Director’s Cut
It’s true that the theme for this issue was chosen many months ago and power, like death or love, or time or money, will always be a concept deeply relevant and inextricable from our daily consciousness (yesterday, one hundred years from now). It does, nevertheless, seem that March, 2022 is an opportune, if somber time to reflect on what power means.
According to Plato, the measure of a man is what he does with power.
George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about what drives human behavior—and with a couple more centuries of history than Plato was privy to—declared: the object of power is power.
Both of these sentiments, wise in ways that cut across sociopolitical, military, religious, and academic concerns, seem especially apt when reflecting on current events. They also remind us that, as it relates to humankind’s worst tendencies, power—which can be defined as leverage, ownership, access, agency, subjugation, or some combination of all these—is invariably the prime, primal impulse.
One might be tempted to observe that we too are animals, and what is nature if not a never-ending battle for supremacy and survival? Well, humans, with our big brains (and libraries of documented atrocities committed by and against our own kind) and evolved hearts, remain the only inhabitants of this world who know might doesn’t make right, yet fabricate or justify reasons why this time it’s different, and violence and collateral damage are, alas, unavoidable. Of course, to our disbelieving eyes, we see events unfolding right now—in the 21st Century—where a dictator is scarcely attempting to rationalize his barbarity.
We expect our world leaders to guide us, as peacefully and purposefully as possible, through these crises (and the less optimistic amongst us might argue our human experiment has been one ceaseless crisis, filled with terror and exploitation). We look to our politicians and journalists to explain and debate, giving context or providing talking points, reminding us—intentionally or not—what we’re seeing is nothing new.
What, then, does art tell us at times like this?
Quite a bit, actually—and it always has. Plato the philosophizer and Orwell the author both used storytelling to describe and explain who we are, what we do, and why we do it. Is there any multi-volume narrative that can tell us more about the pernicious tendencies of the powerful than what Percy Bysshe Shelley achieves in only 14 lines with “Ozymandias”? Does any big-name biography explain conflict and what drives it better than Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” (or Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” if you prefer)? No words are necessary for a genius like Goya to indelibly illustrate corruption and brutality—and once you’ve seen his work you never unsee it.
Perhaps that’s the rub: the people who are drawn to art are seldom the ones most in need of its lessons. More: if so many of our worst ambassadors, including psychopaths ranging from Cortés to Hitler to Putin, were able or willing to expose themselves to the intellectual and spiritual riches our best storytelling imparts, we might have answers to questions that shouldn’t need asking.
1455 exists to connect communities, instigate discourse, and celebrate storytelling in its myriad forms. All our free programming is dedicated to this mission, and we remain proud that Movable Type serves as a viable showcase for the type of talent and empathy on display throughout this issue. Please help us spread awareness and do our small part to shine some light in this darkness.
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