“...of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall. Of all mankind the great poet is the equable man. Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good and nothing in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his age and land … he supplies what wants supplying and checks what wants checking. If peace is the routine out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building vast and populous cities, encouraging agriculture and the arts and commerce—lighting the study of man, the soul, immortality—federal, state or municipal government, marriage, health, freetrade, intertravel by land and sea … nothing too close, nothing too far off … the stars not too far off.”
Walt Whitman
Preface, Leaves of Grass
As the election grows near and the media and populace at large spend disgusting amounts of money, time and energy on the election as though it were the only thing worth glorifying in this world; I find myself depressed. The thought of living through a whole year more of polls, punditry and pompous political bombast (from each and every corner of each and every debate, discussion and exchange) saddens me. For I cannot abide by or get behind any person who thinks politics is of any use or value.
I know we need government to the degree that we need order; but it is my firm ideological belief--as an artist and human-merely-being--that no person should dare run for office if he or she has not lived their life in some other field first. Just as Thoreau said “how vain to sit down and write when one has not stood up to live”; I feel that any person with innate political ambition--and no former passion or profession, skill or credo--is but a megalomaniac masquerading as a socially-conscious public servant (when really all s/he serves is his/her ego, wallet, thirst for legacy and the like).
To be clear, this is not political apathy so much as artistic and philosophical belief. For like Walt Whitman, I want presidents who are poets; I want policy makers who are philosophers; I want a government that seeks to aggrandize consciousness rather than bureaucracy and inanimate programming. So as I eschew more and more politics so I can survive in a world obsessed by it; I dream of a world where current events aren’t framed by political analysts and journalists; but by unique, developed, passionate and outspoken creators, do-ers, thinkers and performers--all of whom have a cultivated sense of self and thereby worldview that they bring to analysis of any thing, event or situation. To me, that is far more interesting and far more valuable than any smooth-talking politician making false promises.
But how to start such a revolution? I dream of:
Poets for President:
An apolitical, artistically leaning social network leveraging ideology for dollars
Imagine….
Poets for President is a digital playground for minds that care about people more than ideology; that wish to create rather than campaign and like to invest in things and relationships rather than place bets on elections. A fusion of the best social media functions (from twitter, instagram and facebook), Poets for President comes equipped with filter that jettisons all overtly political, propagandistic material from one's feed. In the way that Upworthy promotes only “uplifting” content, Poets for President promotes only creative, artistic, spiritual and novelly interesting material given its belief in and founding upon the notion that art is more impactful than politics. Art, that is, in its undiluted--rather than politically co-opted--form.
Having attracted a significant following amongst the politically uninterested (rather than apathetic); Poets remains the singular social media stream for those interested in investing their time and resources into saving the fledgling classical arts as well as supporting emerging digital endeavors and creative, community collaborations. Given that, depending on the election cycle, anywhere from 30-50 percent of the voting eligible population does not vote and that, that contingency is made up of a diverse mix of socioeconomic backgrounds; it follows that Poets retains unique media influence over a portion of the middle and upper-middle class, in particular, some of whom have disposable income to invest in products they need as well as creative projects and endeavors that support their worldviews outside of political framing.
It is also important to note, that expenditures for the 2016 presidential race are projected to reach billion. Given that one--and technically multiple--candidates will ultimately lose; that’s a 50 percent plus loss on investment. From the mere economics of it all, elections are a disgusting, gratuitous waste of every kind of human resource imaginable; and if we’re going to spend time focusing on climate change and Islamophobia and terrorism in this world; than we have to also address the idiocy of spending so much money on vitriol, ineffective paper posters, buttons and the like that more serve the egos of the politically included/politicians Cr themselves rather than the greater good. If we could syphon off even just a fraction of that money for any of the classical arts, the perennial woes of art in the age of digital reproduction would be greatly, tremendously reduced to say the least!
But back to practicality, one of Poets’ unique functions is its ability to foster exchange amongst a diverse set of artists and non-artists who come together as thinkers--and more importantly “human merely beings”--to fill their minds with the latest updates from the arts, from design, from technology rather than the biased, corporate controlled media. Built on the idea that art is more powerful than any 2 party system, Poet's seeks to expand its sphere of influence--as well as its credo--in order to help make manifest the world it wished were so.
Just the beginnings of what could be a beautiful thing; the idea isn’t going to break the wheel so much as break the vicious cycle of wasted money, time and human spirit on something (politics) which obsesses over a few vain individuals at the expense of humanity at large.
Be it Whitman, cummings, Shakespeare or Mozart, I’m voting poetical come November. I implore you to join the ranks to make manifest what remains but an imagined thought...for now.