Art as instigator or healer?

The stories we share can transform us and our communities and our society. But artists must be willing to accept the responsibility that comes with those powers.

We are constantly presented with the opportunity to de-radicalize American society but not if we continue to normalize radicalization (much less violence) as an acceptable response to civic dysfunction. Even one of the most combative political operatives in the history of the Democratic party, Rahm Emanuel is doubling down on the Axios’ story about polarization as a choice and encouraging us to consider which stories about American civic life are actually true and which futures we want to embrace.

Art and storytelling help us make sense of the world. We use stories to create, codify, and transmit culture. Art and storytelling are also fundamental tools for the critique and challenge and transformation of cultures and systems. And as we use those same tools to challenge and problematize cultures and systems that no longer speak to or serve us (or in many cases never did), they require care and responsibility and inspection if we hope that they will lead us in better directions.

These are powerful tools not to be wielded lightly or carelessly. But what about art and story as instigator of action? Validator of thinking? Reinforcer of problematic frames and narratives that hinder our ability to transform our experiences, cultures, or systems? When we look to engage in socially and politically loaded stories and imagery, we cannot ignore the social and civic consequences of the stories we tell whether we intend them to have those effects or not. And how we tell them and the experiences we offer and clarity of purpose we express with those stories matters. Too often we see the institutions of art as mass media (and sometimes the artists themselves) embracing these powers when they suit them and running away from these responsibilities when they seem too much or when they lose control of them.

The movie Civil War that comes out this week is exactly one of these deeply problematic pieces of storytelling art. Produced and released by an important Hollywood studio (A24) with an A-list cast (headlined by Kirsten Dunst who has alternated in her interviews between calling the movie important and saying “it’s just a movie”), this is a major piece of culture-making art. But released without context, without carefully presented experiences and curated conversations designed to clarify intent, purpose, and mission, it isn’t clear whether this is a story sensationalizing and profiting off partisan existential conflict in American civic life or a cautionary tale about a path we need to question before it’s too late to intervene.

There is a long history of exceptional dystopian science fiction that plays an important role in culture as canary and time machine and a way to experience an alternative future before intervention is impossible — think Parable of the Sower or more recently Station 11. And sometimes healing requires instigation. But some of these stories are deeply (sometime comedically) sensationalist and not oriented toward solutions or questioning paths much less leading us to better ones — think The Purge or Battlefield Earth. Which is this?

Research show us that experiencing images of political violence makes political violence both more likely and increases the rate at which partisans view violence as a legitimate tool of political conflict (see Liliana Mason’s research, as well as a study from UC-Davis and surveys from IPSOS and NYT/Siena here and here, the University of Maryland and the Washington Post where even the researchers acknowledge the importance of being careful about accidentally encouraging or suggesting that violence is prevalent in ways it is not when doing their research). So is this movie going to create opportunities to confront our civic dysfunctions and talk openly about the radicalization engines in our political structures and media systems? Or is it simply a product of them likely to feed the violent paranoia that exists on the increasingly accessible fringes of public discourse? Create cultural justifications for people already predisposed to extremism? Push some people teetering on the verge of radicalization over the edge by confirming their worst fears with images that convince them of the validity of the future they most fear? Or will this film function as an off ramp on the path toward radicalization by undermining that path as an invalid, anti-social, unproductive, and inconsistent with the values and beliefs and experiences of the people at risk of radicalization? Or will it paint those communities as fringe, crazy people already dismissed from society and confirm their suspicions that they have already been excluded from civic life and drive them toward the darker corners of society that will eagerly embrace them?

What we know about imagery, story, and art is that context and the experience in which it is consumed matters. If we hope this to be a moment of critique and self-awareness and both self- and social-reflection, those conversations need to be served up with the content. But all evidence that I have seen so far (will be seeing the film itself this weekend) is that this film — the largest wide release in the studio’s history — is being marketed and released into an election year dominated by negative partisanship already magnified by conflict-centric media systems that normalize and mainstream the edges of political discourse and using all the dysfunction, confirmation bias centric, attention inventory maximizing tools that contribute to the dysfunctional public sphere we wade through everyday. Do we want the dystopian future that this film seems to dramatize or something better? If we want a future different from our present, we need the questioning and critique and nuance that a film like this might could provide, but via experiences that make those things possible. And we need to design those experiences into the process of consuming the story. In the current media landscape that drives much of our public sphere and where we constantly take advantage of the attention dynamics for reach and profit, just leaving it up to viewers is a cop out. If the storytellers taking us on this journey are not willing to take responsibility for the outcomes and consequences of the stories they tell and the awesome power they wield as tools of culture, they shouldn’t pick them up in the first place.

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