The Power of Creative Restraint, Essay Example

Society’s Invisible Handcuffs: The Power of Creative Restraint

Seatbelts, handcuffs, fences, and security alarms. All of these items are devices we use to confine, restrain, and protect ourselves from dangerous people, objects, and situations. The use of a fence around the front yard of a home (or a security system sign in front of it) indicates a sense of protection to people living both inside and outside of that home. The putting on of one’s seatbelt signals restraint and protection of ourselves against other drivers. Yet, despite their pervasiveness, fences and seatbelts are tangible items within our societies. To confine or protect societies from less tangible entities such as ideas and viewpoints – less tangible devices must be used. It is in that context that censorship serves as the invisible handcuffs wrapped around a society’s wrists, limiting its ability to think certain ways or express certain ideas. Throughout history, the censorship of art has been used to control, restrain, or perpetuate certain ideologies and beliefs within various societies.

As a “class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria,” art affects society in two main ways (Web 1). First, art can be used as a medium of communication- a means to express ideas or social norms or to convey or capture an emotion. One such is the use of art as propaganda by Germany’s National Socialist Party under Adolf Hitler’s Minister for Propaganda and Enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels (Wistrich 47). Second, art can serve as a recreational activity that people enjoy through observation or participation. Examples here include everything from reading a book, to watching a play in the local park, to participating in an arts and crafts class, to visiting the local museum.

Given its use as a tool of communication and of entertainment, art pervades nearly every aspect of society.  Our ability as individuals to recognize and share common experiences with art creates a sort of “social solidarity” that enables our society to identify and create historical moments (Simpson 71).  In creating that solidarity, a society’s popular culture (and by extension, art within that culture) reflects its beliefs and viewpoints of that time. To have a say in controlling what viewpoints or beliefs are reflected in society, is to also have power and a chance to be remembered later on in history. For that reason, censorship is a powerful way to control society and the censorship of art is a widespread way to secure that power.

In ancient Rome, Emperor Augustus used his power and money to support art that promoted Roman culture to his liking (Web 2). It was during his reign that Virgil’s epic poem about the origins of Rome, Aeneid, was completed. Through his patronage of Aeneid- that detailed “the greatness of Rome, of the Augustan Age, and Roman values”- Augustus was able to influence what Romans thought of themselves at the time (popular culture), and influence how he and Rome would be perceived later in history. In contrast to Aeneid, Ovid’s book on seduction, The Art of Love, was found to be offensive by Augustus and Ovid was exiled from Rome (Web 2).  By exiling Ovid for his book and praising Virgil on his, Augustus set creative parameters (or secured censorship handcuffs) for artists in Roman society to follow out of fear of repercussion.

In the lead up to World War II, Germany found itself in need of unification as a country. Hitler and Goebbels recognized that “the combination of propaganda, art, and terror” would have a far-reaching impact on the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda in Germany (Wistrich 49). To “[give] direction and force to popular needs and feelings,” Goebbels used radio, cinema, art exhibits, and music to unify the country against Jewish people (Wistrich 49). In using music as propaganda, Goebbels sought to both “arouse the emotions of the singers” to the point of heightened sensitivity over the words of the speaker and to create a “lasting influence over the attitude of the individual participants” after they left the musical event (Warren 376). By promoting the National Socialist Party agenda through songs, Hitler and Goebbels were able to stimulate strong feelings of nationalism and hatred within the public. In using cinema and art exhibits as propaganda, Goebbels controlled the images and messages seen by the masses in the theater and the museum. Films that placed Jews as downtrodden outcasts were given showing preference over those placing Jews in a positive light, and the public began to see the negative portrayals of Jewish people as reality. By controlling what art was deemed “officially sanctioned and permitted,” Goebbels made sure that only art promoting Nazi-approved themes was displayed to the public (Wistrich 75).

In their introduction to Censoring Culture, editors Robert Atkins and Svetlana Mintcheva stated that when the “range of what [people] can say, see, hear, think, and even imagine [was] narrowed,” censorship had occurred (Atkins XV). By encouraging literature upholding Roman values like piety and sacrifice over explicit values like seduction, Augustus urged writers to focus on portraying Rome and its emperor in a specific light. By restricting public access to film and art exhibits not in alignment with the message of the National Socialist Party, Goebbels nurtured art and artists who tailored their work towards more Anti-Semitic themes. Both Augustus and Goebbels placed intangible handcuffs around their respective countries’ artists and the art they produced.

Through systems of rewards and punishments, both Augustus and Goebbels narrowed the range of what people could speak, write, or think about. Their use of art censorship gave both Augustus and Goebbels tremendous power because they were able to create and control environments where individuals began to censor themselves, resulting in societies that “swiftly punished” those who failed to conform to the popular culture of the time (Atkins 299).  The proliferation of societal artistic censorship led to self-monitoring individuals who produced art catered to the approval of those in power, and therefore, the popular culture. The resulting effect was that Augustus and Goebbels upheld societies with a heightened awareness of the arts they produced and the ways in which those arts could be perceived.

Our societies have long been filled with obvious devices that we use to confine, restrain, and protect ourselves from danger. In our quest for security, we use fences to protect our homes and seatbelts to protect our bodies. However, to restrain, confine, and protect us from less tangible entities, less tangible devices like censorship have been used to control the ideas and viewpoints within our societies.  Because of its far-reaching impact in our daily lives as both a tool of communication and of entertainment, the censorship of art has been a popular method of control. People like Augustus and Joseph Goebbels censored art to control the images and messages filtered to their respective publics.  Their actions developed societies of individuals that eventually monitored themselves out of fear of punishment and consequently, gave the orchestrators a great deal of power over popular culture.