence and seek out for crimes by immigrants to highlight, conveniently ignoring crimes by natives. They ignore climate science and spout their beliefs in the death penalty or long jail sentences in an ignorant attempt to sound tough, and ignore the evidence that growing prison populations probably indicate that those kinds policies have no real effect in the real world and possibly a more intelligent approach is required. Can I point at the fact that Justin Trudeau did a bit of acting in a mini-series before he went into politics? Well it agrees perfectly with my theory so I jolly well will! But I think he exemplifies very well the point I’m trying to make.

So I say we should make Benedict Cumberbach the Prime Minister of Britain, George Clooney the president of the United States, Ben Murray Bruce the president of Nigeria and I bet you anything that the world will be a much better place. I don’t know who we can make the leader of North Korea, but I’m sure the newsreader who always announces how wonderful and successful the dear leader is could do a great job (baby steps). Recently Donald Trump attacked Meryl Streep and in the UK the right wing press regularly attack Lily Allen and Gary Lineker simply for being decent and showing empathy. If we let them get away with it we will wake up in a world of more inequality with minorities trodden upon even more than they currently are. Oh yeah did I mention Trump? You see him and his friends wearing smart looking suits looking sharp and very intelligent, but when they open their mouths you wonder if they are actually members of the 21^st century or if they should be housed in museums for people to see what Neanderthals used to be like. I think in the modern age they perfectly personify the concept I’m trying to highlight of the clash between the arts and religiopolitics. Progress vs the Anchor.

20^th Century Fox and Fox News I think are also perfect illustrations of how people of the arts seem to be of a higher species than those immersed in religiopolitics. You see some of the TV shows and movies that they produce and it leaves you in awe as to how clever the story lines and the production quality is as well as the high level of research incorporated into every detail. Then you turn over to Fox News and hear presenters saying things that makes you wonder if they actually had the benefit of an education. From their ignorance of the wider world to even how things work in their very own country!

So is our only hope for the troglodytes to pass away and for the younger generation who have been influenced by the wonders of the internet and modern enlightenment to take over? It certainly seems that way. In another generation or two we will look like the troglodytes and the recently born will take the human race to an even better place. In any case I feel very optimistic.

 

 

If you want to refer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England

http://www.rounddancing.net/dance/articles/waltzhist.html