“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

Monsieur Blanc,

It has been a little while since our back and forth on postmodernism. Yet, I have still been thinking about some of the things you said. Namely, asking the question whether the aesthetic can be separated from the philosophy of postmodernism. Up until this point I basically just assumed it was possible and continued the rest of my argument from there. As this question has been making rounds in my mind, I am not so sure that we can do that so easily. If you will allow me to get off of the couch, I would like to storyboard this together and come up with a reasonable take on this approach.

The question of separating the aesthetic from the philosophical is very similar to another question; whether art can be separated from the artist? In my general life, I have been known to just sweep this question under the rug, but as it is so closely related to the aesthetic and the philosophical, I hope to invariably answer this question as well.

Art is often enjoyed without in depth knowledge of the artist, or at least with only a surface level knowledge of an artist. Taylor Swift’s songs may be well known, but generally only super fans  (called ‘Swifties’ I think) know in depth details about an artist/actor/director etc. This lack of knowledge of an artist is more of an unconscious separation from their works, but a separation nonetheless. That being said, there are people whose works become undesirable once details of their personal lives come out. In particular, I can think of Kevin Spacey, though an incredible actor with real talent, legal charges made against him because of his inappropriate misconduct has left him persona non grata. Spacey’s example is also a little awkward because now I am unsure what to think about his works. His filmography is impressive and it feels like a waste to deem it all unwatchable.

Some try compartmentalizing and thereby separate an artist completely from their work. Others do a partial compartmentalization. For example, they will enjoy any art that was created before said artist’s personal shortcomings were made public, anything after this point becomes shunned. Not a bad way of not supporting bad people, while still getting to enjoy things. My question is, where do we draw the line? As we are all sinners and people in need of Jesus, we could make the case that all art should be avoided because it was created by someone evil. Of course, this seems Puritanical (no shade on the Puritans, I am a huge fan) but then the line being drawn will have to be arbitrary.

On the other hand, maybe all art should be enjoyed and cherished, regardless of the moral character of the artist. The consistency and simplicity of this idea is commendable, but in practice this is also ‘problematic’. Some people, like the aforementioned Kevin Spacey as well as Drake and Kanye West have created some great works of art. However, their personal lives are really so bad that I do not feel comfortable listening to their music. It feels like one has to really be willing to stomach a lot for the sake of drawing a thick line between art and artist. Is it worth it though? If someone is talented, even brilliant, but this hypothetical individual is a horrible person, why do we owe it to them to appreciate what they created? I would argue we don’t. If someone wants to hold on to questionable morals and act upon them, then morally I feel no need to consume anything they create.

It would be worth focusing back on postmodernism and leaving this question for now. The aesthetic and the philosophic, can it be separated? As when we were talking about art, the answer probably has to be: it’s complicated. I want to be able to separate it, but there may be some talk of irreducible complexity here. Can you just cherry pick what you want and leave behind what you don’t? It feels awfully convenient, too convenient. At this point we are leaving the door open for any term to be able to be completely split in two and torn limb by limb. Is this not what art is though? Is art not the slow evolution and iteration from the past to the future? Is art not adapting the best part of what came before and then making it better with the sake of hindsight? I would give an emphatic yes, that is what art is. However, with postmodernism things are a little more complicated. Art has probably always been in some way political, but postmodernism is unquestioningly political. Postmodernism rejects molds, labels, and even linearity. In this sense the most postmodern thing someone could do is to rip apart the aesthetic from its underlying philosophy. In fact, by separating the two, that is almost the most postmodern thing someone could do.

