Art qua Art qua Numbers

Art is the paradox that produces something from nothing, be it an empty canvas, a blank sheet of paper or a slab of marble. This is why it is incompatible with the corporate state, which produces nothing from something as in economic formulas grounded in fantasy or an unanchored fiat currency that leads to economic ruin.

Not that the corporate state is a Philistine. It is quite willing to fund either museum art sucked dry of its energy and dynamic or art so abstract and conceptual that it is devoid of meaning. Real art is marginalized to small presses, Off-off Broadway theaters and regional playhouses.

Real art deals in metaphor and the Masters of the Universe have no feel for it because they were raised with the following mantras:

· Say what you mean!
· Get to the point!
· Don’t beat around the bush!

One word; one meaning. No depth, no resonance and no metaphors. From this evolves the assumption that if it can’t be expressed by a number, it doesn’t exit. One number; one meaning. To them, that is the sum total of reality.

Thus it is that reality in the corporate state is defined by arcane mathematical formulae ground out by number crunchers operating under the delusion that they can impose a linear matrix on a complex collection of nonlinear paradoxes called reality.

According to Anatole Kaletsky, John Maynard Keynes referred to these individuals as “madmen in authority”. When reality is reduced to a series of formulae life withers. The beauty of numbers and formulae is their value-free amorality. They are exercises in a pure rationality cut free from the moral and ethical anchor that grounded it in ages past.

Such knee-jerk linear thinking is the product of an overly intellectualized ego that knows nothing of wisdom. This is why organized religion is so important to the corporate state. Religion’s sole function is to erect a firewall between God and the soul. Behind this firewall, the soul withers and the ego steps into fill the vacuum.

But, when God breaks through, the ego begins to crack and weaken. As it loses ground to the soul, the unfortunate one spends sleepless nights tormented by the Greek Furies of memory who tear at him with memories of the pain inflicted by his ego. From this agony comes redemption, and you can’t run corporate state with that nonsense.

The key to success is quantity, not quality. Don’t think; count!

Look at all this has done for us.

--Belacqua Jones