The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Five - Always seek the communication of truth to your public…
October 20, 2007
This is NDK Creative Artist’s fifth article in the series covering each point of the Code. It’s essential reading for Creative Artists who wish to give their works the gift of longevity. Think of all the great works that have stood the test of time and still remain great today and ask yourself why were they written? If you’re familiar with the works you’ll notice that they all communicate a great truth, and often, an inconvenient one. It’s quite a challenge to try and top Shakespeare in terms of longevity (and you won’t be alive to see it happen), but you won’t make any progress towards that lofty goal without first grasping the fifth point of the Code of a Creative Artist. Joel Falconer, Editor-in-Chief
Always seek the communication of truth to your public and the elevation of their affinity and understanding of themselves, your art and the ideas you are communicating. It is axiomatic that “Truth communicates.” The more powerful the truth you communicate in a work, the more powerful and popular the work.
If you follow the global environmental debate and the political discourse (if that’s what we should call it) around democracy in the USA, we can see that people have a lot of problems with truth today. All truth “is relative” and “depends on where you are coming from” and a plethora of other weasel words and spin doctoring introduce confusions, that lead to paralysis and make it hard to deal with reality with any certainty. And then of course “reality is what we agree it to be.” Well, not when it comes to creativity in the field of art & entertainment.
When it comes to creativity reality is a plaything. We create new realities, reshape the old ones, create the future and package truth in lies so artful that people don’t even realize that the fiction is really the truth packaged in such a way that they will be able to accept it, without getting all offended and on their high horse and can start to see what it is they are really doing to themselves and others. There is certainly something to be said about Creative Artist Ethics, Integrity and Responsibility given that reality is something we play with at every level whether that be intellectually, emotionally, physically or spiritually. The world of illusion is where we work, and this has its own problems, because it can create the perception that those who deal with the fields of the art & entertainment industry have no grasp on reality whatsoever. The truth is that we have a better grasp on it than most, because we are masters at changing the perception of reality and therein lies the problem that this point of the Code of a Creative Artist deals with.
“Seek the communication of truth…”
It is not the purpose of this code to prescribe anything (see Point 0). Communicating the truth of a malicious sadistic killer’s brutal motivations in graphic style is not always pretty, nor popular. One could argue that it is not very constructive, except that understanding such motivations and behavior can lead to early detection and thus prevention of psychotic destructive behavior and harm done to many.
Religious bigots and others will of course consider that the only truth worth communicating is their particular brand of truth. Creative Artists strive to be above and beyond this sort of thing, which often places them at odds with religious authorities. But such authorities are mostly intolerant of other realities than those they have swallowed so deeply that it has paralyzed their ability to think. And that leads us to the next part of this point of the code.
“…to your public”
The public of a Creative Artist changes with the function of the work one is creating. The public one is communicating to, has a certain hold on reality, a certain perception package of it, and Creative Artists should understand those realities and perceptions that are held, especially if one is to accomplish a precision intended effect with one’s communication of a creative work. Truth is not always pleasant, as Al Gore’s award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, so beautifully articulates with the title alone. There are a lot of inconvenient truths abounding in our world and civilization today, and most of them appear to be coming home to roost at once. The issue of catastrophic climate change is one of the greatest of them all, for when its reality finally does bite hard, it could well wipe out the rest of the inconvenient truths we are faced with.
On the website for An Inconvenient Truth there is a line that says “Learn how to deliver the truth” and that is part of the art of the Creative Artist–learning how to deliver the truth in such a way as to make it have the desired and intended effect. Truth is a matter of reason, you see, not faith. Faith eschews reason by its very nature, it can’t do anything else and be faith. This is faith’s flaw, as inconvenient as it may be, but it is paradoxically, also faith’s strength, for those weak in reason are more easily exploited by an appeal to unreason. All I’m trying to do here is demonstrate that truth is a fluid state that encompasses a lot of different realities and perspectives and that a Creative Artist needs to consider the truths a particular public holds, “your public” for one work may not be the public for another work. When you change genre, or topic, you are also changing the type of public to whom a work will appeal.
