The biggest proportion of intellectual responsibility includes artists, and from a socialist point of view, the overlap in their responsibilities is simply a shared human responsibility. This essay examines the social responsibilities of intellectuals and artists with the two-fold aim of determining where their responsibilities would lie in cases of highly politically-charged times of social change gearing towards revolution; and how intellectuals and artists are to challenge the intelligentsia’s methods of social organisation and ideological monopoly before the need for revolution arises. Firstly, I clarify the origins of the term intellectual and this is followed by analyses of artists and intellectual’s displays of responsibility and irresponsibility. Secondly, I examine intellectual and artist perspectives of violent revolution before interrogating the appropriateness and effectiveness of the artistic representation of extremist acts of terrorism—that are then both widely accepted and criticised. Finally, I examine ways in which we have rejected and can go on to further contest the intelligentsia’s attempts of ideological conditioning and social organisation, mostly based on Chomsky’s accounts of one predominantly left-wing student movement. What I have found to be the case is that beside from their respective responsibilities out with this overlap, the majority of intellectual and artistic responsibility includes the illumination and the logistically and morally non-conflicting deconstruction of intellectually elite power structures.
The Responsibility of Intellectuals and Artists
When Émile Zola’s 1898 letter, J’accuse, directed toward the president of the French Republic it sparked a public response in what would later be referred to as The Dreyfus Affair. One of the early petitions in support of Alfred Dreyfus saw the birth of the term ‘intellectual’ derived from the French ‘intellectuel’ in Albert Clemenceau’s Manifesto of the Intellectuals (Rose, 2010). Dreyfus’ conviction and exile for allegedly selling military secrets was founded on predominantly anti-Semitic grounds. Chomsky (1977) delineated a second category of the term that dates to liberal Americans’ ideological tensions with the State around World War I. Variations of the term have several historical origins, most of which are socially divisive incidents that polarise nations politically. In the case of The Dreyfus Affair, both self-designated and publicly-sought-after intellectual responsibility on Zola’s behalf was the backbone in pivoting social and political change feeding into the creation of the Radical Party in France. Without it, the Western political climate would feel very different today.
For Chomsky, intellectuals are privileged people who vocalise issues of public concern. But the intent of the intelligentsia in modern industrial society is ideological control through a comparatively unique grasp of technical and social scientific knowledge. As a class the intelligentsia aims to establish itself using knowledge that sets it aside from legislative methods of economic and social monopoly by the State over election-swinging ideologies. Even by the early 1930s, Harold Lasswell, identified the apparatus supporting social management as massively informed by the propagandist outlook (Bernays, 1947). Since then we have seen social organisation orchestrated through contrived, collective obsessional behaviour as a means of steering public opinion toward ideologies that inform the (often economic) interests of the elites. It is in everyone’s best interest to at least be aware of the ways in which these systems operate—and this must include artists.
Take, for example, Hans Haacke’s (1991) Collateral and his rejection of both patriotism as a commodity and the branding of American identity. Propagandist ideologies that bleed into art aim to dismantle this type of rejection put forward by artists. Haacke’s view that everything from the press, mass media and national justice systems, to culinary and fashion debate were derived from a bourgeoisie lens of cultural favourability suggests that the relationship we have, both individually and collectively, with the cultural world is both shaped and morphed by this lens. Today we see little such intellectual responsibility in the commodification of ready-to-wear fashion garments in examples such as ‘Supreme’ whose entire working ethos is derived from the work of Barbara Kruger. ‘Supreme’ simply capitalise on the human desire to gather objects of value, both for their respective use-value and exchange-value(s) which are rewarded by a capitalist regime which encourages us to build collages of what we like and know through what we own; largely through the instant gratification of the internet. Such blatant denial of integrity and originality towards the re-creative process came with the postmodernist movement and reiterates the absence of coalescence of circulinear art (Bernstein, 1973). Such ‘Fake’ art does not constitute an addition to conversation, but normalises both mass production and commodification; detracting from progression—it abandons intellectual responsibility.
Sociologists, literary critics, art historians, and feminist theorists form a portion of the breadth of positions intellectuals occupy, but the term lends itself to a broader scope of fields (Jacoby, 1989). Art, social sciences and contemporary affairs are not as accessible to the shrinking working class and ‘underclass’—a term whose use in Britain evolved in the 1970s to defend “discriminatory employment and housing policies” (Murray, 1996: 2) imposed on ethnic minorities and the economically disenfranchised—those that the State and its intellectual institutions might lead us, and themselves, to believe are the “undeserving poor” (Murray, 1996: 67). Both artists and intellectuals have a duty to acknowledge the degree of accessibility of their published work, illuminate truths that defend unjust privileges of class and propagate humanity between human beings.
