Laughing at the failure of discourse?

Via Glenn Reynolds' link, I was somewhat startled to see this contention by Professor Fernando Tesón (guest-blogging at Volokh) that political art is not only a failure of discourse, but that it's leftist:

....political art is a special form of discourse failure. Art is a type of concrete imagery, and as such it evokes a "fact" that may activate default theories in the audience. Those willing to challenge the political stances represented by the artifact have to overcome the suggestive power of beauty. Political paintings (say, Diego Rivera's murals) often suggest causal connections that, for the reasons I indicated in my previous posts, permeate theories that people hold by default. Political art's appeal to emotion usurps reasoned political argument. If you think big oil is responsible for the evils in the world, make an argument. The movie Syriana will not do. (A related puzzle: why is all political art of the left? We have answers to this too.)
My immediate reaction was to say "Wait a minute, What about South Park?" So I checked the comments, and sure enough, at least two of them were having similar reactions. I especially liked Rand Simberg's:
Anyone who thinks that all political art is of the left (and particularly when it comes to satire) obviously doesn't spend much time in the blogosphere. I write a great number of pieces that tweak the left, and Iowahawk often devastates them. And how about Cox and Forkum?
Not only are those blogs, and South Park, and Cox and Forkum, not on the left, but I think calling them "discourse failure" misses the point a little.

I can't think of a better example than "South Park." The very essence of its humor is to make fun of discourse failure! (Uptight ideologues and activists from both sides who take themselves too seriously are often the target.)

I often try to do the same thing -- with varying results.

Sometimes, I go so far as to hope that making fun of the failure of discourse might help lead to discourse.

But then, I don't like to get too carried away...

posted by Eric on 12.16.06 at 01:10 PM





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