A Creative Artist must understand people of faith, and that means grokking their truth, whether or not one agrees with those truths that they hold dear. They are their truths, and this does not mean one should not respect them, or disrespect them personally, or creatively, or with a work when it is finally delivered.
Because the path to truth is the path of reason, it is important in any work to give the recipient public the opportunity to reason their way through what a work is communicating.
“…the elevation of their affinity and understanding of themselves, your art and the ideas you are communicating.”
Affinity is a feeling of closeness, and it embraces the concept of sharing at its most fundamental and highest levels. The original Latin etymology of the word art is from ARS meaning: to join together. In other words: to bring things into a similar space or proximity and this includes the sharing of experience, viewpoint and concept, or emotion. This part of the fifth point of the code touches on the creation of effect, and it is the creation of specific intended effects which is the hallmark of Creative Artists. Quite simply, Creative Artists nail the effect they wish to create, every time.
Art joins ‘things’ together, and as a result art joins people together to share experience and understandings. Art is some kind of social glue, that can knit humanity at levels of understanding that few have ever really explored in depth, mainly because, once the power of art has been understood it has been cornered by the controlling elite to serve their ends, and nowhere has this become more evident than in the control of corporations over the mechanisms and channels of art & entertainment production and delivery.
The quality of delivery has improved immensely, along with the quality of production, however, the quality of the communications being delivered on these high quality channels has declined, and the decline of this parallels the decline of human civilization, and that of civilized values. I am not saying that this is the only thing that has contributed to the decline of civilization, I am saying that the quality of art & entertainment coming out of the culturally dominant nation on the planet is a factor in the decline of civilization. This is not a strange idea, it’s a very strong idea, that few have had the courage to articulate (though plenty are thinking it) and only lately, as the nature of America’s corruption has come broadly into view, have we been able to take a look at the full spectrum of American cultural corruption.
Let me put it this way: America, you suck.
Not particularly elevating is it? Doesn’t particularly build our affinity for America and Americans does it? Truth is not always palatable or convenient. That doesn’t make it any the less important or valuable, nor any further away from the truth about America, the world’s first democratic bully, or anything else. But here’s the idea: if America does not get the idea that there is maybe something wrong with how they’re doing things in the global village we call the world then…what happens? The conditions we already live under become even more untenable. I’m sorry, but from where I stand on the issues facing human civilization and its obvious and immediate decay, that’s simply unacceptable. America is part of the rot and decay of civilization. From its excessive rape and plunder of the world to its lack of moral values and the fine ideals that fall out of their mouths with such ease and mean…absolutely nothing. They are just words.
Well, words are not just words and it is high time America learned this.
It is axiomatic that “Truth communicates.”
Truth has an unmistakable ring to it. It always has. Truth somehow enlightens us, it lifts us, it clears away the darkness of confusion and misunderstanding. It does not leave us bound and upset nor saddened. “Yeah, yeah,” I hear some say, “What’s axiomatic?” It means something that is self-evident. Which means what?
It means that the thing itself proves itself simply by existing. And here we are back at reality’s door. Truth and reality are one and the same. Where they are not one and the same it is not truth, but falsehood. Corrupt societies and civilizations fool around with these ideas and concepts of truth in order to undermine them and take advantage of the confusion and paralysis that ensue. Too many people have fallen under the spell of this sort of chicanery, and art & entertainment has played its part, oh, yes it has.
Truth is not an absolute and it cannot be, and that is part of what “truth being relative” is all about. However, when people of low character use such phrases to twist truth like a pretzel, truth is done a gross disservice. One must make one’s best effort to understand the great truths, the principles that make life work, and one must similarly grok those that make life a misery. Good is not always good. Evil is not always evil. There are agendas and it behooves a Creative Artist to dig deep to determine what is what, and how things–situations, events, circumstances, etc.–work and then to bring those insights to life in song, image, story, poem, sculpture, dance and game.
