The field outside my window has begun sprouting yellow flowers, could it be a rape seed crop? I’ll let you know. My paint has arrived one week early but still no canvas and with the autobruket closed we have lost our supply of old paintings to cover. Luckily I have the ink work to tackle. The attached drawing shows the 5th work of the Wretched Painter on the theme of the pandemic.
You know my weakness for the obvious sporting metaphor and I have often thought about the post truth era media battle between left and alt right as a boxing match in which the alt right boxes clever against the angry bums rush2 of the left. The former will dance and move around the opponent with hands down, inviting an attack which allows them to counter; they're boxing to orders in the parlance. The left side fight angry and aggressively, swinging liberally at every target available letting the the outrage win out over strategy. The smart boxer usually wins out against the angry swinger who tires easily and is demoralised at not landing any significant blows while being countered hurtfully. The boxer scores points and wins by the judges decision (election) while the left hold out for a knock out blow that never comes.
Well that may be as far as it can go for the boxing metaphor but my point is to ask whether the outrage in the wake of the current protests is enough to land a knock out, or at least some hurtful shots? You see when one sees the outrage of the left, be it environmental, feminist, economic, racial or LGBT or any mixture of social justice themes, so easily being batted away and manipulated by well trained politicians following the new alt right populist tactics, it leaves one wondering whether it may be better to hold back somewhat, to try and box a little cleverer. But on the other hand the outrage of protest, the feeling and passion within, is authentic and as such is too valuable a commodity to give up even if it could be controlled. Of course the right box clever, its because they are guilty! They know what accusations lay at their feet, they know what punches are coming, and are ready and prepared to maneuver around them. The fighter for social justice must swing for the fences because it is felt, even if there is the danger of the counter right hand, so to speak. Perhaps the left fighter just needs a better 60 second guru3 in the corner, not to tell how to play the game of the right but to tell us where to better aim those haymaker4 lefts.
One or two more then its summer!
John
Another blossom study today this one taken from a patch of land adjacent to the Solbacker living quarters on a plot that is no doubt ripe for further development. Building on our previous attempt we took another large canvas and set the blossom more in its surroundings which in this case was a wonderful variety of grasses, thistles and late stage dandelions with two living blocks visible on each side. It really had a curious sense of a derelict but strangely fertile little spot and in fact as I was setting in the composition I was given a hello and on turning I found woman standing with me in the grass, about five meters back, basket in hand and wearing summer dress. She instantly reminded me of the figure in Van Gogh’s Paris study of a woman in long grass.1 We chatted for a while and she informed me that the little patch was in fact an allotment many years ago and that many of the plants that were cultivated back then continue to reseed themselves to this day and she harvests a wide variety of herbs and flowers from it each year quite extraordinary.
How about the bad seeds of alt right populism, all the rascist, sexist, ultra nationalist, anti climate ideas that have been sown and grown in this post truth era; will they reseed? We hope not but what does it depend upon? Protest? Has not the rapid growth in popularity of the far alt right parties since the financial crisis and our 2011 breakage not occurred despite unprecedented outrage and protest of the left? How often are we reminded the way in which outrage at some socially unacceptable abuse of power turns to more support for the right? Time and again it is revealed to all and sundry that a new alt right style political game is being played across the media and online and the regular right and the left have not gotten a good grip on it even if the regular right are happy enough, just a bit redundant. Now this raises a lot of questions regards our themes and the quest for sanity and social justice everywhere, namely, if the right are able, through manipulation, disinformation and data science led behaviour change tactics, all of which power there simple but effective (un)Real Politcs to turn radical left protest into far right support then what is to be done about it?
Good question and while we are not in a position to offer comprehensive, we are duty bound by our Dignity Scholarship residency to throw in our two pence worth regardless of how abstract and intuitive it may be and to do so we must again rely on the crutch of metaphor.
1 Refers to, A Woman Waling in a Garden,private collection.
2 Energetic but unskilled attack.
3 Boxing trainer. The trainer has 60 seconds between rounds to offer advice to the fighter.
4 A powerful, widely swung punch so called because the arm movement mimics the action of manually cutting hay by swinging a scythe.