On Doing and Being, Part 2: Why Artists Are More Important than Engineers

I often enjoy asking people odd questions.  I get insanely bored of the same old "How are you?" When was the last time anyone ever really answered that one honestly?  Most people could be on the brink of a nervous breakdown and still answer "I'm doing great!"  Questions like that are often asked and answered as disingenuously as we possibly can.  I like the strange questions, ones that really disarm people and compel them to give an honest answer.  One of my favorite strange questions to ask people is: "Which world would you rather live in?  A world without artists or without engineers?"

It's a great question, really, because it's really a litmus test of how people see the world.  Allow me to explain:  In my last post, I discussed the idea of doing and being.  I would argue that most people spend an inordinate amount of time focused on what they do.  They place massive emphasis on their abilities, actions, and merits (Things they do, have done, and will do), often evaluating the quality of their lives and the lives of others based on those things.  However, very few people focus on their being, that is, on who they are, rather than what they do.  Thus, when people ask themselves "Who am I?", they typically have a crappy answer or no answer at all; all they can hold up is a fragmented chain of things they've done, are doing, and can do, rather than a consistent endeavor of who they are and who they are becoming.  This is, more often than not, the source of many of our troubles:  we confuse doing with being, and at the end of the day we do not know who we really are apart from our actions.


Now, back to my question: "Which world would you rather live in?  A world without artists or without engineers?"  Ask any high school senior preparing for college and they will tell you: people tend to have a lot more respect for aspiring engineers than aspiring artists.  Tell your parents that you are getting an art degree, and they will likely give you that look of loving parental concern and ask "What do you plan to do with that, honey?"  Tell the same parents that you're going to be a mechanical engineer, and they couldn't be happier.  Why?  Because you probably can do a hell of a lot more with an engineering degree than with an art degree, and you certainly will be paid more to be an engineer than to be an artist.  Engineers are, in their career and with their income, capable of doing a lot more than artists, and, in a "doing" based culture, its understandable why this is so.  Engineers are responsible for virtually all of our technology, which in turn fuels our drive to do more. A person answering my question "A world without artists" (as opposed to engineers) demonstrates a high value placed on technology, innovation, and industry, all "doing"-oriented concepts.  Engineers are doers.  They are constantly creating ways for us to do things better.  And, lest you think me a Luddite, thank God for engineers.  I'm writing this on a computer, connected to the internet, provided by WiFi, after driving my car to the nearest cafe.  I am fully indebted to engineering and by no means do I think badly of engineering.  However, engineering is still a process of doing.  Try all you want, never will you engineer a light to illuminate the mystery of what it means to be human.  No amount of technology, no matter how useful and convenient, will show you who you are.

Now, on to the artist.  The oddest thing about art is that there is absolutely no need for art.  Never, in the history of humanity, has art been necessary for survival.  If it were, we'd see other species of creatures creating art.  Humans stand alone in our ability to create and recreate art.  Through the needless manipulation of a medium, whether be it paint, clay, sound, words, or what ever else you might choose, artists make a message which is completely unnecessary.  You don't do anything with art, in fact, art loses its artistic value whenever its utilized as a means to an end.  Art is useless, and yet, I argue that art is more important than engineering.

Why?  Because, in its uselessness, art is more meaningful than any technology or industry.  Because we cannot use it, we are forced to experience it.  Art is unique in that it can have as much effect on people as people can have on it. Art can shape and change people just as much as people shape and change art.  Art is, at its heart, an exploration into what it means to be human, its a mirror through which we explore being, through which we search for meaning.  Art examines people, it looks at how they experience and are experienced.  Even the oddest art serves to capture some aspect of of our human experience.

To answer my own question:  I would much rather being a world full of artists than a world full of engineers for this simple reason:  Art is innate.  You have to teach someone to be an engineer, but everyone has an artist inside.  Art is as simple as expressing our humanity, and nobody lives without making some expression of their humanity.  To live in a world without engineers would be very unfortunate and difficult.  To live in a world without artists would be impossible:  you cannot separate humanity from art.

Madonna of Port Lligat, 1949
by Salvador Dali

Human beings, at their core, are creative.  Perhaps this is our most unique trait, and perhaps this is what is meant when we say we are "made in God's image and likeness".  Mankind creates, just as God creates.  God brings into existence the entire universe, and it radiates his glory.  In the same way, we are artists: we create art as a reflection of ourselves, to show ourselves our own image and likeness.  Our art is an imitation, an innate reflection of God Our Father, the First and True Artist.  Creation is a work of art, not a product of Divine engineering.  God did not create the cosmos to be useful and serve a purpose, he created it precisely for the same reason we  create art:  a uselessly beautiful reflection of His Nature.

