Art, Agency, & Fear: How Artmaking Can Help Crush the MAGA Monsters at the Door

Bill Cleveland: 00:00:01

Hey there. What if the thing we fear most isn't the monster at the door, but the quiet erosion of our own agency?

From the center for the Study of Art and Community, this is Art is Change, a chronicle of art and social change where activists, artists and cultural organizers share the skills and strategies they need to thrive as creative community leaders. My name is Bill Cleveland. So that question I just shared, well, it shook me awake at 2:15 this morning and refused to let go.

So in this episode, we're going to wander into the crossroads where fear, imagination and human agency wrestle for the steering wheel and where art might just be the ancient compass we've forgotten how to use. Now, some ideas don't arrive politely. They don't knock.

You know, they kick down the door at 2:15 in the morning and drag you half awake into a conversation you didn't ask for but desperately needed. This one was like that.

I woke up inside a thought, a half dream, half logic model about imagination, fear and the strange human struggle with difference. And the more I followed it, the clearer it became.

Fear and agency are twin engines in the human story, and imagination is the switch that determines which one gets the fuel.

Part 1 the First Fear

so we don't enter the world afraid. Babies are fearless little astronauts tumbling into the great unknown.

Then something hurts and the body rings the alarm and we cry. Someone comes and a tiny lesson is planted. The world might be dangerous and I can't survive it alone.

That's the first wobbling outline of what will someday become fear. But right behind it, as essential as breath, comes the first spark of agency. The child learns, hey, I could do something that changes the world.

I can cry and the world responds. I can smile and the world smiles back. This wild seesaw between terror and empowerment is how our brains are wired to develop it's Survival 101.

Fear is a boundary setter. Agency is a boundary stretcher. As we age, the boundaries get bigger, the fears get sharper, and the moments of agency get harder to locate.

But they're still there. Part 2 When fear goes feral Now 10,000 years ago, fear used to be a pretty simple deal. Snakes, cliffs, fire, run, hide, survive.

But today, the most dangerous snakes live entirely in our imagination. And these days, they're getting a lot of help. We build tools, digital, political, economic, that know exactly how to squeeze our fear trigger.

And they squeeze it hard. When fear goes feral, it hijacks the brain, the prefrontal cortex. Our reasoning room just goes dim.

The amygdala grabs the steering wheel and everything narrows. Fight Flight, freeze, repeat. And here's the hard truth. Existential fear is easier to trigger than existential agency. Fear is the cheap dopamine hit.

Agency is the long apprenticeship. Wow, great message. Actually, a great lyric. Which brings us reluctantly to the current American condition.

A whole crowd of folks have melded a lifelong religious worldview with a quick and dirty agency fix of a political messiah who promises safety, clarity, and the ultimate superhero movie of the week. An alien horde and a crumbling border wall. The wall is a metaphor. The alien zombies and vampires are metaphors. The deep state is a metaphor.

But the fear they trigger is absolutely real. And when fear becomes the operating system, the brain stops asking what's true. It only asks what will protect me. And that's where the trouble starts.

Part three where agency hides. Here's the paradox. Agency isn't actually complicated. It's just neglected.

Agency grows wherever human beings make things, anything with their hands, their hearts, their minds. Agency is a pot thrown on a wheel, a story told around a fire, a song stitched together from breath and nerve endings.

And, you know, neuroscience backs this up. When we make something, the brain rewires itself towards possibility, towards connection towards us.

And when we make things together, well, that's the evolutionary jackpot. That's how we survive those snarling saber toothed tigers. And it's how we'll survive in this moment too. The trick is remembering that.

That making things together is our oldest and most potent superpower. And imagination and the stories that rise up, well, that's the connective tissue we use to make sense and meaning out of chaos.

You give a person a lump of clay and a quiet hour and the world becomes a little less terrifying. You invite a room full of strangers to build a story together and watch their brains start to spark and literally electrically synchronize.

When this happens, fear loosens its grip. Empathy kicks in. Agency rises. This is not poetry. It's biology. Part 4 Makers vs the Monsters so here's the bright side.

The part of the dream I woke up holding onto like a life preserver. Humans are born makers. We don't need permission, we don't need expertise. We don't need to buy agency from the store. We can produce it ourselves.

Cheap, abundant and renewable, just like the sun. But we forget. We forget because we're told the world is too complicated, the problem's too big. The money, the experts, just unattainable.

We forget because fear has bigger amplifiers and better marketing. Yet the simple act of making a pot, a painting, a cake, a song reminds us that the World is not fixed, not frozen, not doomed. And it can be shaped.

That's the antidote to the apocalypse machine, to the chaos machine. When we make, we get curious. When we get curious, we ask questions. When we ask questions, we start dismantling the stories that keep us afraid.

This is how new stories start. Not from ideology, but from imagination. Not from fear, but from the spark of agency that says, I could do something. We can do something.

Hey, what's next? Let's find out together. So, yeah, the fear button is easier to push. It's faster, cheaper, way more addictive. But agency in the long run is stronger.

Agency is older. And agency spreads like a wildfire. One maker can awaken another. A room full of makers can awaken a neighborhood.

A nation of makers can crush the zombie apocalypse story under the joyful weight of pots, plays, poems, murals, gardens, dances, quilts, beats, and a few beautifully stubborn truths. The world is loud right now with panic stories. But our job, your job, my job is to make louder. The stories that heal, connect and empower.

So makers of the world unite and help someone else make something too. That's how we shrink the monsters and build the future. So there it is. Fear's quick trigger, agency's slow burn.

And the stubborn truth that making anything can help us find our footing again. If this stirred something in you, pass it on. Invite someone to make something with you.

The smallest act of creation can tip the scales toward the courage we need. Art is Change is a production of the center for the Study of Art and Community.

Our theme and soundscape springs forth from the head, heart and hand of the maestro, Judy Munson. Our text editing is by Andre Nebe. Our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration from the ever present spirit of OOC235.

So until next time, stay well, do good and spread the good word.