Table of Contents
Aesthetics & Worldviews
Full disclosure: there’s a good chance I’ll end up talking about art and/or aesthetics quite a bit in this column, because it is something I like to talk about. So, in this lil what-have-you I’m just gonna set out a very broad-strokes style distinction that I think is quite important for how a lot of folks tend recognize and value art.
This is not so much a categorical distinction (ie what type of art is this?) so much as a schematic distinction – like how we determine what categories are available in the first place. Like part of a worldview type of thing – and this distinction actually does fit in with two larger and completely incompatible worldviews. Imagine that.
Democratic vs Bougie Art
Namely the distinction between bourgeois (bougie) art and democratic art.
The starting point for the distinction I am making is how they relate to the concept of ownership: Bougie art is based on the principle that art has an owner (at least one, there can be more but never less) – the creator has a certain ownership stake in it, but there are also ownership stakes based on financing the work (think feudal patronage but it goes to the highest bidder instead of the purest blood), both before and after the production of the work. Democratic art is based on the principle that art belongs to humanity (and the rest of the world, too, but I can’t really speak for all the other critters out there making their own art). No exceptions.
Art As Art
Once you put it out there as art it belongs to all of humanity. The intentions of the artist don’t matter. Proprietary rights don’t matter. Respect for commerce sure as shit does not matter. Human art is something that humans make for other humans. No barriers on any of those terms, by the way. Barriers belong to commodity production, not to artistic creation. Simple as.
In this worldview, the purest forms of art are the things that have no real authors (even if you can name a lot of the actual people who contributed – of course there are authors and all types of creators in democratic art, but not in the sense that retains a certain kind of proprietary ownership over any aspect of a work of art): anything referred to as folk art or folk tales basically, graffiti, fashion, beauty makeup, language itself, etc, etc, but I think you get the point.
The thing is, from pretty any modern point of view that doesn’t take “20th century American-style Capitalism” as the standard for social normality at their core, then this point is extremely obvious. And it is just as obvious that all the examples of bougie art that you can come up with (and there is a lot of really good art that is self-consciously bougie; my gripe is with crappy systems not with the people who do a pretty goshdarn good job despite doing it in a crappy system) fits seamlessly into at least one of those democratic categories. Especially when you look at art as something human, then any new modes of storytelling – no matter how “technologically advanced” they may seem – are just part of the same human rhythms that we have been shaping our lives with for millennia.
Democratic Art in the 21st Century: A “We’ll See” Story
Art is so much bigger and so much more beautiful than what capitalism is doing to it right now. Of course, we still need ways to get artists the resources to not only make art but to live and exist in general – I’m not sure anyone else has noticed this, but existing is lowkey kinda expensive these days. But we need to find ways to do help artists exist and make art that respects that they are a part of a grand human tradition that goes back further than we even have evidence for. I know there are people working on this stuff right now – I use “Buy Me A Coffee” for this very thing and maybe someday I’ll get a little forehead kiss or two from it… – and these types of things are a step in the right direction for sure. We just need a lot more steps sad-lol.
Anyway, my big point here is that when I am talking about art or aesthetics, I draw on the worldview that centers democratic art. I’m just not that interested in the bougie point of view, tbh – I’ve lived in it for a lifetime, and that is way too much time already imho.
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