Culture vs. Copyright/Chapter 2

by Anatoly Volynets

CHAPTER 2

Inquiry on the Nature of Art

Should We Obey the Laws of Nature?

A short note before we start. This chapter lays out the philosophical groundwork for the ideas expressed in the book. If you feel it is too heavy, it can be skipped and read later just as well.

Sometimes I use the terms culture and art interchangeably. This is because the arts are the most typical representation of culture; therefore I use art to explore culture itself; and vice versa, whatever we can say about culture in general, naturally applies to the arts.

Now, on with our subject. The concept of copyright (the right to make copies) and related laws, practices, and institutions are different elements of a certain attempt to govern culture. This attempt has been going on long—for about three hundred years. My question is thus: Has it been a success? Or let us put it another way: Has culture been properly governed? The issue is extremely contentious and distressing nowadays, and the right answer is vital. But how can we judge? I insist that the only proper answer is one that is based on culture itself. What do I mean?

The ancient Romans said, Natura parendo vincitur, that is, “Obeying nature, one wins.” In other words, we get the best fruits of nature if we obey its laws. And nothing but harm comes from trying to impose our wishes on nature, to act against its laws. Sounds reasonable, does it not?

I want to ask then, what about culture? Should we try to obey culture’s intrinsic laws? That is to say, should we follow the nature of culture, while attempting to govern it? Or can we take laws derived from other areas and apply them to culture? Witnessing what is going on today, any reasonable person would doubt this, willingly or unwillingly.

Now, let us have a close look at this subject.

A Work of Art Equals a New World

What is the nature of culture? Let us narrow down the question to: What is the nature of art? And let us start with something one can point to—a work of art. What is it?

Let us take an example, say, The Lord of the Rings. What happens when we read it? At least two things. First, we accept another world, one built by J. R. R. Tolkien, as if it is ours. We identify with the heroes; we love and hate; we get scared, triumphant, sad, happy, impatient, avenged, etc. It is as if we are living and acting there—we take whatever happens there close to our hearts. Again, their world becomes, in a sense, ours. Second, it is a different and strange world. That is why it is interesting to us.

And so, here we can sum up the first definition of a work of art: it is the paradox of a new, strange world accepted as our own—an alter ego of our world.

This alter ego, in a sense, is less real, yet, in another sense, more real than the physical world. It is less real because it is virtual. You can enter and exit at any time, at will. However, it becomes more real when it affects you, evokes strong feelings, and influences your decisions to a greater extent than the physical world.

One could say that this definition was deduced from just one specific example, one of fantasy. What about other genres?

They are all the same. Let us take an example that is close to physical reality—a newspaper article. Try to extract a list of pure facts from the article and compare it with the article itself. Which one is more real in terms of influencing the reader? The list or the article? Which one is more likely to get noticed? Which one is more likely to get genuine attention, understanding, and empathy? The answer seems obvious; it is the article or, in other words, the list of facts processed by the journalist (thus presenting a conditioned world), which is more visible and understandable. How has this reality been achieved? The journalist has turned the physical reality into “more ours” (so it became touching) and, at the same time, “more strange” (so it became interesting).

Once again, in a piece of art (whatever it is: painting, novel, poetry, song, sculpture, drama, dance, etc.), the artist creates a new world, a strange and real one. However, this new world is not the only phenomenon created. Necessarily, other things never seen before emerge:

• New forms of expression
• New elements of human language
• New human attitudes
• New understanding of human dignity
• Generally, it is a new layer of humanity.

At the same time, the artist recreates his own alter ego (one that understands all of the above listed). Furthermore, he creates a new audience (the people who will understand all these new things).

To summarize, every artwork creates a new layer of humanity consisting of a new world (less and more real than the physical one), a new author (capable of creating that world), and a new audience (capable of understanding, believing in, accepting, and enjoying all of the novelty) with all their new forms of behavior, thinking, and speaking.

A Work of Art Equals a Message

And so, a piece of art addresses an audience, which, in turn, is supposed to understand it. This means that the piece of art bears another duty and, hence, another definition: it is a message to be heard, understood, and responded to, which means, furthermore, that true artwork appears when the artist has something to say. Obviously, this must be something that touches the author personally.