What am I saying? I’m urging artists to make a concerted effort to understand life and how it works, for works of art & entertainment are at their best when they inform lives of the experiences of life and let us as readers, watchers and listeners determine the path we will follow. It is not a matter of “thrusting truth” into hearts, minds and souls, it is not a matter of seducing them either. It is a matter of offering insight; seek the communication of truth, and then you will find out about a few things, and you will make discoveries, that are then put to those who come to your work who then may find them useful.
This is not about plagiarism either. It is about coming at important aspects of life from different viewpoints than those who have offered similar fare before. It’s about your art, your ideas. Not the ideas of others, unless you offer insight into the ideas of others that is fresh, challenging or throws new light upon previous thinking that brings value or illuminates flaws that subsequently help mankind to adjust to the new realities born of intellectual effort.
Neither is this about forgetting the great and simple things that art & entertainment can bring to a life. All does not have to be weighted with ponderous and heavy intellectual truth. Entertainment is part of the equation here.
Now, there are going to be people who critique these sorts of statements about truth and challenge them (and me) at every possible level imaginable. Ask yourself why that may be and you’ll come to the truthful conclusion and your own insights.
The more powerful the truth you communicate in a work, the more powerful and popular the work.
“The truth shall set you free” is a phrase that is oft bandied about, but seldom understood, and nowhere is this more evident than in corrupt societies and civilizations where the very confusion about what is true and what is not becomes a tool of the powerful to confuse those whose power to reason would, if not deliberately confused, resolve. Accurate personal observation and consideration soon dispels the fog of confusion that otherwise inhabits the mind. However, the mind, to do such work, requires the liberation of life from the constraint of time. Economic enslavement does not permit this luxury, which results in the ability to consider the circumstances in which one finds oneself. Economic enslavement prevents the intellect from working.
Keeping artists poor and hungry is a way of denying them the resources required to communicate that which they have observed and considered at length to people who do not have time to think and are in fact enslaved. And thus, the artists are put into a condition whereby anybody with a fat check book can buy their work and prevent it from ever seeing the light of understanding be turned on in any thinking being. Sending men and women home tired and exhausted after long hours to a box that then pumps in messages designed to keep the mind in a state bereft of thought but totally receptive is a way to ensure that thinking does not occur.
Works of art and entertainment can be soporifics, mind-numbing agents that deaden the consciousness, by playing upon the emotional responses of human beings. Through careful manipulation of aesthetic qualities, it is possible to introduce in the mind a state of unconsciousness that it does not even recognize and having done this, it is now possible to implant a message that creates an attitude. Such works are write-offs. We reject them, but that does not mean they have not accomplished their job. The very mindless nature of them, is part of the soporific. Those works that make us think, that challenge our ideas about ourselves have become increasingly rare and have to be sought out, or created.
Shakespeare’s works probably demonstrate this best in the field of literature, for the insight his work offered into the way human nature works has lasted more than 400 years at this writing, arguably the most successful author brand in Western history. In the field of popular music The Beatles are a prime example of how to present simple truths, e.g. I Want to Hold Your Hand, is a deceptively simple expression of love, artfully put into song. John Lennon’s song Imagine presents the hopes of all (but a small percentage of) mankind. By contrast All we are is dust in the Wind simply isn’t true, though with the state of climate change perhaps that will become a truth in the not too distant future. Of course, that’s entirely up to us.
James Blunt’s song You’re Beautiful is another example. It communicates how people feel when they are in love. The expression of great truths is the expression of great observation. One cannot create such truths without one having first observed things that are real to those to whom one will communicate, or that can be made real. The language begins to fail us at this point, for it is also possible to make the entirely imaginary, appear real, but the central point here is this: whether your work is a work of imagination or not, what it should communicate, if you want it to have some longevity in terms of human culture, is an expression of truth that will always be a constant for humanity. This is not an easy task, and in a civilization that thrives on deception, it is extremely challenging. Creative Artists, however, rise to such challenges and put the effort in.
We can handle the truth. Anything else is a lie.
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[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptThis is NDK Creative Artist’s fifth article in the series covering each point of the Code. It’s essential reading for Creative Artists who wish to give their works the gift of longevity. Think of all the great works that have stood the … [...]