Against Muckraking Artists
A rant
So once again there’s drama, something about a historical figure being “blackified”, or something. Should I be angry? I guess. I won’t tell anyone NOT to be angry. I guess if it had been one of my national heroes being blackified, I suppose I’d be angry too.
But that’s not my point. My point is this: where are you going with this? Why are you complaining about how bad Hollywood is? Why do you keep complaining about how bad the world is? Why are you muckraking?
The term “muckraking” was a term of derision, allegedly coined by Theodore Roosevelt when he referenced “the man with the muck-rake” from The Pilgrim’s Progress, as follows:
In Pilgrim’s Progress the Man with the Muck-rake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of on spiritual things. Yet he also typifies the man who in this life consistently refuses to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing.
Yet if you read Roosevelt’s whole speech, he was actually rather sympathetic towards the muckrakers, going so far as to call them “indispensable to the well-being of society”.
And I can’t help but concur. Society needs garbage men, people who clean up the place. But muckraking can become an obsession. Let’s go back to Roosevelt’s comment about the muckrakers being “indispensable to the well being of society”. That’s not the whole quote. It actually continues:
The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them, to the crown of worthy endeavor.
A lot of modern-day muckrakers are artists or writers, or at least would-be artists. Maybe content creator is a better term for it. In any case, they make videos or essays or whatever talking about how bad certain movies are because of wokism or feminism or whatever. Then they put on their English professor hats analyzing all this shit as if it’s not just an excuse to bash a shitty movie.
I won’t pretend that I haven’t gotten some enjoyment from these people, but let’s call them for what they are: muckrakers. No, they’re not raking literal muck. The muck they’re raking is spiritual, for lack of a better word.
The Brothers Krynn and The Man Behind the Screen called the whole thing “Unbelievably Stupid Shit”.
I agree but personally, I prefer “muckraking”.
If you Google the term “muckraker”, chances are you’ll see the lionizing of these people, calling them heroes and whatnot. I will do no such thing!
The reason (mainstream) history looks back at muckrakers positively is because our culture taught us to be “the change you want to see in the world”, or whatever. They want you to think you can be Superman (who is basically a counterfeit Messiah made by two men whose people are hungry for a savior because they rejected the true One).
A lot of people think they’ll save the world, or at least change it. Well, guess what? That’s just delusions of grandeur, maybe not to the level of Nietzsche’s after he gave himself syphilis, but it’s a delusion of grandeur nonetheless.
And I find artists to be particularly vulnerably to this vice. Why? Maybe it’s because we’re introverts and like to look at the big picture, and we’d like to see ourselves as people who are making a difference somehow in the grand scheme of things.
That’s our pride talking.
I don’t care how deep you think you are with your pen. The truth is simple:
You’re a regular nigga living a regular life having regular kids with a regular wife and you’ll die on a regular bed.
Stop trying to save the world, or your society. Because that’s not your vocation. If you want to be an artist, then be an artist. Don’t be an activist, because activists can’t produce good art.
Your model should be a cloistered monk instead of the clueless Upton Sinclair, who in trying to expose the miserable working conditions of the American meatpacking industry instead ended up kickstarting food safety reforms because the public discovered they’ve been eating bad meat. His quote about aiming for the public’s heart but instead hitting their stomach is often made out to show how clueless people are, as if it’s their fault they didn’t catch the silly socialist ideology hidden in the text and instead zero-in on something much more important, much closer to home: they might be feeding their kids rotten meat all this time.
An artist who has contact with reality will expect that a work like The Jungle will hit the stomach rather than the heart. Except Sinclair wanted to be an activist, he didn’t want to be an artist. So God honored that request by allowing his work to have an immediate social impact, but nothing more.
Seriously, would anyone even care about The Jungle if it wasn’t for the whole meatpacking business?
This is going a bit too long already, so let me end it with this Note:
-MPM
The good Brothers gave too much credit when they engaged in the unprompted kindness of cross-posted that essay with me. It sprung from conversation we had after I showed them the meme, but I had no direct hand in writing it. Nevertheless, my view largely aligns with their own and yours here, particularly in regards to the popular culture.
Muckraking has its place, but its value is far lesser than the overwhelming attention many give it. The more we lose our time and ourselves to the practice, the lesser its value becomes, until it swift turns into a detriment all its own. Important as it is to know the what's and why's behind the failures and successes of the popular culture, it's yet more important that we not to box ourselves in with the muck. There's far more to life than slop; more important things that we can and should be doing. Might not feel that way, but it's the truth, especially when it comes to the little things.