One could point out that art-on-order or art-for-hire does exist. Indeed it does, but this changes nothing. The artist’s talent has the capacity for the understanding and empathy that other people could and should truly feel. Otherwise, the outcome does not amount to real art.

People-to-Art Relations

So, a work of art is a message. Now, what happens on the audience’s side? It is a fact that we love, hate, feel compassion for, and fear the heroes of a work. As we already said, this new world is a real one. It is unique; it is unusual; it is specific; it is virtual; and it is real. We engage in this reality if we allow ourselves. And for those who do not, art simply does not exist. Despite the fact that we are free to engage and disengage the world of a piece of art, when we are engaged, everything that happens to its heroes touches us. That is, we develop real human-to-human relationships with heroes from virtual worlds. The only difference is the consequences. Have you ever been afraid when a movie becomes too chilling? Have you ever cried when listening to music? Have you ever had deep feelings, tempests of thoughts, while reading? These are all very human feelings, are they not? And these feelings are directed at and invoked by images shaped by the artist, writer, singer, or composer.

Interestingly enough, the same thing happens when it comes to real people and events we are not directly engaged with. They become truly real for us if they are “processed” by art. For example, earlier we saw how information in a newspaper may pass unnoticed by the public, yet the art of journalism makes a real event truly realistic. The art of journalism makes a factual event so captivating that we notice and accept it as important, that we become engaged in human-to-human relations with the characters of the article.

Personal versus Consumer Attitude

Having said this, we can understand another dimension of individual relations with a work of art. Let us turn to our example again. Say, one day you discovered The Lord of the Rings. You may have borrowed it from a friend or taken it from the library. You read it and decided that you wanted this book on your shelf so that you can reread it, talk to its heroes, and listen to them. You want to enjoy their adventures, be afraid of their dangers, and discover new countless details, possibilities, beauties, and challenges time and again. Then you went to a bookstore and did not find it. Would you say to yourself something like, “Well, they don’t have The Lord of the Rings, so I will buy something else”?

Although the above attitude is possible, this would not be normal here. If you want The Lord of the Rings, then you want The Lord of the Rings. It is personal by nature! It is not the same when you are going to buy a car. In the latter case, you need something to drive. Even if you want a very certain car, it can be substituted. The Lord of the Rings cannot be substituted. Another book will never be the same to you, in the exact way that a loved one cannot be substituted by just any person.

This last point is extremely important. Let us deliberate on a few more examples. One can say something like:

• I need something to eat.
• I need something to drive.
• I’d like something to read.
• I want to marry.
• I need to talk to somebody.

Or one can say something like:

• I want rack of lamb, Irish style.
• I want a blue Cadillac.
• I need to read The Lord of the Rings.
• I love Miriam and want to marry her.
• I miss Tom and want to talk to him.
  

What is the difference between the two groups? The first one contains indifferent, impersonal statements, which represent, generally speaking, a “consumer” attitude. The second one consists of personal statements which represent a passionate “humane” attitude. But this is not all.

The “consumer” attitude in some of these statements should be taken with a grain of salt. Even when you just want to marry, you normally foresee individual human-to-human relations; so even though this wish is expressed in general terms, it is not necessarily a consumer one. The same story happens with the wish to talk to somebody. This normally implies that someone will listen to, understand, and probably help you in some personal, caring manner. Further, if you want to read something, normally you anticipate human-to-humanlike relations with a book’s heroes, and this is exactly what attracts you.

Now, the personal statements in the second group should also be taken cum grano salis. When you say “I want to drive a blue Cadillac,” you personalize a functional thing which has no soul. Engaging in human-to-humanlike relationships is not in the nature of a car. Nothing about it is supposed to invoke love or hatred or any other purely human feeling. It is only functional, powerful, comfortable, and so forth.

To sum up, a human being can develop a personal attitude toward anything or may treat other human beings like consumer goods (an extreme case, for instance, is slavery). The question is: What is natural here? When you wanted to read The Lord of the Rings, that was personal by nature, like wanting to meet another person. This is not an irrelevant or surprising analogy at all.

