Compare & Contrast Paper

Compare and Contrast

A general awareness and reflection of our new found position, as a species is not only necessary for my generation to comprehend but pertinent in altering our path to that of transcendence and success. We have entered a period of exponential growth in population, environmental impact, cultural placement, and awareness of this planet we all share. It is an era where we must throw away the notion that we are inherently separate from one another and tap into our global psyche of humanity to seek forth the solutions to the many looming and potentially suicidal issues we have unleashed upon ourselves. These ideas are approached both by academic Peter Leigh and by artist Claudia Bernard. There is something to be learned from their drastically different approaches to the same issue, while still sharing many of the same end goals and ideologies.

Peter Leigh approaches the issue at hand in a very well versed, researched, and methodological way. He first goes into a very detailed break down of what specifically is the overriding problem that we are and will be facing in the present and coming days. I both appreciate and enjoy the thorough research he has gathered on the topic at hand. It is upon this basis of knowledge that he begins to divulge into the commonalities of the issues we face and their parallels towards the natural and inherent human psyche. By focusing on schools of thought in psychology, he begins to uproot through research natural tendencies and repetition throughout history in which humanity has shared many of the same qualities inherent in our modern dilemma. He finds a quote stating that, “We as human beings, by our own hands, have slaughtered over 100 million of our own species over a period of 50 years.” He goes on to say that this aggressive nature is a natural aspect of humanity and may now very well be channeled into our environmental impact due to societies constraints. His thesis goes on to speak of a bevy of other human psyche states, including autism, that also carry close ties to our current crisis.

Claudia Bernard while having a very similar outlook brings forth a much more visceral and tangible outlook to the common populace. She paints a highly romantic notion of artist and their pivotal placement in this geopolitical world. Bernardi goes as far as to claim the art making process as a completely “subversive act, that solely defines the artist as a visionary. She buttress’ off this point by including her notion that the artist is not condemned to split life of personal work and community or educational “based projects” but in fact need to be seen as “two sides of the same coin.” She ignores to a degree answers of science in academia in place of an idea that art is the untapped panacea of hope and healing, a proper link towards adverting our natural aggressive inhibitions towards much more progressive action. The artist and their process withholds to key towards that aggressive aspect that has slaughtered million to count, and may in fact be an alternative in the simple fact that it takes a polar opposite stance in creating something that has not yet existed. She concludes claiming that the artist will “Proclaim a new citizenship in a new republic or tolerance, beauty, and empathy. “ Continuing that this action “May be a format to resolve the fatal theorem that we confront: a world too tired to act and too scared to imagine a place for our dream,” leaving the arsis to, “Constitute a map of realities in the diagram of a possible future.”

There is a certain fire, a “Call to Arms,” per-say that exist in both authors approach to the mounting issues that face us. They do not take passive stances in which we must simply reflect and document the coming age. Instead we seek a much more progressive and radical movement, one in which we as scientist, artist, humans become self aware of our “autistic” nature and create means of a solution for its effects. Leigh takes a much larger and removed approach, his writing looks much more into the large-scale psyche of humanity as an entity and less as an individual person or culture hub. This is a different approach to Bernardi who very much is about personal injection into a small community niche, working at a much more grass roots level. In her writings, the solution or cure will rise inherently in the production of art and the bonding and awareness of our place within our global community. I find her approach to be very inspiring for the here and now, or for the individual’s experience of enlightenment, but question the impetus of its long term actions. Can the artist just merely being “The Artist,” truly cause a paradigm shift in humanities forward sustainability and survival.

Leigh does go into a segment of community-based restoration, which is very similar to the notions of Bernardi actions, though less centered around the idea of art production. He claims that when a community or any parameters joins under the umbrella of restoring and sustaining their immediate environment, the impact is large, both for the actual ecology of the earth and for the well being of that community. It may lie in these small movements across worldwide networks of communities that we may become aware of our human psyche as a whole, and find our unyielding power to not just understand it but to have a high degree of control over it. It also instills a sense of pride in our natural home on Earth, and the fragile systems in nature that still exist. A key to our greater success may lie buried deep within both of these outlooks among others. Bernardi, though inspirational to read, lacks any real substance or research towards the issues at hand or the solutions that ensue. She instead leaves one with many vague and open-ended notions of the current and coming age, loosely tracing specifically the artist roll in interacting with them. I don’t find this to necessarily be a solution though. Leigh on the other hand has so much substance and context to his writings, though lacks in a degree a visceral outlet into which they may be practiced or even understood by the greater populace. If we can meld these two approaches into one solution, the outlook may very well be one of long lasting sustainability and prosper to come as a species. It is in that cohesive joining though that the real challenge lies. The solutions may already exist among us, but can we subside our aggressive nature and avoid self-mutilating ourselves and our world to see them just long enough.