What role does art serve? Or what role does art serve to the artist and the public? Could we instead ask what role does the artist serve to art? Art is a much greater entity than the artist will ever be, so why does it so often seem to be subservient to the artist and his ego? This inversion is only palpable if we look at the way the media portray art and artists. The relegation of the profession of art, to monetization and therefore to the ranking on the scale of value happens by way of subverted commodification. When the news agencies like MSN or NBC print on their web sites articles about which degrees will get you the least amount of money in the market today, one has to question the motives for printing such material. Of course, topping the list of degrees is Fine Art, Philosophy, Psychology, etc, no one would suspect anything less. The list remains more or less the same every year. What this shows however is not what the agencies propose should be a deterrent to those seeking a professional degree, but rather the absolutely horrifying state of our culture. The inverse commodification of the degree and by that virtue its holders proposes that what they do and create is inherently of no value and a waste of time. On the one hand, perhaps other professional artists everywhere should be happy that the news is doing such a good job of trying to stop people from acquiring these degrees, but research and experience show that more and more people are applying for these degrees. What that shows then is the inverse of the proposed inverse by the news agencies. Art has the unique capability of speaking to the soul of the student, as do philosophy and most if not all of the other so called worthless degrees. A culture which is attempting to monetize the spiritual aspect of its existence has long ago become devoid of any semblance of coherence. All coherence in such a society is merely a veneer masking the general chaos created by the unrestrained commodification of all aspects of life. The fact that such a culture puts art at the very bottom of its list of priorities, especially when only art and its various offshoots have the capability of saving such a culture, is telling.
First, I would like to point out that in no way am I offering any sort of diagnosis of Slavoj Zizek’s speech impediment. This article/essay is a simple exercise in perception, and yes, a Zizekian analysis. What do we get when we apply Zizek’s theories to Zizek himself? The answer may or may not be surprising, depending on whether you are a Zizek follower or an anti-Zizek propagandist. In an analysis of The King’s Speech, Zizek points out that the king’s stuttering makes the king self-conscious and in a way embarrassed. As a divine ruler, the king of England should be a confident authority figure perfectly capable of assuming the role of the head of state. Delivering messages to the masses through oratory on the radio is just one of the ways that the king’s authority is projected to the public and if the people hear that in the voice of the king is a slight imperfection, this may be read as a fault that might preclude the king from carrying out his divine duty, f
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