If a work of art presents another real world along with its own heroes, events, and laws, and if this other world talks to your soul, then you cannot treat it like food or even a tool. It is different from these in principle, in nature. You do feel a personal engagement, much like one with other people. It is this human-to-human aspect that makes artwork vital for both individuals and society as a whole.

Form in a Work of Art

To return to one of my premises, a piece of art is a message. It travels from the author to the audience and is about the author’s true feelings, ideas, and indispensable inventions. How is this message built? We know already that message paradoxically presents a new virtual world that is strange (and therefore interesting) and, at the same time, is ours, understandable, and touching (and therefore important).

What makes a piece of art the projection of a new world? The work consists of ideas which are organized and expressed in some aesthetic form. Obviously, the ideas simply listed (remember a newspaper article!) would attract only philosophers and would not necessarily invoke any feelings. However, there are many pieces of artwork which are deeply engaging even though they contain ideas that are insignificant for us. For example, I adore the movie Chicago but can barely list any ideas in it. Why do I adore it then? Why do the few ideas contained within it became significant for me? How does art purify matters and assign meaning to issues for us, in general terms?

We can assume that the aesthetic form plays the principal and essential role here. It is this form that organizes details, tying them together in virtual space-time as an aspect of a new world built by a work of art. Indeed, it is this aesthetic form that brings a sense of reality into the newly created world, and it is this form that makes this new world engaging and interesting. It is through this form that ideas emerge and speak to us.

Now let us recall that an author’s intrinsic feelings must be at the center of an imagined world and dictate its aesthetic form.

Rules for the Creator

Now, if feelings dictate then the author has to obey, although this may sound strange. What can we derive out of this? We have learned a few things about a work of art, but is art something comprised entirely of “works?” Or is there such a thing as “art itself?”

The first answer is easy to formulate, it is “yes and no.” Why “yes?” When we say “sculpture,” we refer to a general notion, which in turn defines a work of art as a sculpture in our eyes. Likewise, it becomes this in the eyes of its creator. Most importantly, it was a sculpture in the creator’s mind before it was created. What about some other phenomena reflected in such diverse general terms as baroque, comedy, Antiquity^[1], etc.? There appear to be some general patterns working beyond artworks. Thus, we can definitely say that art in and of itself does exist.

Why “no?” These patterns exist and develop only in works of art. While talking about art, we have no substance to look and point at other than works of art. Art does not exist beyond works of art. Art in itself is a paradox, and this paradox is the exact reason that art develops through its own laws.

Let us make the ideas behind the “yes” more concrete. The patterns mentioned above translate into the more or less articulated rules that an artist has to obey. This, by the way, returns us to another issue: whether or not there are laws of culture that must be obeyed in order for culture to be at its best. Yes, there are laws. They are employed in works of art, and they are developed within works of art.

An artist obeys and develops at least three sets of rules. We may call them “Generic Set,” “Canon Set” and “Work Set.”

The first set of rules is concerned with categories of art (genres, media, etc.). Obeying these laws is one of the conditions of molding a piece of artwork into a perfect form. Let us take a look at movies based on books. Simply rewriting a book as a script cannot work because things that have to be said in a book can simply be shown in a movie. Inversely, things that can be explained in a book cannot be shown in a movie. For this reason, some movies based on the Bible are not convincing at all. The Passion of the Christ serves as a counter example because Mel Gibson adhered to the laws of his medium.

The second set of rules is concerned with canon. From ancient Greek tragedy and sculpture to medieval poetry and classical music, the arts have always been developed through a cycle: invention of a canon, development within the canon, offshoot of a new canon. You either learn an existing means of expression, or you invent a new means yourself. But you still have to follow some rules so that your creation will fit into a cultural context. This makes your work readable, visible, understandable, recognizable, and so forth.

The third set of rules is really mysterious. It is concerned with the “dictatorship” of the author’s own work. That is, this set represents a unique world that is implied in every single work of art. No matter what it is—a novel, a short story, a song, a play, a painting, a poem, etc.—it is a whole new and different world. To reiterate, it is new and it is real. Importantly, it becomes real when all its elements play together without a single false note. Again, the new world is real if it is shaped in a perfect form.

