The too common conceit among artists and persons who have spent much of their life studying art is that the experience of art is superior or even meaningfully distinct from any other experience. Trevor Speller, a professor at Evergreen and suspected sentimentalist, gave us the declaration that, within the Proustian school of thought, a piece of art has the ability to unlock these involuntary memories that are so crucial to Proust’s sense of beauty and joy. We see this examined in Proust’s handling of Vinteuil’s phrase and probably in other places in the book. Stephen Kern supports this blasphemy on page 58 of The Culture of Time and Space, “The involuntary memory is entirely passive; however, once it has occurred, one can work to make it last by embodying it in art.”

Now, a statement that is far too controversial for how obvious and self-evident it is: Art is not magical. There is no capacity for a book, nothing more than a simple arrangement of pressed wood pulp and ink, to hold even the weakest charge, let alone the powerful swirling cosmic energies that art aficionados purport lay dormant underneath the cover. Paintings are not actually portals into inter-dimensional spaces inhabited by the wood nymphs of sublimity and music is not the whispering of a water ubergoddess. Everything is inert material and art is no exception. Maybe, MAYBE, thought is an exception, but I have great confidence in the ability of neurobiologists to remove that mystery from the table, eventually. The infallible history of scientific understanding eclipsing all other modes of interpreting the universe is neatly side-stepped by art idolizers: Art is the mirror held up to reality, Art is the spark which sets the human soul afire, Art is the crack through which the light enters, Art is the exception because I said it eloquently.

This conceit, this incognizance, pervades every walk of life (barring monasteries and waterfall caves perhaps). Deadheads believe that the Grateful Dead are divine, Surfers believe that surfing is the key to enlightenment, hedge fund managers believe that money will lead to joy, everybody, more or less, glorifies and exalts their preoccupations. This is natural and this is fallacious in every instance (although I must say, I believe the hedge fund managers have gotten closest to the mark in this ugly, deplorable, capitalist world we live in). However, the idolatry of art is particularly annoying because I have to hear about it all the time.

What this conceit really is, the sad truth buried underneath the posturing, the jargon of art theory, and the desperate aping of significance, is nothing more than a hapless incapacity for the shock and tumult of reality. Unable to achieve singularity and self-actualization the too sensitive and considerate young soul becomes enamored by the world of the arts. Oh, how every body glitters and shines on the stage, on the silver screen, what dignity and charming melancholy does even the lowliest rogue have when rendered in oil or pastel, what cohesion of purpose and sincerity of thought do all the characters in the novel have. What order and beauty and how significant it all is, surely, this is the truth. The wretches around me, the raving hobos and scabby dogs outside my window, the topless towers of dishes stinking in my kitchen, the innumerable nights I’ve wasted staring at my computer screen scrolling through trivialities, my own shame and the weight of all my regrets, all those are illusory. Please oh please, let my world be false and the world of art be true.