The Difficulty of Arrival

Abstract

The story so far has been essentially negative: I have focused on what art is not, on the functions it does not discharge. In particular, I have emphasised its practical uselessness. It is obvious that art cannot be justified on the basis of the material benefits it brings. And, as was argued in ‘The Freezing Coachman’, exposure to art doesn’t seem to do much for the morality of nations or of private citizens. After millenia of great art, people behave collectively and individually just as badly as they ever did. If anything has softened the brutish egocentricity of the human animal, it has been technological advance in meeting material want, rather than art. Well-fed individuals in a warm room may be more sensitive to one another’s feelings than hungry bodies in the cold air. To quote Brecht: Grub first, then ethics.

Sometimes for an hour you are, the rest is what happens.

(Gottfied Benn)