We always recognize a false note when it is played; we always notice when a painter makes a wrong stroke; in general, we feel it when an author breaks the rules of the world he has created. That is, we can always feel it when an aesthetic form is broken, when its perfection is undermined. I remember a very compelling example—The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It happened when, I think, Lewis started to worry that his message of Christian love was not clear, so he turned to direct preaching. In my view, he destroyed the beautiful world he created; he effectively broke away from its aesthetic form for the sake of religion and morality. What should Lewis have done to keep Narnia alive? He should have followed her rules. He should not have preached directly but instead kept Narnia’s form unspoiled.

This may seem contrary to the idea that authors’ feelings dictate form, but it is not. That form must represent the author’s feeling. It follows then that the virtual world should be free to dictate its own rules. The more talented an author, the better he is able to follow the rules of the world of his creation. We can even put it this way: the more talented an author is, the more independently his creation acts. If we agree that an imagined world is, in a sense, a living one, then we see it as independent—independently acting and independently developing. In short, the main rule for a creator is paradoxical: be free to follow your creation!

Creating as Dialogue

All right, a talented author allows his creation to live according to its own laws. Now, let us recall that a piece of art is a message. Thus, the talent of a creator consists in allowing his creation to speak for itself. This illustrates and highlights another side of the real logic and psychology of the creative process.

The author relates a message when creating, and this means the author is talking to somebody while creating. From the outside, it might seem like the author is talking to himself. But what is happening on the inside? That is the same thing that happens to all of us while we are thinking. When one is thinking she or he is talking to someone else in her or his mind, in her or his inner speech. This can be one’s father or mother or teacher or friend or loved one or enemy or a hero of a book, etc. Of course, those interlocutors may be more or less unrecognized, so we do not quite clearly realize who we are talking to, but this is a matter of psychology and is not crucial for our subject. (Normally, an adult is under the impression that he is talking to himself.) What is crucial for our subject is that an author is conversing with his potential audience and other authors.

Obviously, an artwork itself means nothing until somebody sees it, listens to it, etc. A work of art represents culture at the moment that it emerges as the subject of inner or outer dialogue. Remove dialogue, and art becomes a piece of canvas, some ink, a tape, etc.

Interestingly, if we remove art—and thus novelty—from dialogue, it turns into banal, senseless, animal-like communication.

When do you talk? When you want to be heard, understood, and responded to. You write (film, sing, etc.) to be read (watched, listened to, etc.), understood, and responded to. And while on the outside a new creation invokes new understanding in other people, the same amazing thing happens inside, in the creator’s inner dialogue: all of the author’s inner interlocutors develop an understanding of the new creation. The author talks to his inner interlocutors about this new world. That actually means he develops his own new understanding, his new alter ego, or more precisely, a new face of his alter ego, with every single work.

Free human communication or dialogue is the most general mechanism in the development of the arts and all creativity, generally speaking.

Actually, art is a dialogue. Its very fabric is produced at that very moment when a writer is writing (that is, he is talking in his mind), when a reader is reading (is talking in his mind to the author, friends, enemies, etc.), when a person is thinking (is talking in his mind to his alter ego), etc. All of this occurs in the realm of ultimate freedom and only there. Let us always remember that.

Freedom of inner speech is one of the main conditions required and, at the same time, is the motivation to create. It is another law of the nature of culture! Even if an author creates for some superficial reason, like money, fame, or fear of punishment, these affect him on the surface only. No external reasons add talent to a work of art, but free inner speech or dialogue does. Again, the freedom of the author’s inner speech is crucial for the creative process. A creator is as talented as he is free.

Culture: Sum of Works and Beyond

We already touched upon the question of whether or not there is an “art” as such, i.e., art beyond works of art. We assumed there must paradoxically exist some generic thought patterns, some ideas representing art. They exist, but one cannot point at such a pattern in reality. They work as engines, producing new elements of humanity such as thoughts, ideas, forms of expression and even new human behavior. They cause an audience to become newly curious and understand these new elements. How does this happen?

Let us explore some more phenomena. Ideas become developed and refined when they are fixed into a form, a “work.” After that, they may play an “instructive” role, either by becoming examples to follow or even by being taught. But the most crucial role of a work of culture is not to be an example. It is to provoke another creator to create. It could incite a desire to understand, follow, go further, argue or criticize—generally speaking, it induces dialogue. All this relates to the audience as well.