The Violence of Revolution
In terms of ideological control, totalitarian societies reveal their systems of social indoctrination forthrightly—history is written by the state and the institution. Intellectuals who focused on advocating for control of industrial resources, reform of financial institutions, and reorganisation of social systems during 1930s technocracy are said to have regurgitated the traditions of the state (Chomsky, 1977). Whereas over the last several decades we have seen these responsibilities shift from the State to the People; the institutions to the artists. Just as Brexit has proven: collectively, we failed to isolate and criticise propaganda preluding a refusal to accept it (Lammy, 2019). It is as if the people living in glass houses know that they shouldn’t be throwing stones, but when their house is only partially-built, one can only be partially responsible for the outcome.
However, in many cases the assertive and potentially aggressive outspoken rejection of propaganda may invite unorthodox responses by the State. The severity of risk ensued by blatant rejection of damaging ideologies presented as propaganda depends on the state’s capacity to conjure up violence—and State-mandated violence is often reciprocated in revolt; as has recently been displayed by the Yellow Vests in France protesting against President Macron, his legislative favourability and French elitism as a whole (Nordstrum, 2019). Although violence is likely to achieve a movement’s objectives in some capacity, we should be careful carrying out motions of public-led reform because the glamorisation of revolution isn’t uncommon in discussions regarding matters that link groups of society (particularly the marginalised and their allies) with art and politics. This is because it may catalyse the development of an artistic movement—since even the notion of progress as an ideology can elicit artistic revolution (Doorman, 2003).
Firstly, to briefly bring into frame just one example, the Mexican Revolution created a unique basis from which Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti would go on to propel themselves and their work (Mulvey & Wollen, 1989: 148). Furthermore, Gerhard Richter’s cycle of fifteen paintings entitled, October 18, 1977, based on the left-wing extremist terrorist group, the Baader-Meinhofs or Red Army Faction (RAF) was a reflection of public opinion at the time—both approving and disapproving of their methods and ethos. On its title’s date, the bodies of three of the principal RAF members were found in Stammheim Prison where they were incarcerated. Their deaths were officially reported as suicides but it is generally believed by well-established art institutions (MoMA, 2004) that their murders were undertaken by German State police. The Baader-Meinhof’s campaign was heavily propagandised by the media, and Richter sourced photographs from the press and police records. However remorseful though, Richter symbolically held a mirror to a tragic series of events that just so happened to be the ideal conditions in polarising public opinion, and afterwards, an apparatus was revealed in which propaganda campaigns are formulated to thrive. This series of incidents returns to methods of systematic ideological control, in that when people are divided and emotionally charged, they become easier prey for politically and economically advantaged institutions and businesses. The remnants of events that display gross intellectual irresponsibility are always a cause for revolutionary justice—a revolution which does not always warrant violence (Wong, 2019).
An art revolution can either arise as a product of change or to bring about change; although by and large it is a synthesis of both. With the seemingly endless branches of technological advancement in the digital age, an equilibrium is constantly afloat with artist-focused technology counterbalanced with technology-focused works of art such as Harold Cohen’s AARON which produced artwork autonomously. Since the rise of abstract forms seen in video art in the 1960s generated using computers, the general animosity which once met digital art was gradually displaced with curious intrigue and adoption (Goodman, 1990: 252). Further research would be required to pin-point exactly where digital revolution imposed specifically by artists begins and attenuates, since the synthesis of art and technology is so prolific. However, somewhat disregarding (or perhaps on the opposing side of) particularly violent revolution, a harmonious stasis can exist, given suitable conditions whereby progress develops in accordance with the terms of both artists and intellectuals alike. One can’t dismiss the number of advancements over the 30 years, or even the wealth of progress made since the democratisation of computer-based art tools in the 1960s—scholars often refer to these types of contemporary affairs nonetheless as ‘digital revolution’ which, when spoken of irresponsibly, can propagate damaging ideas because of some of the negative connotations surrounding the word ‘revolution’. However, the responsibility of language choice is universal. Violent revolution cannot guarantee the accountability of intellectuals, and this is where facets of digital revolution proliferated by artists should supersede any desire for any such misguided terrorism we saw with the RAF.
It is common for artists to stand left-of-centre to the violence of revolution, but use it as a catalyst nonetheless for their work. I believe it’s natural and can be just for society to retaliate with some degree of violence during revolution if enough people find it necessary; before it reaches levels of blind, misguided terrorism. The role of artists during revolution is to illuminate truths as they are discovered, not just to add fuel to the fire of People-State tensions—and this must include intellectuals.
