A long time ago I wrote my Master’s Philosophy thesis on “Aesthetics, Human Freedom, and Technological Rationality”. Thinking back on it now I probably should have come up with a more simple title like “Art, Freedom, and Capitalism”.
I examined the work of two philosophers Friedrich Schiller’s “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man”, and Herbert Marcuse’s “One Dimensional Man”. In short, I was interested in looking at the creative capacities of human beings and how Capitalism basically squashes those capacities.
The reason I was interested in looking at human beings as creative beings is because, according to many scholars, it is through creation that human beings become free. It is through creation that human beings express hope in the face of the inevitable, Death.
Musical artists like Isra Doghman, the band DAM, painters like Sliman Mansour and Malak Mattar, poets like the famous Mahmoud Darwish and Fadwa Tuqan, take their ‘existence as resistance’ to a whole other level. They channel their experiences through their creations, not only as an affirmation of their humanity. Through their creations, these Palestinian artists also rebel against, and tell us directly and explicitly, that which is denying their humanity.
To be sure, many philosophers, scholars, academics and poets, have tried to answer the question “What makes us human?”. And there are many ideas proposed from religious, spiritual, psychological, and social perspectives. Human beings, some say, have a soul, that’s what sets us apart from other life forms. Human beings, others say, can engage is reason and have rational arguments and debates. And some also might claim that emotional intelligence is the hallmark of humanity.
Schiller proposed that it is through our creative capacities that we both express and experience what it means to be human. Our ability to dream, fantasize, and have ideas, which he calls “forms”, is our own. Ideas, dreams and fantasies on their own are untouchable, and unknowable until we express them somehow. When I try and explain a dream or an idea to someone, I’m trying to bring it into existence.
Often times, however, talking about dreams or ideas only goes so far and isn’t enough for them to materialize. The person has to then use their own imagination, their abilities to dreams, think, and fantasize, to try and understand what I’m trying to bring into being. I have to give the ideas some kind of material and physical shape. Schiller calls this “content”
But what does “physical shape” or “content” look like? Talking, and everything involved in it,is one example of giving an idea physical shape. I use my body, vocal cords, facial expressions, mannerism, to explain and convey ideas and thoughts. Spoken word, poetry, storytelling, are all examples of ways I can bring ghostly ideas into existence.
Beyond talking, I can also draw, sculpt, and produce things. The things I produce can be written text, books, they can be drawings and paintings. They can also be everyday objects like shoes, bookmarks, wallets etc. We can easily argue that most of our human made physical world is content that began as forms, ideas.
As such, I develop my creative abilities when I give my ideas a physical shape, when I make “form” into “content”, as Schiller would say. And the creative act of giving content to form, is precisely what “Art” or “Aesthetics” is. That is what makes us human, our ability to create, to give content to otherwise ethereal imagination.
Most importantly, this practice of giving content to form is done for nothing more than it’s own enjoyment. I engage in artistic creation and creativity because I enjoy it, and not because of any other reason. If I start to do for some other reason like “I have to create a work for art so I can sell it and make money…” it stops being about expressing my humanity and becomes more about trying to survive. That’s putting it simply but I won’t go into too much detail about that right now.
But why is it important for human beings to be aesthetic, and express our humanity through creation and creative self expression? The answer, for me, is that it is a rebellion against death, and against destruction.
We know we are eventually going to die, everything and everyone eventually will, so why does anything we do matter? Religious and Spiritual reasons aside, the act of creating things brings us joy and positively nurtures our human experience. Creative endeavours bring us happiness and joy, pleasure, they also allow us to experience the myriad of our emotions. We get to know ourselves and our skills by working and improving on them. And there are so many studies that help support the claim that creative acts improve our quality of life
Now having said all of this, how does it all relate to the idea of “Hope”? I’m going to assume that we all understand “Hope” to refer to a feeling that we have, an expectation or a desire to see something in particular to happen. For example, “I hope it doesn’t rain today” simply expresses my feeling and desire that there’s no rain today.
If we can accept this definition of “Hope” then maybe we can also agree that it belongs in the realm of “Forms”, as an idea, a dream, something that doesn’t exist in the material world. And if we can agree that “Hope” is an idea we cannot yet experience with our physical senses, how do we go about giving it shape? The answer for me is a mix between what Schiller proposes along with a healthy dose of existentialism, born out of learning from Palestinian Arabs.
As I look around at the current state of the world for the Arab people, and the Palestinians in particular, the simple act of existing is enough to cause a ruckus. Existing as an Arab Palestinian is an act of resistance, defiance, and affirming of one’s humanity, against a tyrannical and fascist rule that wants to exterminate them. And yet many Palestinians want to go beyond mere existence, and engage in creation.
There are so many Palestinian artists that are looking the death machine in the face, while creating and displaying the most insightful, resilient, and powerful form of aesthetics I have ever seen. It is an aesthetic and affirms and validates their will to live as fully as possible.
This, to me, is the highest level of expression of hope. Human beings using their creative capacities to create, and in this sense also resist, the possible inevitability of preventable death. Death due to natural reasons is one thing. Death that comes from the indiscriminate bombing, starvation, torture and abuse at the hands of an occupying settler colonialist war machine is very much preventable.
Hope doesn’t have to be some kind of a mystical, untouchable thing that hinges on the possible existence of a particular deity and their divine will. Hope becomes a very real manifestation through the physical capacities and abilities of human beings, even when we are simply existing and doing nothing else.
What a shame that there are so many systems of oppression that seek to crush our creative capacities, and our hopes along with it.