"Let’s imagine if we had a whole different art and culture."
BAsics 2:8
Let’s imagine if we had a whole different art and culture. Come on, enough of this “bitches and ho’s” and SWAT teams kicking down doors. Enough of this “get low” bullshit. And how come it’s always the women that have to get low? We already have a situation where the masses of women and the masses of people are pushed down and held down low enough already. It’s time for us to get up and get on up.
Imagine if we had a society where there was culture—yes it was lively and full of creativity and energy and yes rhythm and excitement, but at the same time, instead of degrading people, lifted us up. Imagine if it gave us a vision and a reality of what it means to make a whole different society and a whole different kind of world. Imagine if it laid out the problems for people in making this kind of world and challenged them to take up these problems. Imagine if art and culture too—movies, songs, television, everything—challenged people to think critically, to look at things differently, to see thiNgs in a different light, but all pointing toward how can we make a better world.
Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible,
Let’s imagine if we had a whole different art and culture. Come on, enough of this “bitches and ho’s” and SWAT teams kicking down doors. Enough of this “get low” bullshit. And how come it’s always the women that have to get low? We already have a situation where the masses of women and the masses of people are pushed down and held down low enough already. It’s time for us to get up and get on up.Imagine if the people who created art and culture were not just a handful of people but all of the masses of people, with all their creative energy unleashed, and the time were made for them to do that, and for them to join with people who are more full-time workers and creators in the realm of art and culture to bring forward something new that would challenge people, that would make them think in different ways, that would make them be able to see things critically and from a different angle, and would help them to be uplifted and help them to see their unity with each other and with people throughout the world in putting an end to all the horrors that we’re taught are just the natural order of things. Imagine all that.
What It’s All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian,
excerpt transcribed in Revolution #176, September 13, 2009
Labels: BAsics, Bob Avakian, communism, culture, hip-hop, movement for revolution, RCP, socialism
1 Comments:
Good post. I hear echoes from B.F. Skinner's "Walden Two" and the critical continental philosophy of the 19th century. One of the most lamentable developments of the past century, in my view, is the decline in public engagement with the arts and with science. You might be interested in David Damrosch's book "We Scholars" for a fascinating vision of a new interdisciplinary approach to "critical thinking" pedagogy. Glad I found your blog!
9/4/11, 7:30 PM
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