After a fashion, I want my students to be able to discern between art and kitsch, and I want them to aspire. One of the most distressing moments in my teaching life used to occur whenever an American lit class was reading Huck Finn. They'd come to the passage where Twain offers this awful poetry. The vast majority of the students in my classes didn't "get" the fact that the poem is supposed to be putrid. I'd have to point it out. Only then would it be funny. Sort of.
But I don't care to create elitists either, students who disdain anything less than T.S. Eliot. A little learning is a dangerous thing, and arguing for aesthetic standards shouldn't create bigots. So last night, reading through papers on Flannery O'Connor's views of art, I had to say, time and time again, that they shouldn't get crypto-fascist about "Christian" art, even when "Christian" art is really, really tiring.
A couple weeks ago Thomas Kinkade died, the "Painter of Light." In addition to being a nearly Billy Graham-level evangelical, he was an astute businessman who made millions with paintings someone rather aptly called "cottage cheese," gorgeously lit landscapes and bungalows that made people feel good about themselves and their worlds in an almost eerie fashion. Nothing he ever painted was particularly real. See above.
His death was not his greatest moment. He was drunk--he fought alcoholism for most of his life--and he was with his girlfriend, having left his wife and four daughters some time ago. Well, okay, so did King David, right? We all have sinned, we all have gone astray.
Sure, but there is inescapable irony in the bio: the man who purveyed, even manufactured illusion ends up inescapably slimy. His life looked nothing like his art. More like Steve Jobs. Sad, very sad.
More irony: his death created a healthy spike in the sale of his paintings. In dying, he made more money on even more illusion. You can't make this kind of thing up.
Okay, I admit I'll never own a Thomas Kinkade; but the Lord knows--and so do I--a host of folks who do--and love him. Fine. Takes all kinds, as people say. There's no accounting for taste.
When I wrote some things about Native American boarding schools several years ago, a friend sent me a novel that, after a fashion, dealt with the subject, a novel by Janette Oke. Oke has thrilled millions; my books have sold in the hundreds--well, sometimes. Who am I to criticize?
But what angered me about that novel was the way the author handled Native boarding schools. Her protagonist, a young Sioux girl, was essentially "saved" by the experience, so glorious it was.
Do I think Native kids may have been "saved" in boarding schools? Sure. But telling only that side of the story is an exercise in half truth, and half truth is still falsehood.
Something in all of us reaches mightily for the ideal. Something in all of us wants life to be not only better, but best. Thomas Kinkades offer an ideal world we all wish was ours. So do movies, most of them in fact. In them, we escape life's complexities. Somewhere in my dreams there's a moon-lit cottage on a serene lake surrounded by perfect triangular pines--don't I wish I had one? You bet.
If you don't want your kids or your students to be discerning, then don't send them to school, where, at best, we ought to be teaching them to think. Honestly, I want them to see the difference between art and kitsch, maybe especially when that kitsch is done in God's name. On the other hand, I have no doubt whatsoever that the Lord God almighty once upon a time stuck a pen in Janette Oke's hand and a brush in Thomas Kincade's.
I still like Paul: We all have sinned--we all have gone astray. That's wisdom. That's real discernment.
8 comments:
For those who write glamorized stories of Native Am. children and Boarding schools, Gov. or Denominational, I have only one thing to say to them. "You know nothing. Nothing at all".
Can the same type of discernment be applied to Native American and White churches in Navajo Land or in Sioux land?
DISCERNMENT= the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure.
This definition reminds me of a pop song that went something like this: "I can see clearly know...the rain is gone!" Kinkade, like many of us live a stormy life unfortunately; until the "sunshine of grace" breaks through- a dismal forecast is all we will get.
James, your students will "get it," because you "got it,” but you will really never see where it all goes- the burden of a teacher, but a blessing if someday the clouds part for your former students. Oh, and it has:-)
Blessings today as you get a glimpse of the future!
What the Native Am. people could not grasp and comprehend was the attitudes of dominion and assimilation that was forced upon them. Many of the abusiveness that were recieved, whether in a Gov. or Denomnational school, still lives in the memories of many of todays Native Americans because these stories have been passed on from one generation to another. "It's not against flesh and blood that we war against".
Though we can not change the past, we can learn from it. We have in our country now many from other countries. We have a choice in how are we going to treat them. Some are illegal, but we are called to not only to love God above all, but to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is our time, our opportunity to do what is right. We have been put on earth now, for such a time as this.
Thank you. Native Americans, Din'e have been treating all the Europian and Mexican immigrants real well during the past two hundred years or so. They "gave" us land, water, urainium and the right to worship as we pleased. It's good to hear that we now should continue that Native tradition of helping our neighbors and help those unwanted children who were not aborted.
Don't shy away from or apologize for "elitism"! That word is commonly used as a way to malign excellence. This usage allows people to hide from their faults, and evangelize sub-mediocrity and failure. It helps make us all dumber, worse off, and less accountable to real standards of real value.
From this view, nothing could be better for the US than a blast of unvarnished elitist bigotry in aesthetics and anything else. The headlong rush into the gutter of the cheap and the crude justifies any amount of elitism today, if by "elitism" we mean the supposed arrogance of people who are right and vocal about what is better and what is worse.
Of course, this will not happen outside certain technical and athletic fields, or what remains of high art in music or a few other areas where real standards, competition and striving have not been debased by cheating and self-entitled egos.
True elitism may have a tinge of arrogance, but it is not rejecting, exclusive, or ungenerous. It is an invitation to recognize and accept the goals and pursuit of excellence, or just to admire it humbly from afar, while being honest about your own limitations. There is no better position to be in to learn anything -- to know your own ignorance or shortcomings but to recognize and attempt to learn from a true master.
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