Although our modern society is, theoretically, founded upon reason, there is no obligation for individuals to subscribe to this quality. There are, indeed, large factions who are indifferent or averse to reason, or heatedly hostile to its demands, or who coolly cultivate and exploit the opportunities of unreason.

The often highly tactical and calculated skirmishing of such factions has always been a feature of history, and our present-day society is no different.

While reason is not required to dominate society, reason does need to be able to keep its footing in the melee and to maintain a space in which to focus and function. However, in many places where once we relied upon finding conscientious intellectual rigour, we now find complacency and cynicism taking up residence and making themselves comfortable.

Whatever the causes of this, maybe the anonymity and over-demanding busyness of modern life, or perhaps shortcomings in our modern media, there does seem to be a disturbing lack of effective navigation.

The banking system is an example of a place where once we relied upon finding conscientious intellectual rigour, but now we find complacency and cynicism. Eventually the infectious complacency that preceded the present wreck became evident in the balance sheets. There are no balance sheets for politics, or culture, but we hardly need them in order to see a parallel complacency in these spheres too.

Politicians seek to restrict their engagement with the public to a superficial level. Many issues are conveniently left in the hands of market forces, others are dealt with by pragmatic short-term methods. Public images are kept carefully painted while any sense of reality is allowed to flake and fade.

In the art world today, a reconciliation with a regime of shallowness is often conveniently portrayed as a form of knowing sophistication. Today's art establishment tends to warm to a rococo style of intellectualism, one that is diverting coy and flirty, while it remains sceptical and adverse to any intellectual construction of rude solid intent. Guileless seriousness might be patronised or displayed as a novelty, but such seriousness finds no real place of attachment in postmodernism's atmosphere  of swirling hype and fashion.

While it is perfectly justifiable to demand that certain standards of rationality are adhered to in politics or banking, art is different.  Art cannot be engineered to run on any such tracks.

For those who find postmodern culture too pervasive and domineering I suggest that any assault upon it can only be counter-productive. Postmodern attitudes thrive on the heat generated by such contention. If any impression were made, it would only be to firm up the plausibility of postmodern culture without constructing the solidity required to offer reason a foothold.

Those who find significance and inspiration in cool calm reason might do better clarifying there aims and means and perhaps exploring an area outside of our fashionable, but rather overly sophisticated, postmodern artworld.
C P Robinson,  March 2009


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