Anyone familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition has heard of Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Tower of Babel. At the heart of these narratives lies the destruction of the center that unites all people or a culture. Many false gods confront the true one. These false gods manifest in various forms such as the improper use of pleasure, money, power, self-destruction, selfishness, etc.
It is impossible not to see a parallel between these stories and what has been happening in the West for about two centuries. What we call Freedom, freedom from the unifying culture, is now being opposed to us. Freedom from the community led us to isolation, freedom from Christianity as Faith and culture caused the breakdown of social cohesion. The breakdown of a common language, as in the time of Babel, for the same reason and with the same consequences. The debate and cultural warfare have extended to the most fundamental issues such as: what is a woman and a man; when a person is called a Being in the mother’s womb. But in terms of cultural aspect, this division is seen in issues like: what is considered beautiful and “should art necessarily be beautiful?” etc.
There are only a limited number of ways to build something, for example, a box. These limitations are the rules. It must have 6 sides, have two and two identical sides, the identical sides must have two and two identical sizes, and all these elements are linked by a single idea, the box. While there are endless ways and reasons to destroy the box, and with its destruction, regardless of any means or reason, the box and its idea, which is certainly indestructible, are sought to be destroyed. There is only one way to give birth to a child and infinitely to kill or die. Regardless of the reasons, death seeks to destroy what is alive. Here, I want to focus because the methods of destroying a culture are perceived as a way to build something new.
If I were to make an analogy with art, I would say that there are a limited number of ways to make art or something beautiful. And there are endless ways to make deconstructive art, such as abstraction, conceptual art, etc. As a conclusion, what happens is the destruction of the language of communication that figurative art establishes (here I do not want to deny the healing aspect that these forms may have individually). This reminds us of the archetypal story of Osiris being fragmented by Seth, and Isis remaining pregnant with the collected parts of Osiris to give birth to Horus, who will revitalize the kingdom by driving out evil.
Classical art is fragmented by evil, so is academicism, like a kind of anxiety and fear of death, while abstract and deconstructivist art does not represent Seth but Isis. Isis is the part of chaos that feeds the son with formless energy, gives him the necessary material to revitalize what was damaged, Osiris. But if you do not know Osiris (the root from which tradition comes), then you will simply be filled with energy but without direction. Horus is consciousness, Osiris is direction, and Isis is energy, while Seth is evil or entropy.
Evil has already been done, in Western civilization, tradition has been fragmented, it has become a relic. Chaos has overflowed, trying everything, every form of art without direction, without tradition, without values, exploring values and anti-values. The new one that will be born must renew tradition but with new energy.
Agents of culture (artists, academics, musicians, writers, etc.) lack objective vision today because their god is not the God who is Heaven, but the god created by their hands. Today they live in what is called Ego-drama. The emphasis is always on oneself, my experience, my right, my creation; I even have to come up myself with an Idea of what god is and this is widely welcomed and celebrated without questioning the foolishness of that undertaking. This focus ensures the fragmentation of culture into very small and powerless units, produces an art that does not feed your hunger, and quickly fades away and requires very large expenses to maintain its position.
