The Israeli Intellectual Situation

Sometimes I buy into the cliche of the suffering artist. I think that I want to be a writer because I'm a misanthrope, because so many things seem corny to me, because I get that aching feeling in my stomach from forced pleasantness, when I lie about anything, or whenever anyone feeds me a self-help mantra when I ask them a serious question about their life and goals.

But I find myself, now more than ever in Israel, thinking of the fight to create my own language as a fight between light and darkness, even life and death. It's not the result of some deep-seated sadness, or the result of a need for attention. The reason is actually almost always a moral one. As Jen Graves wrote in the last column in the Stranger:

There's something inherently, wonderfully amoral about art—it does nothing, really—but its stubborn independence is the same thing that makes it our only potential way out of this whole mess, the only moral thing we've got going.

In this country where religion has clouded the minds of many (though certainly not all), I've found a lot of hostility to independent (and artistic) thought and a lot of people resting on easy opinions. This could be because I am so far removed from any intellectual epicenters, because I'm not meeting writers, or whatever...but it scares me. I am hesitant to make any broad assumptions (even the one I just made makes my stomach ache a bit) on this blog because I am aware that the people I've met are not the people who are creating and critiquing culture, but rather Jews who have come here looking for their own spiritual and emotional piece of mind. Still- I find myself leaving interactions wanting so much more.

In Seattle, to be an intellectual is not a four letter word, it is actually a complement. Yes we suffer from some urban alienation, we're perpetually logged into our computers, and we buy into a lot of petty crapola, but we still venerate those who expose ourselves to ourselves in devestatingly accurate ways. We still are hungry for meaning, and aware that meaning comes in so many different forms. Some people may call this being "Politically-Correct," but I've come to see it as being open to the fact that we don't actually know anything about the world. And I happen to think it's a very moral way to live. So, thank you, uptight Seattleite- you've got more good going on than I give you credit for. Now if only we could do away with all the self-loathing.