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It couldn't be stranger when you think about it. For better or worse, our brains have the ability to imagine ourselves somewhere we aren't and might never be. And in whatever form, art can offer us a vision of our world, for the better or sometimes distinctly the worse, that brings it into a kind of cohesion we often don't experience in our actual lives.
Only recently, this old guy decided to revisit two classic works of the imagination he read decades ago that, in both cases, offer us visions of ourselves on a planet most definitely for the worse. In the early sixteenth century Thomas More wrote a book about what was then a barely known new American world and, in its title, used the word "utopia" (no place) for the first time in our history. That word then entered our vocabulary forever, along (later) with another that fit the grimness of so much of this planet of ours. I'm thinking, of course, of "dystopia."
The two dystopias I revisited recently were Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell's 1984 (written in 1948), both of which offer visions of a future planet in grim shape. (Both also imagined a world of "television" -- Orwell's Big Brother is, after all, a screen vision of dictatorial horror -- long before it became a feature of our lives.) But neither Huxley nor Orwell ever imagined one Donald J. Trump and his -- yes, let's change that "t" to a "d" in his honor -- dysdopian world, though they did imagine worlds of horror that have stayed with us into our genuinely dysdopian moment in these increasingly DysUnited States.
They are both works of literary art and artfulness that remind us of just what a strange, unpredictable crew we humans are. And with that in mind, let TomDispatch regular Bill Hartung leave the worlds of dystopian military thinking and Pentagon "newspeak" ("designed," as Orwell wrote, "not to extend but to diminish the range of thought"), where he so often applies his critical expertise, for a distinctly better world of art that, even on our disturbed planet, still has the ability to do much good. Tom
In Stunningly Bright Colors
A Cry for Common Sense and Common Humanity
The world is in danger, mind-numbingly so, from a combination of crises: disease, hunger, mass displacement, racial and economic inequality, war and the threat of more war, a rampaging climate crisis, and an accelerating nuclear arms race (and that's just for starters) -- all occurring in a climate of massive mis- and disinformation that makes it ever harder to build a consensus toward solutions to the multiple problems we face.
Words can't fully express our current predicament. We need other tools and other ways of making sense of the situation we now find ourselves in.
This should be a time for action and activism on behalf of our species and our planet. While there's certainly a fair amount of that already, the combined weight of the risks we face makes all too many of us turn inward toward family and friends, or outward to find scapegoats for our problems. And yes, there are still moments of joy, optimism, and constructive action. Unfortunately, they are increasingly hard to sustain amid relentless daily attacks on people's lives, livelihoods, and basic dignity.
One of the best ways to find a place of balance and light amid all the chaos is by creating and appreciating art, which can get to the heart of the matter by tapping not just the intellect but the emotions, putting us in touch with a deeper sense of meaning too often ignored in our rush to deal with the crises of the moment.
Sending Out an SOS
It's in this context that I read and viewed Promemoria -- Reminder (Sending Out an SOS) by EMA (Enrico Muratore Aprosio), a Geneva-based human rights advocate, humanitarian, and artist. The words in the book, which addresses Covid, the climate, and the prospects of nuclear war through poetry, prose, and storytelling, are compelling. But the artworks that punctuate the text are truly stunning, using bright colors and complex designs that incorporate pictures of both historical and imaginary figures -- its images ranging from Karl Marx to Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan to the Mona Lisa (wearing a Covid protective mask).
The book honors the spirit of altruism and courage, most notably in a section dedicated to Mbaye Diagne, a Senegalese peacekeeper who saved up to 1,000 lives amid the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, only to be killed in a mortar attack 12 days before he was set to return home.
Melissa Parke, director general of the Nobel Prize-winning International Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, captures the sense of the book well, suggesting that Aprosio's "use of beautiful animals, striking colors, and magical happenings communicates both the urgency of the situation we face and reminds us of what we stand to lose if we don't change course."
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