Let us take, for example, the so-called “culture of groups.” Whatever their art forms are and at whatever level they exist, it is necessary to stress that these forms have been and are being created. After the creation, the “added culture” spreads into the vernacular, becomes fixed in the written language, rituals, clothes, meals, and so forth and, sooner or later, “fires back”—that is, new works of art appear. These new works reflect the new stage of the group and promote new forms of life. Novelty is a characteristic of culture, and because of that, culture is exclusive purview of humanity.

Once again, culture is born of works of art, and gives birth to works of art but is not the same as the sum of those works. Even if we add ideas, names, literary personages, genres, theories, methods, schemes, etc. the result will not add up to the entirety of culture. This is so simply because many different works may represent the same culture. For example, the works of Aristotle and Plato belong to the culture of Antiquity. But what is the culture of Antiquity? It is one represented by works of Plato, Aristotle, and many others. How can such different works represent the same thing? Culture appears to be an engine producing works, which, in turn, develop the culture. We revolve within this and other paradoxes of human ways all the time. We can neither avoid it nor change it.

The paradox between culture and its works is analogous to the paradox between thought and speech. Thought and speech are not one and the same, because you may express the same thought in different ways. On the other hand, there is not a thought beyond speech; that is, you have no means to comprehend the thought without verbalizing it. Both halves of this paradox have been brilliantly grasped by Russian poets:

I have forgotten the word that I desired to say
And a fleshless thought returns to a hall of shadows.
-Osip Mandelshtam

and

The thought that has been said is false.
-Fyodor Tyutchev

Culture and Humanity

We concluded in the very beginning that every work of real art actually creates a new layer of humanity. Let us list a few points which have been developed thus far and some of the obvious offshoots thereof:

• If a work of art represents a new world and this new world speaks to us, then it invokes new feelings, new language to express ourselves, new views on our relations with one another, etc. Thus, artwork creates new layers of the human way of life or, in other words, new insights on humanity itself.
• It is significant that the relationship of people to works of art is essentially the same as the relationship of people to one another. This means that arts bring about new ways of life.
• In these new ways of life, the arts disseminate ideas which are exclusively human. These ideas are ingrained in material objects and relate to desire, value, interest, hate, affection, encouragement and so forth.
• Moreover, art foster ideas in an exclusively human way, via aesthetic forms, thus developing the human ability to perceive.
• The virtual world of an artwork must be recognizably ours and intriguingly strange in order to work for the audience. Thus, a work of art develops curiosity, empathy, and reflection, fundamental features of human nature.
• A work of art directly enriches the personalities of its author and audience because it develops new “faces” of their alter egos. These faces are able to understand that new work, its language, its new aesthetics and new interpretations of human-to-human and human-to-universe relations.
• The arts develop the spectrum of the simplest human senses via the development of new genres and kinds of art.
• The arts continuously further and deepen the basic sensations of space, time, and movement.
• The arts develop the sense of historical time and universal space, which translates into the sense of the total unity of humankind throughout time and space, particularly beyond national boundaries.
• It is the arts which develop the basic of all basics of the human way of life—dialogue or free communication.
• It is through art that people develop, employ, and reveal creativity and freedom, their most powerful and fundamental abilities.
  

If we were to go farther back in time to when there was virtually no art, we would find that no human way of life had yet developed. The arts create humanity, amount to it, and vice versa—no humanity emerges beyond the arts. It is noteworthy that humanity is measured in all possible dimensions here: ethics, aesthetics, feelings, thoughts— all that make a human being specifically human.

The Reality of Art and Civilization

And so we can see that if it were not for the arts, civilization would never have developed. We concluded that virtual worlds of art are more real in certain respects than the physical world. Virtual worlds and the physical world do interact and influence each other. Real tensions within the physical world instigate creators to reflect them in imagined worlds. These are imagined in new and different ways every time they and an audience interact. This is how works of art promote perceptions and understandings of new ways of life and thus change society. It is up to civilization to accept or deny what culture generates. Acceptance and denial both have occurred throughout history.

