Each civilization has always believed that the current way of things will go on forever. No people, no state thinks itself temporary. But they always are. Time, circumstance, folly or catastrophe intervene and what "is" shortly becomes what was. Chance and the dimming light of time invariably leave all obscured and unknown.
The Dynastic Egyptians knew absolutely their culture could never come to an end. Still, without the coincidence of The Rosetta Stone we would know their remarkable spirit by their great art but for us their "eternal" culture would be nothing but beautiful, mute monuments to ponder. Read three books on Rome's 1200 year history and you'll start repeating information by the second page of the second book. Until recently the British said "the sun never sets" on their empire. Well, these days the sun sets on Great Britain every evening at around 6:45 Greenwich. Things change.
Each culture is quite sure that the technology to which they consign their history is utterly impervious to the grinding erasures of time. How can neatly boxed clay tablets be lost? How could the scrolls, bronze plates, hewn stone, books - or our magic hard-drives and memory sticks fail to carry safely into forever all of who we are?
Because.
Thats why.
Time, she is cold and tricksy on us.
We have serious minded folks dressed in khaki shorts and floppy canvas hats who intently sift buried debris unearthing the loose teeth and bits of bone of the brief forevers of others who also once thought themselves eternal.
If records are found that they're lucky enough to understand we can learn bits about their commerce, conquests, their favorite fish sauce and, invariably, how they preferred to go potty. (Which suggests if you REALLY want a time capsule to last through the eons hide it in the septic tank.) But, the only way we can know their souls, their spirit and inner passions is by seeing them through their art.
The deeper marvels and miracles of any people, good and bad, are not found in their inventories, or recounted in histories left on scrolls - or Blackberries. That's just the drab accounting, the bureaucratic drone of their humdrum or the lies of their history they wish were true. They are truly knowable only by their art.
Yes, I know. Artists have not always been, let's say, well-behaved or loved in their own times. In ancient Greece, noble cradle of democracy, deep thought and some crackin' good art, the artists themselves were the only group low enough that even slaves could hurl, umm, compost at them. In 1573 Veronese was hauled before The Inquisition for including drunks, cats, dogs and locally famous midget jesters in his monumental "Last Supper" canvas. He barely finessed a heresy charge by changing its name to "Feast in the House of Levi."
I think society's marginalization, even distrust of us is partly due to two things. First, artists are hard-wired to record the raw human truths, good and bad, of their era. And second, art's remarkable ability to slip past our defenses and plant its messages deep into our innermost psyche. Those two things alone make us a threat to some.
That can be so messy, you know. Propaganda and popular myths of cultural identity are much easier to promote and so much less embarrassing if no-one is trotting around making inconvenient images about government sanctioned torture or making distasteful photos that point up how we market the diety with all the crass vulgarity of a novelty shop bobble-head doll.
"Agape Emergency Plumbing. Mark 3-4. We work Sundays, too!" - yes, I've actually seen that slogan on the side of a muddy plumbing truck, pipes, hoses and sewer snakes clattering with blessed assurance down the street.
We make things, images, objects that transcend the language of words. Much wonderful art is lost to chance and time, much shitty art should be. But what art does survive can say more about who we were than tomes as massive as The Mahabharata.
The dark past is not always distant. Take out a few family photos that haven't been marked and see if everybody still knows who's who. Forevers fade so quickly, don't they.
So, when the disc drives no longer exist, when the Kindles and the Blackberries have long since fizzled and our permanence has become as vague as 'some guy' in a flaking family photo some serious folk with khaki shorts and canvas hats will sift our dust and ashes and if we're lucky our art will help them know who we really were back when it was our turn to think it was forever.