Artists, it is unfortunate that most of you earn peanuts compared to the engineers of the world.  But do not get too caught up in the urge to be relevant, useful, and profitable.  Art that is useful is not art, and more than the world needs useful things, it needs art.  People need art to compel them to think, to examine themselves, to coerce themselves into asking questions like "Who am I?  How did I get here? What does it mean to be human? and Where am I going?"  Art, like human beings, is absolutely useless, which makes them both far more important than we could ever know.

On Doing and Being.

Unbeknownst to many, Ole Blue Eyes was monumental in resolving the oldest philosophical crisis in the book.

People like to do things.  Some people would say that the ability to "do" things is the very thing that makes us human: to be human is to be able to willfully choose, decide, and do.  Nietzsche, arguably the philosopher who's views have had the most influenced the driving forces behind our culture, dreamed of a super-man, an "ubermensch" who asserted his ability to do things as the absolute good.  According to Nietzsche, only when we conquer and reject our restraints (social norms, personal values, divinely mandated morality, etc) through our ability to do would we ever become super-men.  In society, our capacity to do things is perhaps our most fundamental treasure, the principle upon which virtually ever controversy of our time is based.  We are humans of today, and it seems pretty clear that humans of today like to do things.

Don't get me wrong.  Our actions are incredibly important.  The things we do and don't do play crucial roles in our lives, and there is something inhuman about a human that does nothing.  However, I have a big issue with people who, like Nietzsche, Sartre, and their modern philosophical progeny, believe that we are what we do is the sole factor in who we are.  Simply put, human beings don't do things purposelessly.  We don't go about our lives thriving and acting in meaninglessness, but we strive to make our actions purposeful, and thus give our doings some meaning.

We don't do for doing's sake, our actions serve a greater purpose.  Too often, we seem to forget that we're human beings, not human doings.  More paramount to our humanity is who we are, not just what we do.  I'd suggest that a great number of our culture's struggles are tied in with our widespread inability to understand just who we are.  So many people go through life frantically searching for things to do; boredom is a disease afflicting the soul of our entire society.  So many people are frantically looking for things to do, but rare is the person who is trying to discover who to be, the person who is living life to uncover who they are.

Perhaps it takes a leap of faith to believe this, but our lives are meaningful.  More often than not, we judge the meaning of life by the things we do, so its not surprising that we are constantly doing things to make our lives seem more meaningful.  Yet it is who we are that defines us, not just what we do.  Each and every human person is a unique creation, made purposefully, and for meaningful ends.

If there was a "square one" of the spiritual life, this would be it:  the realization that your life is meaningful, that you matter.  More than your ability to do, you matter because of who you are, because of your being.  You exist as you do in this very moment because God is loving you into existence, because you are meaningful to him, because you, as you are, have been, and will be, matters to him.  God does not evaluate based on accomplishments and failures, but upon how our accomplishments and failures make us, how they change us, how they help or harm in becoming who he made us to be.  It is only when we seek to discover ourselves, to really become who God made us to be rather than search for something to do, that we truly find fulfillment.

There will be a part two to this post, so stay tuned

Secular Vs. Secularism

Recently, and by recently I mean to say in the last several decades, there has been much talk amongst the religious types of the world regarding the idea of our increasingly "secular" world.  Typically, this sort of talk is a variation on the theme "Barbarians at the gates", only with the secular powers of the world being the barbarians, and the religious types of the world as those barricading the gates.  This zeitgeist  has dominated much of the efforts of religious groups and person worldwide, and it could be argued that both Vatican II and September 11 are responses to this pervasive theme.

Now, I'd argue that, for the most part, this "Secular vs. Religion" idea is fairly accurate:  we are seeing a decrease in the social prominence of religion and an increasing prominence of secularized institutions and organizations.  However, it is important for us of the religious bent to understand this phenomenon fully, to avoid a monochromatic understanding of this trend and really explore the relationship of the religious and the secular, and understand fully the implications of these things.

