Social Art

In the 20th century we experienced the awakening of the social feeling in the human being. 'Prior to that, it  had certainly been there in individuals, but had never become a worldwide movement. It developed into communism and socialism. When I think back to the sixties - I was a schoolgirl then - I remember how my classmates had great interest in politics. I grew up in Amsterdam, visited a Gymnasium (high school) there, where this growing social and political involvement found its pioneers. The adolescents were trying to free themselves from authority, there were the revolutions of the students, who wanted to have a say in their education. There were the labourers who wanted to free themselves from the capitalistic predominance, picking up the socialistic and communistic principles of the period before World War II. It was the time of the existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. One could see the words 'God is dead' and 'Make love, not war' everywhere.

On the one hand we felt a growing freedom, all authoritative principles seemed to have been  overcome. On the other hand it turned out to be a strengthening of materialism. The 'God is dead' principle gave a sense of freedom, but also put all thoughts about the spirit in a drawer with the sign 'old-fashioned nonsense' on it. The 'Make love not war' principle was carried out in a pure physical way - in the Vondelpark one could see the love making in the open air.... Existentialism was confined to the existence on earth, in the physical body; communism and socialism were based on the fair distribution of money and power - not on the more spiritual aspects of social life. Socialism and communism turned out to be purely materialistic visions.

What would characterise a social life, based on spiritual views? It would be a social art. The 'material' that this art uses would be the encounter, the true conversation, but also the silent encounter. This is a spiritual medium that works between people. It can be used in an artistic way.

In normal life it is almost always the destiny connecting people that governs the encounter. Sartre saw only two possibilities: one wins, or one loses - there is nothing in between. The winner feels good, the loser suffers... The spiritual side of this kind of encounter would be that the participants develop themselves by being happy or by suffering. There is only a passive way of experiencing such coming together and leaving again.

Social art would be quite something else, something new. The participants would have an active self-consciousness, they would want to make the encounter better, nobler, more joyful and original - and so on. They would try to create a completely new atmosphere of human friendship. One would have to be in an optimal spiritual self-conscious state, ready not to be thrown along in the patterns that already exist, but forming new patterns of freedom and friendship.

It has been tried once before. Before the materialistic period arrived with Feuerbach as a philosopher and Karl Marx as a social reformer, there was the idealistic and romantic period of Goethe, Schiller and Novalis. These kind of feelings have in fact become impossible in our time of relativism. We will have to find new forms for them...

Schiller wrote his poem 'Ode to joy' and in these verses we can feel the high sense of idealism:
Close the holy circle tighter,
Swear by this golden wine:
To remain true to the Oath,
Swear it by the Judge above the stars!
Delivery from tyrants' chains,
Generosity also towards the villain,
Hope on the deathbeds,
Mercy from the final judgment!
Also the dead shall live!
Brothers, drink and chime in,
All sinners shall be forgiven,
And hell shall be no more.


This Aristotelic faith (confidence?) in the learning capacities of the human being will guide us to the art of social life.Social Art by Mieke Mosmulller