The Awful Futility of Explaining

In Marcel Billot’s foreword to Sacred Art by M.A. Couturier, he explains that L’Art Sacré was a review run for a time by two Dominican priests, Father Couturier and Father Pie-Raymond Régamey. They managed, apparently, to work together and produce the publication, even though they approached their work in decidedly different manners. Billot writes:

In the first issue, dated January 1937, Couturier denounced the lack of artistic culture in Catholic circles, and assigned to the review the task of education and information devoid of compromise.

Assuredly, Régamey agreed with this statement of purpose, but it quickly became apparent the the two editors were at odds with regard to method. Régamey’s idea was to convince by explaining, while Couturier, who was fond of quoting Baudelaire on “the awful futility of explaining anything whatsoever to anyone whomsoever,” rejected reliance on rhetoric and put his confidence in aesthetics. Couturier turned to images and their presentation as the principal means of awakening the clergy’s responsiveness to beauty, the clergy being the clientele for whom the revue was primarily intended.

Couturier and Régamey, after collaborating on issue after issue, reached a point of compromise in which they traded off issues, one priest spearheading an issue and the other getting control over the next. Couturier emphasized “poetry over pedagogy,” and I wish that more writers, teachers, parents, and leaders would follow suit. I spent most of my life explaining and it didn’t do me much good. Likewise, I derived little benefit from unquestioningly following the rules and taking careful, word-for-word notes. Yes, being told what to think is comforting, easy, and provides a great excuse for not taking responsibility, but how many rule followers and indoctrinated members of society have gone to their graves wondering how they managed to miss out on any real meaning in life?