The common tendency amongst religious peoples is to see the issue quite simply, with "Secular" as bad and "Traditional" or "Religious" or "Godly" as good.  Clear cut, simple, this sort of understanding makes it clear who the good guys are, who the bad guys are, and where to draw the battle lines, leaving the situation looking like the beginning of a Civil War battlefield: Straight lines, pressed uniforms, clear motives, and regimented clarity over the situation.  Also like a Civil War battle, this understanding usually leaves virtually everyone sick, wounded, and really really pissed off, albeit minus the gangrene and horrendous surgical practices.   It is this simplified, mono-faceted understanding of the trend of secularization that ends in court battles with the ACLU, arms stockpiling in the basements of the disgruntled denizens of the Bible Belt, and, in extreme cases, sheer, senseless, gratuitous violence and counter-violence on the streets of London.  Decreeing the secular to be evil and the Godly to be irreproachable, while simple and concise, does not really seem to work.  Why not?  Well, simply put, because, like all things humans do, both the sacred and the secular can be done well and can be done poorly.

Technically, this is partly true...

For example, look at religion.  It takes a relatively brief glance at nearly any period in history to discover a very simple truth:  People have done great things and terrible things have been done in the name of God.  Within our own lifetime, the phrase "Allahu Akbar", an Arabic phrase which translates "God is Greatest" has become widely associated with acts of terrorism.  Innocent people are murdered by people who, at least in his own eyes, is operating on the will of God.  Its easy for us to say "The guy is crazy, he's clearly not a good example of a religious person" and it is frighteningly simple for us to dismiss the entire Islamic faith as an evil or fundamentally flawed religion, but we must face the simple, rather terrifying truth:  The people who blow themselves up on street corners, set bombs up at marathons, and hack a British soldier to pieces in broad daylight honestly believe that they're actions are condoned, even applauded, by God.   They act in the name of God, as do the Westboro Baptist Church (If you've read much of my previous work on here, you will know that I really really don't like the WBC), as do so many Christians each and every day.  However, if we are to learn one thing from the suicide bomber, it is this: merely claiming a religious justification does not make you, nor your actions, commendable.  Simply saying "God told me so", that is, being religious, is not beyond error.

The word "Secular" itself is not antithetical to religion, simply meaning "worldly or temporal".  We're all, in some ways, secular.  We live (whether we like it or not) in this world with our 7 billion neighbors.  We eat food, drink water, sleep, work, shit, and get up the next day and do it all again.  We cannot escape the world we live in...nor should we.  Jesus Christ lived on this world, he worked by the sweat of his brow and lived most of his life caked in dust and dirt and dealing with everyday problems such as politics and gossip and social norms.  Jesus Christ did not shy away from the worldly or the temporal, but entered into it.  The purpose of Christ is not to dispose of the temporal and worldly, but to enter into it and redeem it.  The secular isn't bad per se, just like being religious isn't "good" per se.  Each are subject to more prudential judgement, each need to be better understood.

The great problem with the secularization trend is not the secular or the religious, but the harmony between the two.  The things of the world and the things of God are not dichotomous, but harmonious.  All things are meant to be harmonious, for God did not create a disharmonious world, nor did he sow discord into it, but gave the choice to do so to humanity, so that we might choose better of it.

Instead of avoiding the secular, we should seek to avoid secularism, the supremacy of the secular over the spiritual.  Secularism seeks to eliminate or marginalize religion and spirituality from the public life of society and promote a society with absolute privatization of God and other such things.  And, honestly at face value, this doesn't seem so terrible.  By privatizing God, we eliminate a bevy of nuisances, ranging from Mormons at the door in the early morning to our aforementioned suicide bomber.  Religiously-minded people cause a massive amount of discord in the world, so why wouldn't we put a muzzle on them for the sake of peace and harmony?

Because peace and harmony are neither peaceful nor harmonious when they are built on lies, and the idea that faith is a private matter is a very bold lie.  Faith is not a personal indulgence, but a fundamental part of what it means to be human.  Faith is the search for meaning beyond ourselves, it is longing to belong to things infinitely greater than oneself.  Faith is part of human nature, and as a part of human nature, cannot be suppressed.  No social trend, authority, or regime can eradicate human nature, no matter how well-intentioned they may seem.  Secularism is false because it seeks harmony, not by a proper understanding of the relationship between secular and sacred, but by eliminating the sacred altogether.

This picture doesn't directly correlate
to the subject at hand.  It just like Pope Francis.

