Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Satanic Verses and the Art (?) of Provocation

I recently struggled through Salman Rushdie’s infamous book The Satanic Verses. It was a little over 600 pages of gobbledy-gook alternatingly about two plane-wreck-survivors-turned-angel-and-demon-turned-back-into-regular-guys, an obvious re-working of the early days of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), a butterfly-eating prophetess leading a village to a possible watery grave in the Arabian Sea, and a bunch of other stuff that I barely remember, which may or may not have incited any brain activity in the first place.

This was a complicated book that reminded me how much of an insulated dumb American I am.

Of course, when it came out, this book infuriated influential Muslims to the point that they wanted the author dead. Officially. As in “if you know where the author is hiding and don’t think you have the gumption or wherewithal to kill him, let us know. We’ll find someone who will kill him.”

This all got me to thinking about art and the goals with which one goes about creating art. I’m going to make a pretty big assumption from the outset- namely, that Rushdie knew that some ideas in the novel would upset some Conservative people of the Muslim faith. You don’t title your book after a possibly heretical story of errantism in the Qur’an and expect everything to be peachy keen. My favorite example of a similar action in the Western World would be if I were to write a book called The Whorish Wife of Jesus. (Of course, my book would be about The Church, “the Bride of Christ,” so it would be ok. Heh.) Nor do you talk about the wives of the Prophet and prostitutes in the same breath and expect there to be no discussion among the faithful.

Rushdie is obviously no idiot. Even though I’m kind of surprised that the literary critics and English teachers of the day didn’t issue a fatwa against him for creating such an incoherent mess of a book, I can readily admit that he obviously has an extensive body of knowledge serving as the inkwell in which he dips his pen.

If Rushdie knew that people of the Islamic faith would have problems with some of these elements, then surely at least one of his goals was to provoke these folks. We sometimes soften this impulse by using language like “I wrote this to make people think…to question…to take their faith seriously, etc.” (see also Kevin Smith’s Dogma.)

But I am now wondering: is provocation a noble goal for an artist? Does art need to be noble? Does art need anything at all? (I personally can’t escape the notion that art should uplift us out of negative states- of intolerance, of hopelessness, of base, cruel lives. I’m kind of old school that way and I also realize how subjective the notion is. So I’m not married to it.)

Another question- is a mere exercise in the freedom of speech necessarily “art?” For instance, when whoever it was that put the crucifix in urine and called it an artistic utterance did their thing, was the obvious shock and outrage that resulted a valid, complete appreciation of the creation? I don’t know.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes a guy like Rushdie wants to encourage thought and critique of ideas and open up the windows and let in some fresh air with provocative material. But as the publication of the Verses showed, the result can sometimes be the exact opposite of his intentions. What happened instead? An influential cleric denounced the work as offensive, therefore well-meaning people of faith didn’t read the book, denounced it and the author as offensive (possibly evil) and demanded his life. The intended audience burned the book, bombed bookstores, et cetera, et cetera. So much for discussion and honest critique of one’s cherished ideas.

No, trenches were dug even deeper. Instead of fresh air and productive discourse, the same sides just retreat further away from each other.

It seems to me that human nature has always been thus and thus it shall ever be.

What say you?

posted by Mike @ 4:30 PM