SF - 9/19

Tonight we discussed Benjamin’s quote, “Mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependency of ritual. . . . Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics” (23). When I read “politics,” I think of political parties, presidential elections, and so forth. If we substitute “economics” in its place, all of a sudden this quote starts to make more sense for me. Art produced to be acceptable for the masses seems inherently flawed. Art, in its broadest sense, is defined as an expression of creativity or imagination. However, with such varying opinions of what is beautiful, smart, and good, it seems that in order to make something acceptable to the majority, one must keep very vanilla.

I started my education at Rollins with English 101 where we were taught to write for a specific audience. Our goal was to come up with a fictional group of people in which we would be writing for, and adjust our writing technique so that it would be acceptable to this imaginary audience. My friend Jason is a brilliant (and some might call quirky) writer, but one who never quite captured this whole idea of writing for an audience. Ambitious, he hopes to obtain an MFA from any school that will have him. Unfortunately, his applications have been repeatedly denied because the panel reviewing his writing finds his material too unconventional. One day soon, when Jason has had enough of rejection, he will come to the realization that in order to be accepted into one of these MFA programs he must submerge his creativity and write less of what he wants to write and more of what his audience might want to read. That will be a sad day indeed.