Mostly, the two fight each other. Culture questions civilization. Civilization, in turn, denies what culture brings in. Civilization fight creations in different ways for different reasons. It punishes creators, disseminators of art, and the audience. It stages obstacles for them all. The first thought that comes to mind when we think of such fight is censorship. This, in turn, makes us think of tyranny. However, the same can be said about copyrights and other culture-restricting laws, perceptions, and practices. Granted, there are differences in motivation between censorship promoters and copyright promoters, but there are hardly any differences in results. Moreover, some cultural phenomena fall under more than one kind of restriction. For instance, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had the bad luck of falling under two kinds of restrictions: copyright and censorship.

Some of these restrictions are lifted when society is ready to accept a cultural phenomenon. For some that time never comes. At any rate, it is impossible to imagine and measure all the harm done by civilization to culture and, consequentially, to civilization itself due to

all the mentioned and unmentioned restrictions.

Culture and Creativity

After all that has been said, it is obvious that culture and creativity are inseparable. Surprisingly, the interrelations between culture and creativity are not that clear (beyond this book). This can be seen by looking at many dictionary definitions of culture, such as these taken from the OneLook (www.onelook.com), which, in turn, takes entries from a great deal of other dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Cambridge International Dictionary of English, and others: Quick definitions (culture):

• noun: the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group
• noun: the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization (e.g., the developing drug culture)
• noun: a particular society at a particular time and place
• noun: all the knowledge and values shared by a society
• noun: a highly developed state of perfection; having a flawless or impeccable qualit
  

All the above definitions of culture lack a most notable point—its development. Development is necessarily “part and parcel” of the very idea of culture and, thus, must be reflected in its definition. For example, “culture is the development of the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group” or “culture is the development of the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization” or “culture is the development of a particular society at a particular time and place,” and so forth. In other words, all of the stated above definitions are related to the current subject at hand (the culture of humankind) in the sense that they were born within culture and continue to give birth to other forms of culture. If we disregard the continuous process of development as an aspect of culture’s nature, all that will remain will be nothing more than complex forms of behavior. Culture and creativity are interrelated and interdependent; they are practically synonymous. Culture is the embodiment of the novelty of human life in all possible dimensions. For example, we noted earlier that an author creates not only a work but also a new alter ego and a new audience. If this novelty were to stop, all the culture that has developed thus far would immediately turn into forms of mere behavior and, as I said, essentially would not differ from some complicated forms of animal life. Likewise, if thinking were to stop, speech would lose any sense and would not differ from animal communication.

We can summarize all the above in a paradoxical way (the only right way to do so): culture is the creation of culture.

One more fundamental dimension in the culture-creativity tandem bears repeating: author-to-audience relations. Remember, a single piece of art represents culture in general when it serves as a medium for dialogue, provoking an act of free human will when it is read, watched, listened to, empathized with, feared, thought of, discussed, etc. This means that culture presumes, encourages, promotes, develops, and depends upon a creative audience.

Who Owes Whom?

Creator and Audience

We remember that a work of art is a message, that it is a form of communication. A work of art develops a new way of free human communication or dialogue and vice versa. Dialogue is a creative process. Many of us can recall times when ideas popped up in a friendly conversation or in an unfriendly quarrel totally unexpectedly, out of nothing. The question is: Who owes whom in that case? The same thing happens in inner dialogue, whether a person is arguing with oneself, or with another person in one's mind. And the same question pertains to that case: Who owes whom?

The fact that thinking is actually a dialogue is especially evident when an outer conversation transitions into an inner one. Two people may have a conversation or an argument and continue pondering it long after the conversation is over. They continue discussing and arguing with their absent opponents; however, if we observe them, we can see that they are actually talking to themselves. Who owes whom in this case?

This is what happens with a creator. His inner and outer interlocutors are always clandestine coauthors in any work of art. Once more, who owes whom?

The author is as much a contributor as a recipient in both the outer and inner dialogues. In fact, the hidden interlocutor is representative of the audience in general. The author and the audience have equal positions in the creation of the artwork. The more creative a work is, the more it implements others’ ideas. Over and over—who owes whom? Each owes the other.

Creator and Culture

So mankind and the creator are on par. This means the creator and culture are on par, and this tells us something about both.

