Dolom, Ram Anthonie N. Prof. R.

Koropeckyj CEE STD 126 01 November 2010 The Aesthetic Dissident In The Power of Taste, Zbigniew Herbert presents an examination of the root motive of opposition to totalitarianismtrue totalitarianism being one that insists on pan-control of expression, of form, of thought, of life. The first and last stanzas carry the bookending hypothesis: but fundamentally it was a matter of taste/Yes taste. Taste, which is often derided as a frivolous consideration, bourgeois through and through, becomes mans most effective inoculation against the drabness of communism. Taste, traditionally viewed as a soft and effeminate construct is in the end the main fuel for the sinews of dissent. In this manner, Herbert suggests that all the overtly coercive machinery of the State will find its undoing in Culture. And Culture here is defined democratically, good taste being as important in the highbrow (sub-Ciceronian rhetoric, aesthetic study) as in the lowbrow (ugly colors, popular music). As Milosz writes in The Captive Mind, aesthetic experiences are associated with works of art for only an insignificant number of individuals. The majority find pleasure in the mere fact of their existence within the stream of life. Communism offended the aesthetic sensibilities of both sets of people in the way that it sought to impose a unified aesthetic vision on its cities as well as on its artworks, destroying their organic expressive life. Stalins oft-repeated conceit of the Soviet writer as engineers of the human soul was therefore truehis (or her) conformity and literalism were mass engineering apostates.

Dolom 2 The poet dismisses two virtues as at best leavening (but maybe even inconsequential): Character and Courage, which are usually thought of as the defining qualities of Resistance. To Herbert, these two artifacts of the Superego are less important to the principled contrarian than the dictates of the Id (although admittedly the metaphor is flawed, the poem does not consider taste as primarily hedonistic). The human spirit naturally opposes whatsoever is discordant, bitter, rough, hideous or fetid; the objection of the senses is much more subject to action than moral misgivings, and since it is a strongly physical revulsion, it does not require as much spine. One remembers the motives of all the recusants in Ashes and Diamonds. Maciek, Andrzej and Alek all have a hardened sense of obligation, an ardent patriotism that drives their resistance. The Jokes Ludvik arrives at his hatred of the Party through ill fortune and a modicum of psychological imbalance. These two types, the resisting patriot (highly ideal) and the wronged subversive (someone whose resistance springs from actual abrasion with the system, from real wounds), are in the minority. Herbert suggests that considerations like theirs are secondary and definitely not as crucial to the dissenting spirit as taste, whose power to incite defiance makes idealism and vengeance seem trivial. The opposite is true as well. Where the presence of character and courage is secondary, their absence can also be overlooked. Taste, in its immediacy, is immune to the corruption of cowardice and dishonor. Herbert passes no verdict on the what-if in the second stanza. The starter Who knows if we had been better and more attractively tempted is finally unresolved. Another poet has an answer: Milosz writes if Hell should guarantee its lodgers magnificent quarters, beautiful clothes, the tastiest food, and all possible amusements, but condemn them to breathe in this aura forever, that would be punishment enough. A velvet prison is a prison nonetheless. But Herbert

Dolom 3 is content to leave this problem unanswered. Instead going on to describe reality in seven lines of almost disorienting surrealism. The Palace of Justice is characterized as a wet pit the murderers alley the barrack. There is talk of a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket. The juxtaposition of Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn and a symbol of renewal, with misshapen youth (boys with potato faces/very ugly girls with red hands) portrays the incongruity and overpowering tastelessness of the system. Its failure as an aesthetic project extends itself into the functional and substantive realm. The inoperative and unproductive bureaucracy is a direct function of the systems aesthetic insufficiency. Herbert devotes a whole stanza to the Partys bad taste in languagemore so than any other medium, the most abused by the regime. The exploitation words undergo reaches a pitch perfect reflection in Havels The Garden Party, which is arguably just as much realistic as it is absurdist. Language, in this system, is an organism of euphemism, casuistry and obfuscation. In Havels play, society and language itself has so thoroughly sublated that poison, party mentality, that its disintegration is apparent. Characters get stuck in circular conversations, the homogenization of thought makes speakers interchangeable, and language reduces into nonsense. Perhaps this does bother Marcus Tulliuss sleep (the man who not only inaugurated the golden age of his language, but also fought against Caesarian despotism). The poem has an unmistakable equalizing bent. It not only allows the uneducated to participate in this taste-based dissent, it also includes that set of people incapable of self-sacrifice for abstractions such as nationalism, freedom, or justice. To this extent, the verse is antithetical to the traditional Romantic Polish ideal. Herbert denies most of its tropeselite-centrism, honor, dedication to a cause, heroism, etc.instead opting for a sensual rebel, compelled not by