Alright then, case closed. Postmodernism as an aesthetic can be separated from its philosophy, right? For better or for worse I do not think so. You see Monsieur Blanc, the reality on the ground is a lot more complicated than in theory. The biggest problem I see is that as a society we have never been able to do this before. As an example, I would like to point you to architecture. Take any style, like neoclassical or gothic. As much as I would love to see buildings in these styles, we tend to only see new neoclassical buildings when governments are trying to impress upon us the thought of the Roman Empire. Otherwise, its use in everyday buildings remains limited. Gothic too reminds us of either the medieval era or its revival in the victorian era, which itself was a callback to the medieval. I love classical, gothic, baroque, art nouveau, and heck, even art deco. However, it seems impossible for us to divorce the history of these styles with their use. New buildings in these styles would be a Godsend, but we often settle for ugly modernist and postmodern architecture not just because of capitalist greed (although that’s a part of it), but because it does not feel like we have the history or the zeitgeist for it. While frustrating, if the current year is not giving baroque, then it’s hard to build baroque.

This extends to music as well. Take jazz, which you mentioned in your last letter and is a genre that I also highly admire. I love Europe tremendously, but my dear European friends would never have even considered jazz a possibility. The German mind could not and probably still cannot comprehend the improvisation and nonchalance that only could come out of the African-American community in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To this day, it is a disservice to jazz to try and remove it from its founding, to remove it from its history. Same is true for any other type of music. The context in which a genre was created, is inherent to itself. Would we dare say that the aesthetic of country, rock, or gospel music can be removed from its philosophy? Of course not.

As a pretentious wannabe intellectual, it is easy enough for me to say that the aesthetic and philosophy of postmodernism can be divorced and that we can all enjoy its fruits while rejecting its worldview. I just do not think this would work at scale. It is important to take notice of how the average person will interpret this type of opinion. For Christian cinefiles, it may be fun to enjoy a postmodern story, while understanding the destructive ideology behind it, but asking everyone to make such a strong separation is a strong ask. Whether we like it or not, a lot of our identity and beliefs start as an aesthetic. How many of us found our favorite type of worship in the church, and then built our opinion on correct worship after the fact? I would bet most of us. Whether it comes to the best book, car, church, or political party, I think a much higher portion than what we are willing to admit comes from aesthetics. I am not immune, as I have written in a previous article, beauty is not optional. I think to some extent seeing something as beautiful, and then developing a worldview around it is not necessarily bad. I trust beauty, beautiful stories and beautiful buildings are things I want to defend and I will not complain if my worldview holds them up as sacred. That being said, here lies the issue with our postmodernism divorce. If we are so bad at separating the aesthetic from the philosophy normally, why should we make an exception here?

The honest answer should probably be no, an exception should not be made. This separation is not feasible to expect at a large scale. I think this is a reasonable outcome, and definitely the healthiest. I would rather people be skeptical of postmodernism wholesale, rather than enjoy it without hesitation. In how this is going to affect my own life, it probably won’t. Given that I am aware of the problem, I am going to be careful, but I would still put myself down as the occasional fan of postmodern storytelling, even if it is destructive on the whole. If one’s default response to postmodernism in art is to be weary of it, then a couple good movies and books here and there seem healthy enough.

Just to through in a little curveball at the end, here is a question for you, Monsieur Blanc. Why is it so hard for people to compartmentalize things like this? Why is it so hard to compartmentalize things in general? I have my own answer, but I would rather not influence you in any way, so I will wait until our next communiqué before giving you my answer. The only teaser I will give you is that I believe this is a more contemporary problem that used to be less of an issue. If in fact the lack of compartmentalization is an issue, which to be fair is a bold assumption that I am making.

I haven’t connected this much to the Gospel yet, which I will briefly do now. As followers of Christ, we tend to not like it when people separate the different aspects of our savior. Jesus is human and God, body and spirit, teacher and redeemer. It grinds my gears when people say that He was a good teacher who taught good morals. Yes, Jesus is a good teacher and He does teach good morals, but He is not just that. He died on the cross for our sins and after three days rose again and ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father. Only focusing on Jesus’ rabbi era does not do justice for the main reason why He came to earth, mainly to take on the sins of the world and offer every person the opportunity for salvation. If trying to cherry pick parts of Jesus is wrong, then it probably stands that doing it to other things is not a good idea either. Anyways, have I come up with far more questions than answers? Possibility, but c’est la vie. The ball is in your court now, have fun.

Veritas vos liberabit.

An sich,

Nate Martin

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. – John 11:25 (KJV)