| In the Republic, Socrates/Plato declare "an ancient feud between philosophy and poetry," where 'poetry' is the avatar of plural and mixed forms or systems of representation and 'philosophy' stands for unitarist ones. In endorsing 'rational philosophy,' therefore, Socrates/Plato seek to create a body of opinions (ideology) and a personality system (citizenship) that is "no more than one" for their "well-ordered city." Concomitantly, they propose to censor mimesis, art, and theatre and banish their creators (poets) from this elitist and militarist utopia. They particularly disapprove of theatre and tragedy because they intensify the pluralities of mimesis and, through performance, pander to the will and affects of the hoi polloi.;The common origin of Western Enlightenment critiques of ideology is Francis Bacon's 'theory of idols,' and this 'theory' supports an anti-theatrical and, thus, anti-plural attitude towards the representation of human experience. In his conception of "idols of the theater," Bacon dismisses "all received systems" as "so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion." Of course, such a grand dismissal is self-aggrandizing or laden with what Nietzsche calls a "will to single morality." More acceptable to the present enquiry is Nietzsche's suggestion in The Will to Power that " (m) etaphysics, morality, religion, science, (and so on,)... merit consideration only as various forms of lies (or fabrications): with their help one can have faith in life.";In contrast, Aristotle writes in the Poetics that "one of man's distinguishing marks is that he is the most mimetic of all animals, and it is through his mimetic activity that he first begins to learn." The forms or systems that result from mimesis are plural because human experiences vary and different principles of "probability and necessity" obtain in different times and places. Theatre is the 'highest' form of mimesis because it represents many human subjects articulating the many choices they make and roles they play by means of a variety of audio-visual forms or systems. As Artaud puts it in The Theater and its Double, " (t) he theater... is no thing, but makes use of everything--gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness."... |