Intellectuals and Artists Challenging the Intelligentsia’s Methods of Social Organisation
It’s only a select few who undertake analyses on social sciences and contemporary affairs, and use them to present their own depiction of the socio-political zeitgeist. A shortcoming is that these analyses are used to reinforce and perpetuate the unique interests of the intellectual class instead of developing realistic depictions of the actual happenings of the time (Chomsky, 1979). To interrogate the role of the intelligentsia in modern capitalist society, one must acknowledge the notion of the “engineering of consent” (Bernays, 1947: 114), which by oiling the gears of capitalism through institutionally elite power lends itself to bureaucratically-defined ideals of societal progress.
The fear of monetary loss was one of the reasons for institutions in the US not aligning themselves with the European avant-garde’s hostility towards traditional values so that they could concentrate on originality (Mauceri, 1997). During the emergence of experimentalism in the US, American universities looked to European tradition as a foundation after an influx of European composers and musicologists during WWII in a sort of intellectual diasporic congregation, but the US weren’t so quick to take back their initial rejection of the avant-garde. New experimental music in the US acquired much of its institutional support and cultural legitimacy from universities, alongside their students and alumni. But what founded the infrastructure of American universities during and after the 1960s, and shapes many attitudes today, does not come from a place of pure acceptance and welcoming of ideologies that look to challenge them. Essentially, institutions can be stubborn to say the least. Especially when the grounds of their subservience to hierarchical overseers is at threat of crumbling under the weight of aggressive, ideological dissonance.
Student-led resistance in the late 1960s provoked a seismic shift in the scope of thought deemed worthy to reside in higher education facilities which State capitalist intellectuals thought was robbing from their ideological monopoly over universities. Structured systems which extinguish diversity at their ignition, are the very same mechanisms that uphold the narrow tunnels of ideological thought imposed on institutions by external parties, the State and larger conglomerate powers (Chomsky, 1992). Liberal students illuminating and challenging this hierarchical network of subservience cast the intellectual elites back to their drawing boards to refine the methods of indoctrination to their status quo. The effects of these challenges directed toward the intellectual elites ripple temporally and geographically, so they need to be recognised, iterated and addressed in contemporary contexts by both artists and intellectuals in order to refine existing strategies. Students can rally, stage protests and interrogate their own institution’s oppressive ideologies through their work, which is simply one approach to dismantling social organisation; the same can be said for intellectuals. Artists enter this field of vision via the flanks, but the methods presented by student movements is fairly transferable, only most artists are more directly independent of institutions than students can be while they’re in education. So therein, the overlap on the Venn diagram of artist and intellectual responsibility grows larger: buying in to the phenomenon of internet call-out culture is obligatory because of its simplicity as a heuristic approach to breaking down destructive ideologies and diversifying positive ones.
It is the culmination of both a general increase in access to resources and the trickle-down effect of word-of-mouth information passing, that in recent years there has been a rise of technical intelligentsia manoeuvring through organisations ranging anywhere between (and probably beyond) educational institutions to professional law and financial practices (Chomsky, 1977). In service of the general interests of corporate capitalism, social organisation is the thread that weaves together the true workings of power masquerading in sheep’s clothing as the façade of the ‘power of the people’.
Conclusion
We learned from The Dreyfus Affair that taking intellectual responsibility can be the singular catalyst required in generating wide-spread social and political change, and that the intellectuals among society must illuminate and aim to dismantle the systems through which elites and the intelligentsia strive to orchestrate social organisation. The divisive structure of the systems of socio-political polarisation employed by the intelligentsia can often encourage the violent responses we see elicited by the people who are affected most, however, both artists and intellectuals need to be able to interrogate these mechanisms of propaganda before openly deconstructing and rejecting them. Intellectuals are responsible for bringing to light the unjust privileges of the elite class which would otherwise go unspoken to those who are indirectly denied access to guarded resources withheld by art institutions and conglomerates such as corporate powerhouses. Blatant and assertive rejection of ideologies disseminated through large media-based outlets by grand institutions and the State can conjure State-initiated violence, but the risk involved depends almost entirely on the varying facets of the activist’s intersectional privilege. Intellectuals and artists are held at varying levels of accountability when it comes to such pressing social issues, and the overlap between their shared responsibilities are fairly vast so by and large, intellectual responsibility does include artists, but this overlap largely presents itself as a universal one as opposed to something more indiscernible. This shared responsibility lends itself to the humanity of the individual. As it has been shown historically, by appropriately delegating responsibility by professional field, we can formulate efficient strategies.
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