Difference between being an artist and a propagandist?

[Felan]

From wikipedia:
In one of the campfire scenes late in the 2007 documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, a Granada friend states that Joe wept when he heard that the phrase "Rock the Casbah" was written on an American bomb that was to be detonated on Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. The friend avers that he heard Joe say, while crying, "Hey, man, I never could think that a song of mine could be written as a death symbol on a fucking American bomb."

My feeling about this is that artist creates something and then marvels at how it is interpreted and used by its audience, if you are worried about the message then you are a propagandist.

I'm just curious what others think.

 

[EditorOne]

Propaganda is not a dirty word. It just means, loosely, words and pictures used in support of an idea or agenda.

The word as used here is by the original artist who objects to the use of his material as an item of propaganda, in a way not true to the original concept.

Alfred Nobel created dynamite. Others used it to kill more effectively than ever before. He worried about it to the point of creating an endowment to fund efforts to preserve peace. There are two great fears for every creator: Your creation will be used in support of agendas you never saw coming; you will live long enough to see your creations judged by the morality of a new generation.

Wow thinking that through made my hair hurt.

I do think crying about the "rock the casbah" thing is a big passive. Anyway, where is the Casbah? maybe he was crying over the lack of attention to geography in today's educational facilities?

 

[Felan]

The Casbah isn't a place or thing or any such, though it does have a Middle-Eastern feel to it.

I agree that there is nothing wrong with propaganda or being a propagandist, it is merely a tool toward an end.

A scientist can't really afford to worry too much about the use and misuse of their discoveries, else science could never be done. Knowledge is a powerful tool, it is people that decide how to apply that tool. It was this sort of conundrum that worried me out of being a scientist. I was more worried, in my youthful hubris, that I would discover something ruinous to the world.

As for an artist I think it isn't dissimiliar to a scientist. If you insist on telling people the meaning of your art, rather than allowing people to express what it means to them, then you have lost sight of the art. I choose a politically charge example of this but I think principal still holds. And in my universe the scales of merit weigh heavily in favor of the artist.

 

[Ermine]

Generally speaking, propaganda is promoting an agenda, and art promotes individual ideas.

 

[Felan]

I'm not really sure what is meant by individual ideas, could you clarify that for me?

 

[flow]

I think the difference is that propaganda in general has a specific message, whereas art can be defined in an infinite set of ways. Propaganda wants you to interpret the image created in a specific way, art gives the viewer as many ways to interpret as they can think of. So if the image you create is widely considered to have specific motives, you've created propaganda. If the image you create only brings about discussion, you've created art.

 

[Beat Mango]

Well I don't really believe in fixed definitions. But questions like this are good for igniting discussion, I guess.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

The Casbah isn't a place or thing or any such, though it does have a Middle-Eastern feel to it.

Casbah Morocco:

 

[Felan]

Casbah Morocco:

How delightful. Its not the Casbah of the song at least, as professed by the authors of the song.

 

[Ermine]

I'm not really sure what is meant by individual ideas, could you clarify that for me?

Meaning the ideas come from one person, not a political party or something.

 

[Felan]

A truly original idea, independent of groups and thoughts of those around that person. That would set the bar for something to be art rather high isn't it?

 

[Ermine]

I didn't mean that the thought itself has to be original, just that the idea is illustrated by, for, and in behalf of 1 individual.

 

[echoplex]

I believe that art certainly can be used for propaganda. A work of art itself may not be propaganda, but such can be attached to it by the artist who created it. After all, artists aren't just artists; they can be politicians too. Whenever a musician, for example, tells his/her audience how to interpret a song, he's attaching propaganda to it. The song itself could still be interpreted any way the listener chooses despite this, so it's still art, but the artist would then also be a propagandist.

There are also cases of propaganda being attached by fans. You see this alot on music message boards where fans insist on a song's meaning, despite the artist(s) never clarifying such. Of course, none of this is to suggest that propaganda is "bad." Ultimately, propaganda can always be rebutted with more propaganda. As in, guy puts song lyrics on a bomb, and then artist rebuts that by expressing disagreement with that interpretation/usage.

I also think the example in the OP could be described as soft propaganda, since the artist is only saying what the art isn't and not necessarily what it is. We are only being told that it doesn't have anything to do with bombing countries. Much room for interpretation is still being granted.

 

[Tyria]

The propagandist forces you to look at a tree, an artist shows you the forest and beyond.

 

[EditorOne]

Propaganda usually has a feel of deliberateness about it and I think Ermine was right there with the idea that it's group thing, an organized attempt to get you to believe and feel a certain way that an entire group wants you to believe and feel. It can be artwork harnessed to the wagon: If you look at Soviet statues circa 1950-1960 or so, there are heroic workers, bulging muscles, wielding scythes. That was the image the government wanted projected.