Last week we met my niece and her husband in Lake Geneva for a glass of wine. They’ve been living overseas and were gobsmacked at the recent changes in our nation. “How do you have conversations?” she asked, adding, “Everyone is so angry. It’s impossible to talk about anything important. It’s impossible to discuss or debate ideas or points of view.”
“It’s a minefield,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. There is so much anger which can only mean there is so much fear. The only thing that makes sense to me is that our nation, an ongoing experiment, is cutting through the weeds of our central question: can people of diverse backgrounds come together and live united in a single narrative? If the past two years was your only evidence the answer would be a resounding NO. Thankfully, there is a broader sample. We are a work in progress.
No one can see clearly the times in which they live. And, since the conversation last week has been much on my mind, and an answer to the pervasive fear is no where to be found [and would be a ruse at best], for insight I can only offer A Two Artist Tuesday Quote Collision:
“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that aren’t so.” ~ Mark Twain
“The idea of a causal universe and a social order built on universal moral laws is toppled by the uncertainty principle. The absolute is replaced by the relative…. Reality becomes a matter of highly variable conventions, rather than a set of fixed and eternal facts.” ~Jamake Highwater [Jamake gets the award for consecutive quotes. He also made an appearance yesterday!]
“A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what’s being said is the party line.”~ Colin Quinn
It is not an accident that our science, our art, and our politics are roiling in relativity. It IS our current common narrative. Contemporary art, like modern science, began with breaking down the idea of absolutes. Politics and public opinion do not lead but they follow.
The experiment is no longer confined to our shores: in a global economy, in the age of 24 hour news cycles, Facebook, Twitter and Google, in our age-and-stage of relativity, can people of diverse backgrounds come together and live united in a single narrative called relativity? Can we transcend our fear of otherness and step outside of our echo chambers? Can we listen as passionately as we proclaim? It seems that it will require a great deal of respect for otherness with a high degree of empathy and low investment in self-righteousness.
Well, we’ll see.
read Kerri’s blog post about LIVING WITHOUT FEAR
living without fear ©️ 2006/2018 kerri sherwood & david robinson
Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: absolutes, Colin Quinn, common narrative, contemporary art, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, empathy, Facebook, global economy, Google, inclusion, Jamake Highwater, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Mark Twain, otherness, relativity, shared narrative, society6.com/twoartists, Twitter, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncertainty Principle | 2 Comments »
The Direction of Intention 