The Quiet Perspective and the Selfless self
In both Kevin Quashie’s book The Sovereignty of Quiet as well as Louise Glück’s essay American Narcissism we find similar calls for re-interpretation of common artistic tropes.
On one hand, we have Kevin Quashie who is calling for a reinterpretation of black identity outside of the framework of resistance and public expressiveness. He coins the term Quiet which is not the normal definition of the word closer to silence or stillness, but he defines it as “a metaphor for the full range of one’s inner life — one’s desires, ambitions, hungers, vulnerabilities, [and] fears.”What makes this such a radical position is how it challenges the dominant discourse of blackness as being resistant and public. instead, he asks for a re-interpretation that favors the interior and personal in a way that we don’t often see celebrated.
On the other hand is Louise Glück who is asking for a re-interpretation of how we confront the self. She critiques the american gaze on the self by comparing the average individual to narcissus and using his myth to describe how we view the “self”. Like Narcissus, she argues we’ve gotten to a point where we see ourselves in the reflection finally, and are so moved by what we see (or consider) that we stay there and refuse to move. Consumed by our own beauty we reach for nothing else and spend the rest of our days only focused on what we see (ourselves). What Louise Glück is most concerned with in this myth is the dead-endeness of it, or the “transfixed infatuation, that overwhelmed awe [and] that admits no secondary response.” What this means is we come to the self and have spent so long investigating it and are so enamored by it, that it ends at that. We rarely do anything with that infatuation nor does it translate into some necessary action.A gaze solely focused on the self in this way will inevitably lead to an absent or lifeless world.
What’s being proposed by both of these arguments is a new way of seeing black culture,as well as a new way of engaging with one’s being. Better yet a new perspective and a new sense of self.
What makes adopting both this Quiet Perspective and Selfless Self so superb, is the way in which it re-calibrates our normal ways of interpreting life and art. It’s no secret that the black artist is one of the most stereotyped and type-cast identities in the american conscious, so its no wonder that the lives they lead and the work they create is appropriated into the sometimes narrow confines of resistance and public expression. Kevin Quashie argues that the determination to see blackness only through a social public lens is inherently racist; When black life is viewed in this way it completely ignores-almost to the point of erasing- the possibility of inner life. This is where the perspective of Quiet comes in.
When you view art with a Quiet perspective it is opened up to a greater amount of possibilities and readings, and then when it’s done consistently it develops into a habit that we can erect new frameworks to consider blackness with. Frameworks that won’t take the place of historic readings of resistance and expression, but will stand along side them giving blackness more facets to be considered. Black history is one that is bursting with significant moments of resistance and protest that changed the face of and soul of America in perennial ways, These stories and monuments are indelible to American history and should never be forgotten or overlooked, but they are not the whole of Black History. There are countless other context that black people have occupied over their long history of existence that has nothing to do with social implications. Ones of love, loss, longing, suffering, and even vulnerability. How do we open up blackness to also allow those to be considered in the same historical perspective that resistance has occupied uncontested for so long?This is where the beauty of a Quiet perspective comes in when considering black art and life.
But that’s not it.
Louise Glück, like many before her has realized how difficult it is to see past or through the limitations of a generation, and knows that each generation must suffer it’s own limitations to some degree. One of the greatest limitations that she believes we suffer is that of narcissism. What narcissism does in this case is place a value on art that is solely derived from our interpretation of it and our ability to connect it’s experience(s) to that of our own. The danger of this comes into play when our interpretation is not enough or when we don’t share the same experiences that are being portrayed. This impoverishes the art and limits it’s almost endless possibilities simply because we don’t find a connection to it.
What a Selfless self does is counteract the possibility of narcissism by allowing the artwork the individuality and complexity of an “inner life”. Not a true inner life in the same way that a person has one, but a purported inner life created and manifest by the art’s existence. One that is individual and separate from that of its connections and mental associations formed by the viewer. One that is just beyond our own understanding, but still whispers for us to search for it. We may not be able to uncover every artifact or secret or aesthetic brilliance in the work at one time, nor will all of these moments represent the totality of our lives, but this is one of the essential functions of art: abstraction that always leaves us questioning or reaching for a higher level of understanding. With the Selfless Self in mind we can embark on the minute yet endless search for new ways of understanding moments and art; Ways that may not always be expressed in our own experiences, nor will they always be evident, but will always be worth looking for.
At the intersection of a Quiet Perspective and a Selfless Self we are not only asked to consider art and other people in a complex and full way, but asked to consider our lives in that way too. As actions grow into habits, habits grow into expressible frameworks for new ways to deal with art. Art always engages both the self and perspective, and although there are some who would like art to remain in it’s medium whatever medium that may be, it cannot. Art is grand, it changes over lifetimes and inevitably expresses both the artist and viewer in the same way that the artist and the viewer try to express it. It hops out of it confines and assumes the vagaries and complexity that is most akin to human life. All we can do, as the viewer or artist, is value it with the same breadth and beauty that we do our daily lives. Hopefully we will begin to do this to the point where the separation between the art and our lives disappears and they both are given the same considerable space for expression.
