On Transgression

Rules as a necessary evil

Head of Medusa. c.1892. Franz von Stuck

The Open Secret:

“When a society falls apart, or is prolonged in lies, and the gentle idiots make their triumphal entry, the truth then speaks through the mouths of grown-up children, that of Don Quixote, of Candide, that of Simplicius Simplicissimus or the brave soldier Chvéik .”

― Claude Roy

The delightful mystery of classical literature is in what it represents that is most transgressive, disturbing, and unique, not its rigidity, conformance to the style or standards of the period, or in the brilliance of its language and prose. It only made it to our "Classics shelf" because it had an original element that no other work could emulate. The most marvelous pieces of theater or poetry which have reached us were once subject to banishment (some still are), their writers received threats of being thrown in jail, and it is not necessarily because they were obscene or vulgar, but because they wished to transmit the secrets of human nature. They wanted to show us an open secret. They described to us the weakness of naked bodies full of muscles, as well as the power of an innocent look. Against all hypocrites and liars, the authors we revere told us the truth, raw or beautified. The value of a masterpiece is then much more than in its timeless aesthetic value; it is in its ability to challenge morals and ideological superstition, and to reveal the unbearable, be it ugliness or beauty.

Our species heavily relies on transmission, and we would have never appreciated the sunlight without those who saw abysmal darkness. No matter how pretty a face might look, it can always sneer. But it is not enough to be aware of it; one must dare to say it, evoke it, draw it, write it; and for that, one must have the drive to transgress. A genius is only a genius because he can transgress the well-established rules of orthodoxy and expose us, subtly or not, to his way of seeing the world. The drive to disobey, to go a little further than the average person, to search for things no one thought of before, is the only drive that has made humankind the most illustrious.

Have Rules to Destroy, Destroy to Create

“Your imagination, my dear fellow, is worth more than you imagine.”

―Louis Aragon

The main issue today is that our society erroneously believes that it encourages transgression, is at ease with a demented exploration of all taboos, sleeps soundly after consuming orgies of scandals, but shudders at the thought of someone setting personal boundaries. Perhaps it is our sophisticated and modern way of weeding out brave and creative souls, as the conformists will easily fall into the trap. Every society has its taboos, and one of ours, our ultimate and supreme taboo, is to even suggest the desire for structures and norms. One today can only try to sense them. Before even considering being transgressive, writers, poets, artists, and anyone else who wants to be creative will need to establish their own rules of what they consider "classical, neat, objectively good enough"...

When people write about the crisis of creativity, they often forget that to be creative is to transgress, and to transgress one must have rules or standards to escape in the first place. This is what creation is all about, it is thinking about the same problem but being courageous enough to not solve it in the same old-fashioned way. It is the reason why, in their essence, all artists are conservative, as to engage in the act of creating one must have first masters he obeys and cherishes, idols he worships before destroying them. Anyone who revolutionized a field understood the importance of having rules to fall back on and use as solid foundations.

The current “crisis of creativity” is nothing but the manifestation of the total absence of our ability to discern what is authentically transgressive and what is not. Even imagination is not the product of nothingness. It needs hidden corners and labyrinths to bloom, as it is the accumulation of the desire to unveil and to make the ineffable speak. It is the denial of the need to have a certain structure, material, norms, that is killing creativity, as many will remain mislead that they won’t need them. Naturally, they will never know the jubilation of transgressing, they will never feel their stomachs hurting from the voluptuousness of rebellion.