Art? Frivolous? Don’t misunderstand me, I’m enamored with the idea of a final societal goal of eudaimonia; a Shangri-La world of perfect personal freedom. Art can exist only when there is enough personal freedom to step away from the daily practicum of life, only affluent societies that are on their way to eudaimonia can create such works; but what bothers me is the way such things are viewed. Far from frivolous, I think art is a necessity; so why then do we perceive something so important to the final goal as having such an untouchable grandeur? The shoes I wear when I mow the lawn are very important too, and they live in the garage alongside who knows what manner of creatures. Why is it the biggest proponents of art as a necessity tend to separate it so much from other necessities?

Here’s my thought on the defining trait of a construct of art- if a thing’s value is primarily aesthetic it is art, if it is primarily utilitarian, it is not art. The line blurs a bit of course, but notice one thing; no mention is made as to the QUALITY of the aesthetics. There is good art in the world and there is bad art, a point few would argue with, but at no point does the aesthetic quality sink below a line that it drops off the art spectrum completely. Good or bad, if a thing is made for a purpose that is non-utilitarian, it is art.

A certain movie critic briefly sent teenage males and life-long geeks everywhere into a frenzy by stating that video games would never be art. Aside from bafflingly sophomoric reasoning from an otherwise well-versed professional observer, the odd thing here is that he’s implying that it isn’t ALREADY art (or if you chose to not use my definition, its a thing that is neither primarily utilitarian nor high enough of the poshness scale to constitute art). While many that disagreed with him point to titles like Shadow of the Colossus and Okami, I’m not even sure why Pong and Space Invaders should be left out of the mix. Is it because they were too new? Too simple perhaps? Or were they too EASY to be considered art?

Several times over the course of the last century, the concept of traditional aesthetics have been challenged by artistic movements. The modern art movement posited that abstract forms can be just as potent a means to deliver a message than more traditional figures. Every couple decades of the century brought fourth a new kind of music that was less aesthetically oriented by arguably more emotionally charged that its predecessor. Many look at modern or post-modern works and feel that they constitute some of the highest forms of the creative process available today, so much so perhaps that the layman isn’t equipped well enough to properly extract the message, much like those who don’t drink wine aren’t trained to taste the differences in year and vineyard.

In literature, almost uniquely among the arts, we value the idea of a good ‘story teller’. A proficient story teller can draw the audience into an otherwise completely banal and mundane story. Why is it that we praise our authors and playwrites for their ability to connect to untrained audiences, but look down upon musicians, visual artists, and directors that are accessible as not being artistic enough?

This seems to be the tip of a rather large iceberg here, that maybe someday I’ll get to covering more thoroughly. For the moment though, it seems to me that we’re just too concerned with making art some distant thing that only the super-elite can create or appreciate. It is not. Art is no more an achievement than composing an e-mail or taking out the trash. Its everywhere in the modern world, and the only real bad art that I can seem to find is the art that fails to communicate itself to the observer.

I’ve always felt somewhat uneasy about how broad a spectrum we generally grant the fantasy genre. A story might be entirely about the trials that a New England couple has in living with each other and the modern world in general, but if ever a magic ring or otherworldly journey or some other fantastic plot device enters into the story, we usually line it up next to the books that are stories of destiny bound farm boys slaying dragons with magical swords. I understand that we label things the way we do for many reasons- stories can be slotted into genres based on themes, motifs, pacing, popularity, author’s background, or political winds and whims- but it seems that fantasy and science fiction so often end up catagorized as such because of their narrative trappings. Perhaps as a warning to those that don’t like their fiction to be overly fictional.

This is a holdover, I think, from Earlier Days. Back in the Days, we used the fantastic as a device to teach our children in none-too-subtle ways about right and wrong, cultural expectations, and general sage wisdom. Girls; if you keep your head low, do your chores and don’t complain about your lot, your prince will find you and take you off to your castle. Boys; however great the giant you must slay, you will be able to overcome it with enough cleverness and pluck and strength of character. We told fairy tales because they plant the messages in the heads of children without having to bypass a less-than-developed sense of reason. Fairy tales are pure distilled message, and don’t get caught up in worrying about things like suspension of disbelief or crass real world physics.

I posit, then, that modern fantasy (actual fantasy here, not a detective novel with a pet dragon that got mis-shelved) are stories that apply the tactic used in fairy tales to show us the workings of their characters, and thus the human condition. Anime frequently does an excellent job of this; one character has such a tangled and negative view of her world that her fortune telling becomes so jaded as to actually call up the worst possible sequence of events around her. A young boy is so concerned about acting the adult that he begins to miss the process of growing up, and his personal potential must be physically beaten out of him by an interplanetary spirit of adolesence. These are stories that explore characters to a degree that can’t be done without fantastic plot devices. The analogies created become real conflicts that effect the character in dramatic ways, rather than just internal strife. A couple months back I started a setting that featured a character that is not happy with his lot in life, and as a result is very good at stepping out of himself, and sometimes even becoming other people. Another character feels she is cursed with being overly rational; she fears that she doesn’t experience life as fully as others because she is constantly able to cope with everything around her; this too will be explored in some fantastic way. If fairy tales delivered simple messages to simple minds by bypassing real world limitations, then fantasy has the tools to deliver complex messages to complex minds using the same tools.

And science fiction? I propose that it does the same thing, but rather than dealing with the human condition through individuals it addresses it through social models. Science fiction tends to have a “But at what cost!?” moment. There is a utopia where everyone is healthy and young… but only because you are incinerated when you turn 30. Life around you is just what you expect it to be… but only because you’ve spent your entire life connected to a virtual reality, and in actuality you are simply being used to generate power for parasitic machines. We’re looking at the human condition here too, but instead of dragons and fireballs we have spaceships and lasers, and instead of individual heroes dealing with their personal issues we have heroic societies coming to grips with their darker sides.

I’m sure there are many arguments to be made here; Lord of the Rings is essentially the perennial fantasy work, and it deals with both personal and societal examinations. But I don’t think many will have to strain their brain too much to think of solid examples on both sides of the fantasy/sci-fi fence. And perhaps this is better viewed as what the genres can do, more so than what they actually do. Regardless, I’d be very happy if we could get a bit more distinction between dragon slaying novels, romance novels with a witch in them, and reality-bending character studies.