The Future in Three Parts: Art Cannot Precede Politics; the NY Election (Part I)
Since October 7, a parade of actors, musicians and painters lined up to instruct the world about Israel. With the authority they gained through their art – their talent – they took on the mantle of politics.
The relationship of art to politics is an intricate one. George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, is the twentieth century’s most essential guide to their relationship.
Orwell’s early encounter with the Irish exile writer, James Joyce, overwhelmed him – convinced him that he could not create art as excellent. Instead, he turned to politics but maintained an appreciation for aesthetics. Animal Farm and 1984 were Orwell’s ultimate statements about how political prerogatives – ideology – deformed and weakened art.
Defining art is notoriously difficult. What I have found useful in reaching a definition is the definition of politics employed by Bismark: “Politics is the art of the possible.” If politics is the art of the possible, then art is: impossible.
Politics is defined by the “possible” because it requires constraint and compromise. Returning to Joyce, Ulysses places a whole city into a single day. On the page, the canvas, and in the recording studio, the impossible is attempted, and no one is harmed when it fails.
When the artist carries that ambition into public life, trouble ensues. The artist skips the key lesson of politics – constraint – and asserts authority without accountability. The most infamous example is a failed painter from Vienna.
The recent surge of musicians and actors calling to “free Palestine” is cut from similar cloth. Moving from the realm of the impossible, they believe that the possible – the realm of politics – is easily understood and conquerable.
Now, many of these people are successful artists: Macklemore, Ruffalo, Sarandon. I grant them their artistic accomplishment. At best, they look like fools when they wade into politics, a realm governed by constraint: what is possible.
The case of the failed artist who turns toward politics is what concerns me. The son of a film director, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, clearly saw himself early on as an artist. Show me other politicians who have a hip-hop video. His communications show all the hallmarks of one whose first understanding of the “screen” and the “camera” are formed in the context of art: film.
I’m not arguing for a “pure” politician, but I do think what those of us who love Israel see how the crossroads where art meets politics is treacherous terrain. When people commit to art first and afterward engage in politics, troublesome effects follow.
For reasons I won’t innumerate, we cannot expect repentance (transformation) from Mamdani. He can only be constrained from upstate. So, “listen all you New Yorkers”, and consider carefully who should be the next Governor of New York and who should be its Attorney General.