Dolom 4 ideology but by the physical. However, the Polish ideal of martyrdom is preserved and is in fact magnified into focus. Herberts rebel is willing to die for taste. And now we arrive at the actual Power of Taste, namely, the way in which it demands a compulsive honesty of the body. This inviolability is made explicit in the last four lines of the poem: Yes taste/that commands us to get out to make a wry face draw out a sneer/even if for this the precious capital of the body the head/must fall. The sneer is not mediated by potentially inhibiting thoughts. Input and Output succeed each other without break. Taste is powerful because of this, because it commands us. In Herberts surmise, there is no such thing as aesthetic Ketman. One cannot keep two sets of books when it comes to offenses to taste. There is no mask, Ketman or otherwise, that can hide aesthetic disgust. An additional note on the last four lines, notice how the narrator speaks in the first-person plural. This creates an illusion of populist inclusiveness while insisting, in fact assuming with all confidence, the universality of the poems ideas. The use of the present is also interesting. Earlier instances of the tense betray a prescriptive tone (Before we declare our consent we must carefully examine), however these last four lines do not seem to be of the same vein. No. Instead, it describes a continuation in the refusal disagreement and resistance that the first stanza places in a definite past. Taste is all the more powerful for its persistence. A sense of duty can be overshadowed by love; time and changing circumstances can disarm even the bitterest vengefulness, but the constancy of totalitarianisms tastelessness is matched by the unvarying potency of the Ids revulsion. The poem grapples with the same problems as do other cultural artifacts of this time and place: a repressive regime with a ready censor, a host of informers, secret police, a crumbling social infrastructure, constant shortages of necessities, etc. However, it presents a radically

Dolom 5 different solution. Herbert writes that all it takes is that Our eyes and ears refused obedience. And dissent of the aesthetic sort is not only worth it for the protest that escapes ones lips. It is also important for the assertion of a continued private life, wherein one is fully sovereign. The snobbery (and remember, one can be a snob of something as lowly as ugly doorframes) changes the power relationship. It is always problematic trying to identify the narrator in poetry, but one can assume the poems to be the united voice of all aesthetic dissidents. The same we that had a shred of necessary courage is commanded to get out to make a wry face draw out a sneer, later to be killed. Therefore, the poem, with its stylized syntax, intellectual restraint and sophisticated allusions, is a demonstration of good taste itself. Where the content of the poem lays out a mainly reactive program for this particular brand of dissident, the poems form, its aesthetic substance, is a proactive effort. The poem is the aesthetic dissident speaking about his aesthetic dissent in an aesthetically masterful way. Thus, he or she can register his opposition not only through sneers, but also through expression. The fearlessness of his reactions imprints itself to a more general fearlessness. The poems openly hostile line a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket (the idea of the devil of steep bargains wearing Soviet colors) is probably a function of its aesthetic honesty (just as the Partys logistical failures are functions of its aesthetic cowardice). Here one can begin to see an underlying defense of aestheticism from charges of uselessness. Herberts assertion So aesthetics can be helpful in life is almost bathetic in its humility after demonstrating that in aesthetic inquiry lay humanitys salvation.