I used to think it was preaching to the choir. But the truth is the choir needs to be preached to—and, as importantly, grown.
That’s what recent letters to (and from the editor) of this publication have reminded me. In the back-and-forth of voices, I saw that art is not a luxury, not a distraction from the so-called “real” world, but one of the few tools we have to resist the slow creep of tyranny.
Thanks to those exchanges, I was reminded that art is one way we commune and, by extension, build community. It’s not just pretty pictures but a way to start conversations (like this one) and, ultimately, understanding. A painting, a song, a play—all can become catalysts for dialogue that continues long after the curtain falls.
The beauty of this process is its unpredictability. No two people are alike, and yet art creates connective tissue between us. One can start with someone on the far left, and through the links of human connection, eventually reach the hearts and minds of people on the right. It’s a chain reaction, set off by creativity, that transcends ideological lines.
To that end, as much as fascism is a slow, creeping bacteria, art and the progressive values that buoy it inoculate us from its ill effects. I know, in a post-pandemic age, these aren’t the most tasteful metaphors—but authoritarianism is a contagion. Left unchecked, it spreads.
Art, then, is not just entertainment; it’s an immunity builder. It protects one’s ability to think freely, to imagine otherwise, to hold contradictory emotions without fear. It makes people experience a range of feelings and, just as often, compels them to share those feelings. That sharing is the soil where empathy grows. And empathy, inconvenient as it may be for regimes that thrive on cruelty and division, is the beating heart of democracy.
So yes, I concede the point. Art is not fiddling while Rome burns. It’s the fire brigade, the bucket line, the living proof that even as the flames rise, human beings can and will carry each other to safety.
Micah D. Mercer lives and loves in the North Bay.