The same can be said for unhealthy disdain for the secular, for puritanism, unhealthy asceticism, anti-materialism.  Religious efforts to negate or suppress the worldly, or forced imposition of religion upon cultures and societies can be as harmful and unnatural as secularism.  The material world, while fallen, is good, is always being redeemed by Christ, always being sanctified.  Christ does not intend to destroy the world, but to perfect it, and grossly neglecting or demeaning the secular is gross neglect and disdain for Christ, who enters into and redeems the secular.

The Catholic Church, and indeed, any religion, ought to be wary of the so-called "Secular trend".  Rather than simply rejecting any mention of secular and embracing any push for religious traditionalism, we must be wise judges, prudentially understanding who we are as religious and secular people, seeking and elevating acts of goodness in our world, regardless of their origin.  It is not enough for us to self-assure ourselves because of our faith.  Our faith must compel us, must inspire great love and compassion and unconditional charity to well up within us.  We must be the bridges of God and the World, the harmonious of Sacred and Secular.  We are the New Heaven and the New Earth, Creation in harmony, growing in perfection, echoing God's love throughout the heavens and the Earth.

To Be Catholic

Here.  Read this self interview by Walker Percy, from Conversations with Myself:

Q: What kind of Catholic are you?
A. Bad.
Q: No. I mean are you liberal or conservative?
A: I no longer know what those words mean.
Q: Are you a dogmatic Catholic or an open-minded Catholic?
A: I don’t know what that means, either. Do you mean do I believe the dogma that the Catholic Church proposes for belief?
Q: Yes.
A: Yes.
Q: How is such a belief possible in this day and age?
A: What else is there?
Q: What do you mean, what else is there? There is humanism, atheism, agnosticism, Marxism, behaviorism, materialism, Buddhism, Muhammadanism, Sufism, astrology, occultism, theosophy.
A: That’s what I mean.
Q: To say nothing of Judaism and Protestantism.
A: Well, I would include them along with the Catholic Church in the whole peculiar Jewish-Christian thing.
Q: I don’t understand. Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative?
A: Yes.
Q: Why?
A: It’s not good enough.
Q: Why not?
A: This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer “Scientific humanism.” That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let go until God identified himself and blessed him.
Q: Grabbed aholt?
A: A Louisiana expression.
Q: But isn’t the Catholic Church in a mess these days, badly split, its liturgy barbarized, vocations declining?
A: Sure. That’s a sign of its divine origins, that it survives these periodic disasters.
Q: You don’t act or talk like a Christian. Aren’t they supposed to love one another and do good works?
A: Yes.
Q: You don’t seem to have much use for your fellowman or do many good works.
A: That’s true. I haven’t done a good work in years.
Q: In fact, if I may be frank, you strike me as being rather negative in your attitude, cold-blooded, aloof, derisive, self-indulgent, more fond of the beautiful things of this world than of God.
A: That’s true.
Q: You even seem to take certain satisfaction in the disasters of the twentieth-century and to savor the imminence of world catastrophe rather than world peace, which all religions seek.
A: That’s true.
Q: You don’t seem to have much use for your fellow Christians, to say nothing of Ku Kluxers, ACLU’ers, northerners, southerners, fem-libbers, anti-fem-libbers, homosexuals, anti-homosexuals, Republicans, Democrats, hippies, anti-hippies, senior citizens.
A: That’s true – though taken as individuals they turn out to be more or less like oneself, i.e., sinners, and we get along fine.
Q: Even Ku Kluxers?
A: Sure.
Q: How do you account for your belief?
A: I can only account for it as a gift from God.
Q: Why would God make you such a gift when there are others who seem more deserving, that is, serve their fellowman?
A: I don’t know. God does strange things. For example, he picked as one of his saints a fellow in northern Syria, a local nut, who stood on top of a pole for thirty-seven years.
Q: We are not talking about saints.
A: That’s true.
Q: We are talking about what you call a gift.
A: You want me to explain it? How would I know? The only answer I can give is that I asked for it, in fact demanded it. I took it as an intolerable state of affairs to have found myself in this life and in this age, which is a disaster by any calculation, without demanding a gift commensurate with the offense. So I demanded it. No doubt other people feel differently.
Q: But shouldn’t faith bear some relation to the truth, facts?
A: Yes. That’s what attracted me, Christianity’s rather insolent claim to be true, with the implication that other religions are more or less false.
Q: You believe that?
A: Of course.
Q: I see. Moving right along now –