Given what is happening in Washington right now, I don’t think revolution is too strong a word. The toppling of the administrative state is a radical turn. Who can say how it will end up?
One hundred and twenty years ago, poet and critic Matthew Arnold saw Victorian England undergoing similarly drastic changes in society and had a suggestion for ordinary people.
“Commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general,” he said.
If the advent of railroads, global trade, women’s rights, new colonies in the British Empire, and other shake-ups cause you anxiety, he advised, spend an evening with Sophocles, read some Ovid the next day, and study some Cicero the next. Arnold can’t explain why these ancient playwrights, poets, and rhetoricians have a calming effect, only that they do.
If the tumult of the present troubles you, dive into the arts of the past. If the chaos exhilarates you, perhaps because you believe that the targets of it deserve to be destroyed, the ancient geniuses likewise deserve your attention, as they can help keep your excitement from becoming headlong and intoxicating.
A while back I attended a performance of Berlioz and Shostakovich at the New York Philharmonic. I sat down, the lights dimmed, the audience went silent, the conductor raised his arms, and the music started. Everyone in the hall was suddenly in another world, no politics or “society,” only music. We'd been transported.
The same thing happened when my son and I toured the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston a few weeks ago. The transport started the moment we entered the space. We'd stepped inside the temple, out of the world, and opened ourselves up to art objects that would not share space with the hustle of the city outside. (This is why, traditionally, the architecture of museums imitates that of ancient worship structures.) We stood before the famous Copley painting “Watson and the Shark” and thought of nothing else but the naked sailor in the water reaching for help and the shark about to strike, jaws gaping.
Art is an escape from current events, a flight into something more enduring and fundamental. It’s a necessary respite, a retreat, a psychological ease as much as an aesthetic inspiration. It is, of course, the responsibility of free citizens in a republic to monitor the actions of their political leaders and heads of important institutions, such as the public schools and finance giants. We have to read the (reliable) newspapers! Not without a break, though. If you become immersed in current events day and night, you will lose the composure that Arnold prized.
But if you let a Beethoven symphony or Emily Dickinson’s verse hold you for an hour, you will return to the political scene with a surer discernment. If you’ve spent time with the eloquent wordsmiths in the English tradition, you will not be impressed with the middling speechifying of the 21st century. If you watch the “slow” filmmaking of great directors such as Robert Bresson and Michelangelo Antonioni, the frenetic pace of cable news and social media videos will not overwhelm you. You have the proper distance, the solid judgment.
Art is an escape, yes, but the effect is mental and emotional conditioning, a strengthening of the self.
