Art is a Dangerous Blessing – Part Two
Due to its c. 5500 word length, I’ve split this paper into three parts. This is Part One of three (find One and Three here when they’re published). Works Cited & the full paper can be found here.
While on this earth though, the Christian must consider the question of whether interacting with a specific work of art will have greater cost or benefit to him (pornography being the most obvious example of excessive cost). The cost, in this case, is the evil influence of the art upon the reader’s soul (and the opportunity cost); the benefit is the good influence upon his soul. These influences come in many paths and types, as will be seen, but fundamentally can be categorized into the good and the evil for their relevance to the question of ‘ought I receive (read, watch, et cetera)?’ That some evil influence will have to be accepted has been shown already; the Bible alone is given to the modern man as art without defect. This evil influence must therefore be weighed against the good influence of the same work, in light of the individual person and the individual methods of interaction, in order that he might benefit himself more than he harms.
What are the potential dangers of interacting with a given piece of art? They come in three general types: opportunity cost, consciously learned lessons, and subconsciously learned worldview. The first, opportunity cost, is the question of whether this piece of art is the best one available and if other concerns besides art are more pressing or worthwhile at the present time, a simple concept but reliant for its analysis on the sum of the other elements. The second, consciously learned lessons, are the parts of the story the reader consciously receives, analyzes (hopefully), and accepts. A man might, for instance, watch Cuties, spend some time in thought, and decide pedophilia is a righteous course. This type of evil influence passes through the mind, through consideration, and is the lesser of the two positive dangers of art because this path is mediated by the mind. A Christian who encounters such an influence is in danger of accepting a lie, certainly, but he is given also the opportunity to see and reject it for what it is under the light of day.
The third category of danger, in contrast, does not ask permission of the man’s reason before making a home in his soul. Art has the ability to provide to its enjoyers a new framework, partially or total, with which to view the world, particularly by means of repeated exposure, particularly to the unguarded or inattentive mind, as can be seen by inspecting the power of one type of art, the story. Stories, “in transforming the elements of Primary Creation which they use, endeavor to show the reader how he ought to view those elements, in his own life and in others. Stories tell of man’s relation to man, to the world around him, and to his God above him” (Potter, Sub-Creating Secondary Creation). This statement applies, through differing mechanisms and to different extents, to every work of art, because every work of art presents a specifically distorted image of the world, distorted in a way that reflects the author’s purposes and character. Art then impresses this into its audience, especially if that audience is giving little consideration to the theological underpinnings of the art, speaking, by virtue of sheer breadth, in a way which the recipient’s reason does not fully comprehend or mediate.
Because of art’s common and justified role as a bringer of pleasure, the ideas art presents are much easier to accept without thought than the ideas a work like a textbook or a syllogism presents (Van Til 110). The ideas are, after all, offered quietly, as part and parcel of enjoyment, not as something to be analyzed but as something to be presumed. Not all ideas are so presented; many stories, for instance, present ideas almost openly, as with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’s struggle between self-preservation and virtue. Yet all art does so present ideas, simply because any conception of beauty must include the implied, not just the stated, understanding of the nature of God and reality. To the eye, then, which merely consumes without consideration, which accepts without critique the ideas presented and assumed in the story, it can become all too easy to accept D’Artagnan’s adultery as an amusing foible or even a neutral trait, rather than its true character as a vile sin worthy of exceeding censure (Ex. 20:14). This tendency becomes more pronounced, of course, the more the temptation is reiterated; one bawdy romance novel will not pollute a man’s concept of marriage so thoroughly as ten or a hundred will, save he wholeheartedly accept the perversion from the beginning. In sum, to interact with art can all too easily be to walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat of scoffers, not with purpose to understand and rebuke but in ignorance and acceptance, to the grave harm of the soul (Ps. 1:1).
This influence, unfiltered by the brain but accepted by the assumptions which underlie it, manifests in at least three important areas: normalization, unnoticed imitation, and reduction of ability to discern beauty. First comes normalization. Art, particularly imbibed over a long period of time, can have the effect of re-ordering, subtly, partially, and often inconsistently (there being no organizing force), the standards instinctively applied by a man to the world around him to judge it. Consuming vast quantities of modern television, for instance, could lead him to regard homosexual affairs as relatively normal, condemning them still with his reason but accepting them in his heart. This process also affects his perception of art itself, shaping his desire for the art according to the mold given by his habitual entertainment. Thus, art designed to entertain via stimulation or shock will train him to desire art designed to entertain via stimulation or shock. As Myers points out, this process is not necessarily static: it can converge towards ‘more of the same’, but very often, especially in modernity, it tends towards ‘more intense and depraved of the same’, particularly when driven man’s natural proclivity for vice (61).
The second effect is unnoticed imitation, and it flows, very often, from normalization. As a result of the assumptions and half-formed notions borrowed without intent from the art, the behavior of the borrower changes, altering without his note. Man is, after all, very far from being an entirely self-conscious being (Rushdoony 6). He does not fully understand himself, and if he can be tricked by attribution errors, he can be misguided by full-fledged ideas he has accidentally acquired (Snyder 29). Thus, a man who, as above, reads too many tawdry romance novels might assume his understanding of the female sex more thorough and more accurate than it truly was, sabotaging his own romantic efforts not from malice but from assenting to ideas he never truly considered.
The third ill effect of art is the most esoteric, in a way: a reduction in man’s ability to discern the truly beautiful from the superficially beautiful or merely attractive. Beauty is an objective thing, a reflection of the nature of God and therefore a quality man should seek to understand the enjoy (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 1; Van Til 109-110). Man’s perception of beauty is, however, subjective, torn and rent by vice. To the unregenerate heart particularly beauty is only partially visible, only partially understandable (Van Til 107-108). Even the regenerate heart, though, will on this earth be imperfect in recognizing it. Just as vast amount of gunfire tends to degrade the hearing of those exposed to it, so vast amounts of poor art tend to reduce the man’s ability to discern beauty. Not only will the man unused to beauty lack the experience recognizing it, lack the beauty-identification muscles in his mind, he will lack a habitual standard to measure and identify it. He may easily have a false standard too, one calibrated by the false beauty, the flashing lights and pleasurable stimulation, of his accustomed art. He may therefore see the reflection of God’s glory and even the glory itself without recognition, to the harm of his soul.
