Hotel Rwanda

The photographer Jack tells Paul, “They'll say Oh, my God, that's horrible. And then they'll go on eating their dinners.”

The film showed a very human side that we never see when mainstream media covers a story... any story, unless of course they're doing a story about some tragedy on American soil.

We tend to sympathize with Paul because he is not presented as a Hutu or Tutsi or African or even a “nigger” (even though we are told he is Hutu). We don't see a label. What we see is a man, a human being with a family that he loves, a man with hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties, just like the rest of us. So the character creates a dichotomy. We see the human and we feel enraged and even a little bit ashamed that the world did nothing while innocent families were slaughtered. We keep gnashing our teeth (towards both the UN, and the US), wondering…what the hell is wrong in the world when people stop caring!

Meanwhile, is it really our job to provide police protection for every human tragedy around the globe? Do we even have the resources for that? So when we look at the practicality of whether the West can, or should police the globe, the real question is *what* exactly are we policing when we favor one area over another? The movie feels like we are faced with the question of racism. We see black faces in contrast to a very white western complexion that goes about eating their dinner.

I don't think the film should have presented a racial sway, because I don't think race was what motivated global ambivalence. The real issue was economic. I say global ambivalence was the result of resourcism...which I think is *worse* than racism because it marginalizes all human life down to the value of regional resources. Somehow, I think if Rwanda had the oil resources of Saudi Arabia, nobody would have cared about skin color.

I feel it’s impossible to point to a single "justifiable reason" for genocide. I try to stay away from race issues, even though the storyline in Hotel Rwanda is compelling and feels very racial. I don't stay away from racism because of political incorrectness. I stay away from the issue because I think the color of money is more important than the color of skin. It's hard to divide the issue of wealth and race, however. After all, if the country has brown skin, they probably don't have money - which speaks to the point of racism when we think in terms of whether or not the West really did bring *civilization* or did they instead, bring "just enough" civilization to exploit the brown people. Maybe I'm making the mistake of trying to separate race from money.

Those girls dancing by the pool provide a little clue. The dichotomy I see is the schism between the market economy and the value we place on Community. The turmoil throughout much of the world is the result of colonialism where the resources which supported community survival were absorbed into the market economy while these Communities were themselves excluded and displaced by it. So, we see these girls dancing and their dance reconnects them to that Community, a soothing dance in the face of an uncertain (and likely frighteningly fatal) future.

Art and Genocide

Ellen,

In your article, What is Art it made sense that you started with "everything (including whistling. aerobic dancing, children's scribbling, interior decorating, TV programs) as art.

You later mentioned Plato's discourse on beauty (kalon), poetry (poeisis), and image making (mimesis) which I thought was an important distinction in regards to our desire to label "art." The act of labeling objectifies the item being labeled. You declined to pursue this notion in terms of objectification, but the act of labeling is problematic. It creates unnatural boundaries. Your essay then goes on to explore how creativity refuses to conform to unnatural boundaries. Art refuses to be objectified and owned, always dodging our best attempts to compartmentalize and force it to wear that label.

On page 44 you comment that "the only conclusion is that art, diverse and inexhaustible, will remain ultimately beyond explanation." Although I agree with your sentiment, I think this sentiment extends even further, to all attempts at affixing labels, and is not unique to the realm of art. The labeling problem was addressed extensively by Roland Barthes, who wrote, "language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire." The use of language mutes the experience of "being."

In attempting to label art, you are reaching for a sort of fundamental truth, a philosophical theory of everything. Have you forgotten that Dadaism was an art movement devoted to thumbing its nose at the idea of a formal approach to art? Have you forgotten that around the same time Dadaists were busy throwing art labelers out with the bathwater, Russian formalists were busy trying to stuff literature into stocks and chains.

They were trying to tame literature, the same way you are trying to tame and control creativity by stuffing it into a dank, stuffy little compartment called ART. When you quote Thompson, "that only by viewing [art] can its full significance and power be appreciated, I think Thompson makes a good point. Art and artifacts do act as cultural signifiers, formed by the raw material... institutions and customs, myth and ritual...into a complex and unified whole." I think you would have done well to explore this further, the notion of enculturation as raw material = the art/artifacts as cultural signifiers.

