“Self expression” is the enemy of Art.

We’re not seeing much good Art bc the lines between private/personal, communal or “social”, the civilizational & the Ultimate/Transcendent have been totally blurred. We’re no longer situating ourselves in coherent relation to Creation

Think about someone like David Lynch~ is he “expressing himself”? It’s much more like he’s bearing witness to phenomena , recognizing patterns & artfully recapitulating them via formal properties of film

Miyazaki is another good example. Current year “creatives” would approach something like Spirited Away by first asking if they could “identify” with a 10 year old girl. Miyazaki’s movies are in no sense *about* the person of Miyazaki ~

If he has an ur-motivation, it’s something like a desire to write a love letter to Creation itself. Animation is the form it took, but one could easily imagine Miyazaki (or Lynch for that matter) as a composer or an architect

I think the turn towards the “personal” can be understood well thru someone like Kurt Cobain ~ Nirvana was Kurt/Kurt was Nirvana; the idea that he’d have to *perform himself* in exchange for $/status became totally intolerable to him

He couldn’t situate his person in a larger pattern of rock music ~ he saw it as an existential concession to do so; he would become a Caulfieldian “phony”

I’d argue that the big dumb rock bands of the 70s/80s- Kiss, Cheap Trick, etc~ were in fact higher expressions of rock. “Creativity” is about us trying to recapitulate Logos~ Things should *be what they do* & *what it does is it’s reason for being *

So a big rock band should be *about* being a big rock band. A big rock band that is *about* a private imagination is something like trying to drive a speedboat in a tiny creek.

& this is probably why Nirvana/Kurt was fascinating ~ it was bound for disaster.

Kurt was in the wrong boat the whole time. He should’ve been in the more feminine realm of the singer/songwriter , which is a better home for “the personal”. It can be musically dense/florid (Joni Mitchell), but it’s still more of a literary form

& even this mode isn’t to be understood in terms of “self expression” , but more in terms of intimate communications, “secret” exchanges . That’s *why* it’s quiet; if we’re too loud here it will come off as low & sordid.

& if Nirvana has left a lasting impression, it’s a vague, sickly, sordid one: pissed corduroys, empty pill bottles, abortions, divorce, self-obsession

It’s not a work that is *about* those things~ Kurt got his tormented wish; it *is* those things.

Internet/social media has accelerated this degeneration; previous generations had to observe patterns , had to develop eyes to see them in received context (Lynch grew up in “boring” small towns & suburbs) while current year kids “make” patterns~ they choose what they..

.. want to see. & Bc we can’t live wo meaning, we must ascribe significance to those selections~ in completely flat world of atomized selves, meaning can only emanate from “personal” selection, what one “identifies” with

“Self expression” is the enemy of Art.

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