pencil who can juggle words is a poet, despite the fact that he has
nothing to say, only some semi- agreeable sounds to make; put an
archly conceived cartoon on a canvas, sell it to a millionaire, and
you are a painter dangerous with subversive intent. ( People do not
care what it is you have painted or how; they care what the painting
sells for. We speak of a thirty- million- dollar Picasso— and forget the
subject and title of the painting.) As long as you do not evoke the
needs of anything higher than the Self, and you can proceed with
some polish or some eloquence, then an artist is what you are.
Congratulations.
Anything that possibly can be called art is. Constantly we are
pushing the boundaries of art in the interest of what seems to be an
aesthetic pop u lism. The latest noise from a suburban garage band?
Art! An animated Hollywood- made romp for children and for adults
who have deci ded that growing up is not in their interests? Art!
A novel or book of poems by a celebrity with high name recognition?
Of course: art.
Much of what we are willing now to call art is inevitably fully
compatible with the status quo. It does not really evince dissatis-
faction with the way of the world. In our so- called art, the (pur-
ported) artist may express grief or sorrow, bemoan his own state,
trou ble deaf heaven with his cries and all the rest. But he does not
indict the world and worldliness. He does not challenge the reign
of Self. Anyone who has doubts about Self is understood to be pa-
thetically naïve. We all know that Self is all there is. We all want
status, money, and health. Anyone who seems not to desire these
things is clearly dissimulating. He must be exposed for the fraud that
he is. Or he is a total fool—so naïve as to be below one’s notice.
Art is everywhere: art is omnipresent. Yet there is a prob lem.
Almost none of it is art.
Where is compassion in the current Self- obsessed culture? Part
of what is most startling in the world that we have made is that we
254 Polemical Conclusion