The artwork that I have chosen features an image of a puppet which signifies the idea of control and limitation. I have chosen this for this week’s journal because it is relevant with Plato’s belief in terms of ruling a state. Even though Plato views art as an imitation of the ideas in the world of forms, he still subscribed to dancing with respect to the roots of music, mathematics and the cosmos because of the fact that it promotes the idea of unity or harmony.

Harmony is the key concept in Plato’s propositions because it promotes how the society can become the very best form of itself if it only follows the strict laws that govern them, and for its people to fulfill the roles that they are supposed to do. Plato thinks that this is the only way for a society to develop, as it takes away the power of thinking for oneself, or to explore other ideas that are deviant of what the state provides. That is the very reason why he wanted to censor art, because it gives ideas that could potentially change the minds and emotions felt by its people and would hinder the society from functioning properly, since one is not doing his/her job well. 

In relation to that, dance is important for Plato as it promotes harmony. By dancing, people learn how to become disciplined and in good health, and this is used to an advantage by the state to keep the cogs of the city going, as if an individual rebels against it, the state would not flourish. 

To discuss the artwork that I chose, it is clear that the people that are enjoined in this certain society are like puppets, because the strings that make them work are the roles in which they are subjected to. Each of these people are molded to be a certain type of person due to the educational system that was implemented to them which started when they were younger. It restrains the things that they want to do, and it even takes away the characteristics that make them unique, which I found to be very problematic. 

It was only partially raised that the idea of dance can be turned into something more sinister in terms of its use in politics, and the thought never crossed my mind until then. This shows that even if things look good on paper, it does not mean that this system would work in real life. Trying to hold back people from the certain emotions that make us feel things is very cruel, and the fact that it was taken away means that certain areas of the society would not function as well, as it is the very core of what makes humans ‘humans’ in the first place. Living like puppets and pushing humans to conform would not only be an act of oppression, but it would also take away the heart of the society itself.

In-Shadow: A Modern Odyssey (Animated Short Film) by Lubomir Arsov [Original Youtube Link]

For this week’s journal, I have decided to focus on Adorno’s Minima Moralia as it talks about the most prevalent problem that our society is facing today, and that is how human beings become subjected to the helms of a mechanical system (capitalism) that is ran by those who have the most monetary power in the world. Commodities then have became the very center of our economy, as companies are constantly producing more and more things even if it went beyond the people’s demand for the sake of getting profit, and for keeping those in power in the very same position. This process then took away what makes us “humans” in the first place.  It extracts the authentic intentions of an individual to another, and we tend to only take what benefits us and disagree when it does not, making our relationships ‘transactional’ to the point that the objects that we tie ourselves to are coercing us to abide to this synthetic system that creates the very division between the wealthy and normal people within the society, making this political. Our environment pushes us to engage in barbarity and encourages us to be more selfish, and it is sad to say that we act as if this is still okay.

The art piece that I chose is a video called “In-Shadow: A Modern Odessey” which underscored what Adorno was concerned with regarding the prescence of our isolation from the real things that matter. The video showed that our identities are now puppets of those who rule the society (the ones who have big businesses, the people who TRULY rule the world) and that the commodities (gadgets, content, clothes, enhancements, movies etc.) that they produce are means for them to nit-pick what they want to share to the rest of society to inflict a false sense of reality and to produce fake happiness from people, thus hiding the darkness that looms above us that were generated by them in the first place, while keeping the gears of their system going, and it even encourages us to take on the same path as them.

We are trying to fill the void of our hearts with discontent by being engulfed to principles of these economic objects by seeing wealth as a definite end, but we need to be reminded that this does not make us human. It takes us away from the very freedom that we are willed to enjoy in this lifetime. 

The video emphasized the need of an “enlightenment” for us to break free from the fetishization of the commodities that affect us in our daily lives; quoting C.G. Jung: “…One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” It is indeed true that a single person would not be able to make sufficient changes to the world by being conscious, but the only way for us to wake up from this nightmare is to be critical of it.