"We shall begin with a search for art, show that art gives culture and that culture is the antidote to propaganda."--Vivienne Westwood, Active Resistance to Propaganda Manifesto, p.1The manifesto, which she wrote two years ago, is a part Socratic-style dramatization, part philosophical musing on the concept of what is art, who are its determiners and why does any of it matter. Basically, the foundational concepts and questions underlying good old literary theory (a field in which the burning question is "what is literature. And even more so, what is good literature?"). So it's no surprise that in the oration Miss Westwood brings to life a slew of literary figures ranging from Carlodi's Pinocchio and Lewis' Alice to the founding father of the elusive literary pursuit itself, the one and only Aristotle (three cheers, Viv, for drudging up the Poetics).
Westwood marinates on the quintessential Victorian tension between art and progress--i.e. the idea that "progress" has stifled society's creativity but, ironically, there can be no "progress," or forward movement, without creativity and the influx of new ideas. She then hones in on what I, through all my years of burning the midnight oil at the library amongst as a wannabe literary academic, have always believed to be the correct answer, the crux of it all. She writes (taking my old chum and partial topic of my undergraduate dissertation as her especially apropos case in point):
"Chaucer's characters are as alive to us today as when he first invented them: Timeless-outside of time, they speak to us of the human genius,--what it is to be human. Each detail illuminates the type and is what we call the universal in the particular--'someone like ourselves.' When we recognize this we are being objective--through putting ourselves in the place of another--we leave our ego behind" (9).
And she is absolutely correct. This is precisely the reason I pursued Latin to a graduate degree--reading about Vergil's Dido and Aeneas' fight in Aeneid 4 and recognizing an almost exact reenactment from a scene in my own personal life: the dynamics between men and women have not changed in 2000 bloody years! This basic sense of connection underlies the human propensity towards artistic pursuits, and Sunday night was the first time I've thought about this basic theoretical insight within a fashion or artistic context--at least, non-literary specific. And it is precisely this identification of the ego, of that connection with the self that produces this sense of timelessness, as Vivienne says herself, which we should seek out from literature, life and, most importantly, fashion.
She writes, "We do have a fixed standard--timeless, universal, recognisable. We refer to it as Representative Human Nature (RHN). It is the key to this manifesto...art must be representational--for it is in imitation that objectivity lies. In practice, through his medium of RHN the artist gains direct imaginative insight into the general nature of things' his view extends from the model" (9-10).
But at the heart of her manifesto is a message which, despite being steeped in well-versed learning, is a message straight from the fashion industry: it's all about living in the moment, today and tomorrow--what can you do now? Active Resistance, the name of her manifesto, is a message about getting out and being a part of the solution to an array of global problems from climate change to education. This is the lesson learned by protagonists Alice and Pinocchio come to the end of their Westwoodian bildungsroman: true progress comes from within and we ourselves are the authors and implementors of its action.
Thus Westwood ends her manifesto:
"Human beings have a choice:--we can cultivate the human genius and build a great civilization on earth. Through art we see the future. It holds up a mirror of our human potential;--or, as victims of our mere cleverness we will remain the destructive animal" (20-21).
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Please feel free to call me out on my bullsh*tting. I was a Classicist, I'm used to it. Also, video footage still on the way--seems my internet connection is actively resisting me today!
Please feel free to call me out on my bullsh*tting. I was a Classicist, I'm used to it. Also, video footage still on the way--seems my internet connection is actively resisting me today!
Daniel Lismore front row and center
"Imagination is the driving force in human nature. But it is likely to run wild and escape into the chaos of endless desire, unfulfilled longing and alienation" (11). 
"Happiness is the true end of human existence. In practice this means to realise individual potentialities to their limits and in the best way possible. I think we would all agree" (4). 
Talking Cricket: "Pinocchio, you know that there are two sides to people, the donkey and the boy,--the self who wants to live in Toyland versus the self who wants to grow up. It is the inner struggle between doing what you want and being true to your Best Self, that humanizes a puppet" (11). 
A woman in the front row brings up the point of spirituality to the self-proclaimed atheist and pokes holes in Viv's manifesto. 
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