The strange power of art is sometimes it can show that what people have in common is more urgent than what differentiates them. It seems to me it's something that theatre can do, but it's rare; it's very rare.
Interpretation
Art reveals shared human experiences that are often overlooked in favor of differences.
This quote by John Berger highlights the unique ability of art, particularly theatre, to emphasize the commonalities among people rather than their differences. Berger suggests that while this powerful aspect of art is crucial, it is not frequently realized in practice, making it a rare and valuable occurrence.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of community, one could use this quote to highlight how art brings people together.
Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing, however naturalist, belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
Propaganda requires a permanent network of communication so that it can systematically stifle reflection with emotive or utopian slogans. Its pace is usually fast.
Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.
Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.
My poems are naughty, but my life is pure.
Far from being dead, physical media has years of life left and must be preserved because there is no better alternative.
A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.
Movies become living organisms that graduate from a filmmaker's sphere of influence and pretty much look back and tell you how they need to be said goodbye to. A movie often turns around and looks at you and says, "Here is who I am, and that's maybe now how you see me, but that's who I've become." And you've got to be open enough to go with that.
Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
To the man with an ear for verbal delicacies- the man who searches painfully for the perfect word, and puts the way of saying a thing above the thing said - there is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.
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