In Chapter 3, you begin to solidify this connection. When you comment that "making and using art objects affects the system of social relations," it makes sense that if art is made from the raw material of enculturation, then art becomes a cultural totem. Your article continues to explore the use of art in terms of building cultural cohesion. When you mention that "art can help the individual adapt to an often uncomfortable and indifferent world," you are speaking to how art can re-establish one's sense of belonging and sense of community. A good example of this connection is how soldiers frequently carry pictures or objects. Warfare is ugly and horrific. Most soldiers carry items with them that help them feel connected.

Where Chapter 3 explores the idea of What Is Art For?, you declined to discuss the absence of art. The spread of colonialism is enhanced by the destruction of communal cohesion. In producer areas around the globe, the lack of art is a disturbing void that feels like death. This hollow feeling that saturates a place is cultural genocide. It is a practice as old as recorded history.

Empire requires people and resources to exploit. Genocide performs a very real function. It dissolves community and creates a favorable environment in which to exploit human labor. The familiar view of genocide is shock-journalism where piles of dead bodies jar our noble sensibilities. The version of genocide we never see is a version called cultural genocide. Communities are not wholesale murdered in cold blood.

Instead, their cultural identity is systematically destroyed. Crops are burned and the means of sustenance are destroyed. "Food is power; those who regulate its production, distribution, and consumption can control others" (Jeremy MacClancy, Consuming Culture). Desperate populations, left with no means to sustain themselves or their families are then exploited to fill a role as migrant laborers. As a result, families and communities are shattered. These shattered communities share one haunting feature, a lack of arts and artifacts. The feeling is indescribably creepy. This void is a common feature among dead and dying cultures. In fact, when we see an artistic void, we should be appalled, because this void represents a dramatic loss of community and cultural cohesion. It represents cultural genocide.

While discussing what art is for, and researching the diverse cultural manifestation of art and artifacts, I think you should add a chapter dedicated to how art is an important marker inexorably linked to cultural well-being. Sad to say, but the cup of coffee you drank this morning was harvested by some of these same displaced indigenous migrant workers.

Letter to Ellen

Letter to Ellen Dissanayake

I enjoyed reading your art articles. I thought you did a great job with the writing. I have a few thoughts however. Although I found your examples valid, your many examples were confusing. Just throwing tribal names out there, like “the people of Alor and of Tikopie in the South Seas,” may steer our attention towards how the perspective of peoples around the world are shaped by enculturation, but these reference lose value beyond that point because most of your readers are not anthropologists and would not be familiar with the numerous tribal peoples you mention.

The other problem that came to mind was your over-use of quotes from outside sources. Your many references remind me of a quote by Groucho Marx where he says, “copying a whole book is called plagiarism. But copying from a bunch of different people is called research.” I have a problem with this Ellen. When I researched a little more about who you are, I felt a bit cheated. You didn’t author “What is Art” and “What Art Does for People”. You pieced it together from the talent of others. And I feel cheated because I have read some of your other work, the material and the ideas that are yours, and I wonder why you felt the need to qualify your ideas by shoring it up by quoting everyone under the sun. What are you bringing to the table?

I think writing is art. In the future, think about your pen and paper as a blank canvas. Most of us would be highly offended if we were standing at an easel with our pigment and brushes, completely absorbed, pouring heart and soul into the process, and some jerkoff came along, rubbed his chin, and had the audacity to pick up a brush and help himself by adding to your canvas. This would be an incredible violation, a sort of rape. I’m saying that your overuse of outside sources is a violation. You are voluntarily allowing strangers to enter your sacred creativity to rape you. The more I think about it, the more appalling. You would be furious if someone defaced your artwork. Keep your work yours kiddo. You don’t have to subjugate yourself to the authority of others. It’s your work. It is an extension of you. You are the authority!

In your article Homo Aestheticus you assert that art is adaptive and necessary for the survival of the human species.

You even go so far as to insert ART into Maslowe’s Hierarchy of needs

Where it falls somewhere between Basic (survival) and Safety (comfort) needs.

Art may have the ability to gel cultural cohesion, but I think your insertion

Of art into Maslow’s hierarchy is a bit far reaching.