Nicki Minaj and the Decent of Artistic Expression

                The 2012 Grammys was marked for the memorializing of the tragic passing of Whitney Houston; all expressions seemed turned to that one end, all save one.  Nicki Minaj could not help herself.  She had to be the ying to Adele’s yang and try to prove her relevance as she attempts vainly to be the other end of the spectrum.  So she had dancers portraying Hassidic Jewish rabbis and Buddhist monks desecrate their faiths for the sake of self expression.  No, she actually focused upon the Catholic Church which is far less original, but the expression of self is rarely very original.

 In fact one seems to pursue this self expression at the cost of any real expression at all.  The message is nondescript and muddled; it is only to say vaguely the Catholic Church is the object of my ire.  One can fill in the blank with their own caricatured and misguided bigotry about the Church for they will find no real direction for it in the performance or piece of art.  It is simply perpetuated for the sake of doing so as the piece is not responding to anything specifically.  It is a sad devolution of art as described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man’s own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing.” (CCC, part 3, VI, 2501)

So as the messages turn into noise and beauty is replaced by rubbish we become incredibly nihilistic; the past seems to be passing judgment upon the modern moment in artistic expression and the resulting feelings are uncomfortable.

The laziness of modernity creates a lack of creative quality.  People cut and paste and copy and repeat until the style is devoid of any of the initial meaning.  The result is totally appropriate for the tenor of the culture however as no one appears to be willing to discuss matters past the superficial catchphrases and sound bites.

Here is an example of the nature of the argument, I found an argument which called a fetus a parasite a few blogs back, “Abortion is worse than Sharia Law”, I put forth that even if the biology involved mirrored exactly that of a parasite the fetus was still not a parasite especially one so willingly accepts the fetus via well documented means, via one’s own consent over 99% of the time, the biology in and of itself can only be neutral.  The negative connotations come directly from the heart of the author.  I believe this so completely that I almost edited the word devolution above as evolution in and of itself have not a positive or negative connotation it is necessarily neutral.  The response from the commenter was simply “I win”.  That is not a debate.

“The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It is an attempt to crush a rational opponent not by reason, but by some mystery of superiority, by hinting that one is specially up to date or particularly “in the know.””(G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered, 1908)

Without thought there is no wisdom.  Without wisdom there is no real art.  Everyone is very sensitive and carries their hearts on their sleeves; that actually does not create great art.  Discipline is more the key to great art than a superficial appreciation of one’s own superficiality.

So as the Nicki Minajs of the world continue to contribute to the decline of the culture at large, to the dumbing down of the debate, and the debasement of expression it may actually be a huge blessing; for it is really easy to spot for those who have the ability to pay a small amount of attention.