A Reaction to Patrick Flores’ Teaching/Learning the Humanities in Other Words/Worlds
This particular essay on art is not looking at an artwork. Rather, it problematizes the way we think of art as an element of culture. The epigraphs by Octavio Paz and Robert Barry challenge the way we commonsensically think of art. And this is what the whole essay allows us to (re)think: Our ways of seeing art and the conditions of possibility of our gaze.
Octavio Paz’s statement on the iconic status of art objects that “command our adoration” is precisely what the essay explains as symbolic violence. Symbolic violence as the essay suggests, stems from the condition that art is produced in a society where there is hierarchy. However, it wasn’t quite clear how hierarchy is produced and reproduced in society. While the essay points to a privileging of high art by virtue of the exclusivity of this field and the dispositions of its practitioners and patrons, it does not touch the origins of the binarism between high and low art. Thus, I argue that the hierarchy in art is a consequence of the predominant property relations in society. Those who are dispossessed of property cannot quite dictate or define ‘culture’ or ‘the good life.’ This means that the ruling class does not maintain its hegemony only through economic exploitation. It wins the consent of the masses through cultural hegemony that it enacts on a daily basis through symbolic violence.
Art, according to this essay is a vehicle for symbolic violence. I fully agree with this assertion since not once have I been a victim of such mechanism. Majoring in creative writing, I have always been puzzled by how the gurus of literature can tell good writing from bad. For some time now, I would always feel oedipal (or the desire to be led as defined by Deleuze and Guattari in their book Anti-Oedipus) whenever I endeavor to complete certain requirements. In particular, I have been always nervous in writing poetry since I often hear certified poets saying ‘hindi naman ito tula’ or something to that effect. While these writers are not, strictly speaking, part of the ruling class (perhaps some do fantasize that they are, while others do all they can to expand their connections), their acts of consecration stems from the logic of the institution. The institution of education which includes salons, workshops, conferences, examinations, exhibitions, etc. is an apparatus for the perpetuation of the dominant order. That is why it can only reproduce the hierarchy that exist in the realm of production by perpetuating a culture that would legitimize the dominant mode of production. However, these institutions appear to be autonomous by virtue of their claims to disinterestedness. The ruling class in society do not directly dictate its taste and may not even be interested to do so. Instead, as the reading argues, it is the state cultural bureaucracies that define legitimate culture.
All of these inputs have made me think of the relationship between high art and low art. But more importantly, it has given me an opportunity to reflect on the attitudes towards this binarism. Often, we hear people denigrate low art and flaunt their ‘purity of spirit’— the arrogance of the uncontaminated. This disposition can only perpetuate the mystified status of art and thereby reproducing its symbolic violence. People who align themselves with high art are usually those who have been consecrated by the academe. They must have some means to have chosen to thread the road less traveled. Their liking for high art is also a function of their habitus and not merely of personal preference. But they are not usually aware of this. Instead, they are wont to mystify themselves further by referring to some absolute or transcendental standards of beauty and perfection. Case in point is Jose Garcia Villa who once invoked that “a poem is.” It is perhaps against this way of perpetuating symbolic violence of high art that Robert Barry nailed his perplexing announcement. The gallery, as a space where art objects are consecrated as art objects is a place where institutionalized art assert themselves ‘the art.’ Barry’s act is performative of Bourdieu’s explanation of symbolic violence: that our awe for art works comes from a misrecognition rather than our appreciation. That in viewing art works, we don’t in fact see them for what they are (as signifiers of dominant culture and as products of cultural privileging) but for what the institution consecrates them to be and for the cultural capital we gain in aligning ourselves with these art objects. Thus, in closing the gallery, Barry creates a parody of what actually happens in art exhibits— the audience misrecognize and do not really see so closing the gallery is no different from opening it to the public. But to avoid symbolic violence, Barry might as well have decided to just close it.
On the other hand, we encounter populists who think they can shatter the divide between high and low art by celebrating the latter as the art of the working class or of the masses. I once had an argument with a friend who claimed that jeepney art is legitimate art because it is produced by the masses. I smelled an unmistakable condescension in his statement so I retorted: In celebrating this type of art you are in effect saying that the masses can only produce this kind of art. My position is that there is no such thing as an art form strictly for the masses or for the bourgeoisie for that matter. To say that jeepney art (which often contains sexist elements) or telenovelas and noon time variety shows are good because they are the preference of the masses can only amount to an inverted form of snobbism. It’s almost like saying that “Hanggang diyan na lang ang masa.” It’s putting a limit to the artistic possibilities of the masses and implying that they can only appreciate mass produced and formulaic art. While they may truly enjoy this cultural forms, it must also be considered that their enjoyment or preference is conditioned by their social location and as the reading argues, their exclusion from the ‘official’ culture.
The essay has made me realize a way out of this false dilemma between low and high art. It has pointed out that the sacralization of culture contributes to the maintenance of the social order. Therefore, the point is not to choose between high or low art but precisely to challenge the conditions of possibility for such divide to exist. These conditions stem from a hierarchical social order that excludes the majority form its acts of consecration. Therefore, art appreciation, production and criticism cannot be separated from issues concerning social justice. At this point, art and all else is produced under the conditions of the reified existence of people. Therefore, it is necessary to appreciate the imperative to change the conditions of our existence in order to produce art that will signify the full potential of our labor rather than an art that will perpetuate already oppressive and exploitative social relations in society.
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