Tag: Openly We Carry

An essay called “The Uses of Art” has generated a lot of traffic here at Just Wrought in the three and a half years since I posted it.¹ I’m not sure why it’s so popular, maybe because it’s short and quick and has the kind of easily scannable list that’s very attractive on the internet these days.  I’m still quite proud of the piece, even though I should probably admit now that I just sort of tossed it off from accumulated old notes. Recently, however, my thoughts have gone in a converse direction, towards those employments we generally assume art can be put to that it really can’t, or at least not very well: the misuses of art. A few months ago I began brain-brewing a list (by no means complete):

• Persuade through rationality
• Sell itself
• Self-evaluate
• Maintain objectivity²
• Manage its own knee-jerk radicalism
• Recognize its own inborn conservatism
• Successfully proselytize for any particular religion or political party
• Know its own strength
• Pay its own way
• Know its own weaknesses
• Maintain its subversiveness beyond a generation
• Properly define the parameters of its success.
• Effectively manage its infection vectors³

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