Base Imitation 0 comments

Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.

—Shakespeare, King Richard the Second

EZRA Pound's famous definition of the artist's task has the elegant simplicity of a scientific formula. "MAKE IT NEW!" Pound commanded, in his habitually imperious manner. Though it has become a commonplace that modern artists have placed too great a value on originality and novelty, the fact remains that each artist—staring at the blank page or screen or canvas—is confronted by the awesome challenge of making something new rather than merely imitating what has gone before.

I have often thought that Pound's dictum might actually be rendered as a scientific formula: M + I = N. The first element, to "make" (which in Greek is poesis), signifies the creative act itself. That is simple enough. But the imagination cannot operate in a vacuum: it must act upon something. That raises the question of what that something is (the "I" in the equation). I would argue that it encompasses the human condition itself: where we came from, who we are, and where we are going. This brings us to the final term. The result of the imagination acting upon the matter of our humanity is the creation of a unique artifact—an aesthetic form—which is essentially "new." Unless the work of art is new in some vital way, it cannot lay claim to our attention.

Of course, Jews and Christians understand that the human creative act is what J.R.R. Tolkien called "sub-creation." We work with the primary materials God, the Great Artificer, has given us. However, as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, we have been infused with a desire to make new things—the very desire that characterizes the Creator himself.

Why is it, then, that among religious communities in the West today we find so little true creativity and so many cheap knock-offs of secular trends and cliches? A full answer to that question would have to take into account the complexities of intellectual and cultural history. Short of such a major investigation, a good starting point would be simply to recognize the magnitude of the problem.

Some of the most egregious examples of the tendency to create Christian clones of secular culture can be found in the evangelical subculture. Evangelical book publishers have discovered a lucrative market in producing genre fiction: romance novels, westerns, techno-thrillers, mysteries, fantasies and sci-fi epics; most of them pallid imitations of Tom Clancy, Zane Grey, Barbara Cartland, and Tolkien himself. Popular music provides innumerable similar examples. Within six months of the emergence of any new trend or sound in contemporary music, you can expect to find evangelical record labels churning out their own versions. Hence Christian hip-hop and Christian heavy metal.

The relationship between the religious faith of these artists and the vision embodied in their works is extremely tenuous. There may be a didactic lesson in the lyrics or a religious conversion in the novel, but the pleasure afforded by these works stems largely from their genre characteristics. Often it seems that the evangelical consumer is merely comforted by the knowledge that the author/creator is "saved" and therefore OK. The Christian vision is attached to these works like a piece of Scotch tape to a wet sheet of construction paper.

Catholics and mainline Protestants are hardly in a better situation. The decay of liberalism has led to opposite forms of imitation. Convinced that the Judeo-Christian tradition has been dominated by "dead white males," liberal Christians have sought enlightenment and thrills from the East, from C.G. Jung, from neopaganism, witchcraft, and other forms of primitivism. There is less emphasis in these communities on producing specifically Christian music or fiction, but there are dozens of books, workshops, and therapeutic strategies that derive their creative kick from such activities as communing with one's "dark side" and interpreting supposedly mystic symbols such as the Enneagram.

What is missing in these communities is the transformative power of the religious imagination, the ability to search out the operation of God's grace in the complex tangle of our lives.

To be sure, deeply imaginative works of art will almost always be an acquired taste for the relatively few. For one thing, such works place more demands on the mind and heart than most people feel like making. Unfortunately, the dumbing down of society in general has made Christians far more susceptible to the lure of pop culture than was the case in the past. Then there is the economic dimension of this problem. As consumers of culture, Christians will find that the supply will always conform to their demand. But there can be intelligent and honest discussion among people of faith about the problem of facile imitation and the need to encourage the production and appreciation of art that is transfigured by the religious imagination.

It was Jesus, after all, who said: "Behold, I make all things new." And the one form of imitation Christians must undertake is to imitate Him.