Moral Clarity part 4: The Artist’s Dilemma

Big pictures and little pictures.

Artists get into the details, and it’s their sensitivity to detail and skill at transforming that sensitivity into a creative, vibrant and relatable product, be it a story, a song, or a painting, that marks their craft. When an artist gets it right, work that focuses on the particularities of the human experience, can become something universal, it resonates profoundly, and we see our own personal experience reflected in the art. The little picture, becomes the big picture. 

Because they focus on the unique details of the individual human experience, artist’s cherish and champion the right of individual self expression. It’s why they fight against censorship, the banning of books, and maximally defend the free expression of ideas. Creativity requires individual freedom. Artists can’t be artists without it. 

So why the blind spot when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict? Why do so many members of the artistic community seem to side politically with the autocrats, theocrats and terrorists, over the only democratic society in the Middle East that protects and values individual liberty and self-expression? 

It’s because artists tend to see themselves as marginalized, and suffering (the old trope of them suffering for their art). They tend to side with the powerless, oppressed and victimized because that’s how they see themselves, which makes sense. Artists often find themselves in opposition to power, since they only have one loyalty, and that’s to express the truth as they understand it. The expression of truth often conflicts with the interests of those who hold power, so artists can be a threat to the status quo. It’s why artists are frequently targets of the regime. 

This is the nature of the artist’s dilemma. On the one hand they can’t very well side with the regime, because that would be like siding with the powerful against the powerless and marginalized. On the other hand, they should be siding with the regime if it represents and protects the values of individual liberties and human rights that they cherish and require to be artists.

Artists are humanitarians. The humanitarian position should always be to oppose the oppressors. For artists the oppressors must be those who would take away the right of individual belief, thought, and self expression. Every artist taking a political stand needs to ask themself one ‘big picture’ question: Would I be allowed to practice my art freely in that society? If the answer is no, then that’s the side they should be opposed to. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, the answer is clear.