The Responsibility of Artists During Unfolding Tragedy
Leveling charges of pretentiousness at me for writing this will have no effect because you cannot kill the career of someone who does not have one. In light of the unfolding massacre in Gaza — a massacre fully financed by the administration that I and all of my liberal friends voted for — I have been struggling with the simple act getting out of bed, much less creating comedy. Maybe this article will be naval-gazy and meandering but I at least have to try to write down my thoughts in a coherent and constructive way or I feel the last vestiges of my self-worth will leave me.
What is it to make jokes about dating and relationships when the bombs that your own country makes are ending the romantic aspirations of young dreamers every second? What is it to put in your Hinge profile that you hope to one day have kids, when innocent children that already exist have white phosphorus dropped on them by an unfeeling, uncaring west? We can unite under one banner and proclaim that this is unacceptable.
I know that people have to take care of their own mental health and I know that it is popular within the self care community to protect your own feelings above all else, but I would contend that the self-care movement is just a mask for nihilism. To care for oneself is possibly the easiest thing on this earth to do. To care for others is the only way we can unite against the consolidation of wealth, and by extension, the consolidation of political power.
Although it is a blunt instrument, using Instagram and Tik-Tok posts can bring about social change. People like you now, and by extension, are influenced by you. Please use this influence to do something greater than sell skin cream.
I know it can often feel like you are only hurting your prospects by taking a stand on anything, but I would counter that you have nothing to lose because we are at the end of history. The planet is heating up, the sea-levels are rising, and wealth inequality is worse than anytime since the invention of the locomotive. Ergo, this is the time to strike, this is the time to protest, this is the time to lay it all on the line for a better tomorrow.
Artists like you have worked so hard to refine your perspectives and voices. I understand why you do not want to sublimate that right now to a conflict that seems so distant, but nothing could be further from the truth. We are no better than the least of us. The less fortunate serve as a warning for the enemy at the gates. Migrants at Port Authority bus terminal selling Kit-Kat’s with a a child swaddled across their chest are a harbinger of things to come. That is your parents without medicaid, that is you when AI takes your job. Billionaire zionists like Bill Ackman want to eat the world and we must be the arsenic in his food.
It is only through collective action that we can all have a better future.
Please, please post about Palestine if you have a platform. Horrors like this will only increase if we retreat into ourselves. Now is the time to stand up if you are an artist. Do it now, before art, and we, are dead.