Richness of culture is not measured by the quantity of the works produced. On the contrary, it is first and foremost measured by the different voices presented. This is an obvious assertion now, based on the fact that the universal mechanism in the development of culture is dialogue. Interlocutors bearing different views have something to tell each other and, in doing so, develop their views. For example, it was crucial for the Antiquity to produce Plato and Aristotle, who were radically different in their approaches to philosophy. Because of this difference, they caused tremendous advancement in the ancient Greek and other cultures. Naturally, it would not be nearly as beneficial to the development of culture if there were many “Platos” and no Aristotle.

On the other hand, if they are so tremendously different, what does it mean that their contributions belong to the same culture? We have encountered this paradox a few times already. We know that there are some ideas and thought patterns that are specific to a certain culture. We also know that these ideas are represented by works within this culture. However, we know that these ideas do not coincide with these works. In Antiquity, for example, we can point out one such mainstream idea or thought pattern: “What is true? That which is beautiful. What is beautiful? That which has perfect form.” This view of the truth led, for example, many philosophers in the fifth century BCE to believe that the Earth was a sphere simply because the sphere was considered to be the most perfect form! This is an example of an idea at work which propelled the thinkers of Antiquity and was developed by them. But what does it mean that the idea “was developed?” This means two things: the author is representative of his culture, and, at the same time, he is different from his predecessors, peers, and followers.

The mainstream ideas of a culture rouse dialogue among authors, and thus, culture is developed. Therefore, a creator owes culture just as much as culture owes him.

Culture and Freedom

Having said this, what is our understanding of culture now? We saw it defined by paradoxes when culture’s different faces were revealed. These faces present the development of human ways of life or ways of thinking, dialogue, creativity, and freedom. This last feature is the one I want to concentrate on now.

Culture and freedom presuppose one another at all dimensions. I mentioned already that an author must feel utterly free to build a new world. This is true with respect to ideas, emotions, art forms, techniques, genres, personages, events, chunks of other works of other authors, use of language, etc. A work of art represents a new world and, at the same time, is a form of dialogue. Therefore, it requires ultimate freedom in the same way that people require and are entitled to freedom of speech. Art represents new ideas or a new assembly of ideas or a new manner of expressing those ideas, which amounts to the seed of an entirely new virtual world. Art represents new dimensions in understanding the human way of life, humanity itself, and let us add now, human freedom. Why?

A human being is innately free. Freedom is one of the definitions of humanity. It is common knowledge that humans value freedom above all else. We know from history about people who have sacrificed their property, health, and even lives for the sake of freedom. We feel compassion and empathy for them.

People constantly try to reach beyond all boundaries of life, no matter how well they have adapted to current circumstances. That is, an essential aspect of human life is the struggle against adaptation, and we can blame culture for this detrimental feature. A real work of art, that very cell from which the ever-growing organism of culture is built, always takes us from our world (to which we have adapted) to a new one (where we have to adapt from scratch). This requires us to be free and courageous to explore, to stand up and go, and reach new horizons. This is why all kinds of tyrants and tyrannies cannot come to terms with culture; they hate and fight it. A Nazi said once: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning!” Creators and people of culture have put themselves on the line all throughout history. We saw that people create regardless of reward or punishment. Likewise, people try to attain freedom regardless of reward or punishment. Freedom and creativity, in and of themselves, produce rewards and punishments despite ulterior circumstances. In this sense, culture, creativity, humanity, dialogue, and freedom are all synonyms.

So, What Is the Law? Freedom!

I have articulated, implied, hinted about, and developed this idea throughout the pages of my diary. The fundamental law of the nature of culture is freedom. Freedom is the only natural soil from which culture grows and flourishes and vice versa. That is: “freedom grows from culture and culture from freedom.” A creator must be absolutely free to be inspired and create. A creation must be absolutely free to circulate among, communicate with, and influence people. The audience must be absolutely free to access the creation.

Culture is the realm of ultimate freedom. This is the law of the nature of human life.

1. Here, and throughout the book, I refer to “Antiquity” meaning Classical Antiquity, i.e. the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations which developed approximately from the 8th century BCE to the 5th century CE.