W. E. B Dubois Propaganda

Art has been a pivotal part of society since the beginning of time when neanderthals used it to record the past and educated the future. As art has transformed from stone to canvas, it truly remains human’s first attempt at self-expression and communication. Art itself is an idea that holds many forms and takes many shapes, it is something uncontainable and unimaginable to fully understand because art is a compilation of every individual’s emotions, thoughts, and individual expressions that have been shaped through years of individual and unique experience that make up the mold of their life. In the “Great Debate” between W. E. B. Du Bois’ “Criteria of Negro Art” and Alain Locke’s “Art or Propaganda” they individually discuss the ideals and

There are multiple definitions of propaganda, all converging on the overall idea that propaganda is a politically charged contribution to the public sphere in which the contributor holds specific motive to influence or educate the greater public about certain ideals or experiences. The complexities involved in the subject of propaganda must, nevertheless be taken into consideration, given that the infinite number of possibilities propaganda presents and the difficulty of concretely understanding it. Furthermore, propaganda undeniably rests on the foundation of an individual’s ideology which in itself is unmeasurable, only apparent in self-expression. Art is undoubtedly an effective way to communicate self-expression, but what is also true is the ease with which people’s individual self-expressions can be misinterpreted through the abstract nature of art. In short, the inputs that must be analyzed when dealing with the creation and use of propaganda are extremely dynamic and individual to every person, thus analyzing these dynamics with a cookie-cutter approach will not be sufficient. Essentially, the meaning behind a piece of propaganda tends to be best analyzed by the creator

Both tend to simplify the ease with which an artist can produce propaganda, when propaganda itself is not a concrete idea, and can be interpreted differently through the lense of each individual. That idea is very important when discussing the use of art in propaganda, and it highlights the importance of educating the public sphere through the experiences of the oppressed, however, the same argument could be made that for an artist to form their creation in the sole purpose of educating those who should not ever fully understand is quite futile. In addition, presenting the suffering of the oppressed through the abstract medium of art is no simple feat either. Du Bois’ opinion that the artist has an obligation to contain their own self-expression and shape it towards an objective to influence and educate those who do not have the means to understand, when self-expression is affected by many major factors is a very difficult and often unsuccessful