The Never-ending Silk Road

Supposed portrait of Terence via Wikipedia

I'm very glad to see that there is now increased resistance against those who would assert their power by attacking artists of all sorts--visual artists, writers, composers and musicians, choreographers, and more--for what they term "cultural appropriation." This interesting little bit of jargon is, in fact, entirely alien to the world of art. Those eight syllables would destroy art if they only could.

Because the story of the world's culture is the story of peoples bumping into one another and learning from one another, of wonderful gifts being shared across all lines of nation and group and century. It is a form of enchanting, metaphysical trade, plied in all directions and in all times.

For if art does not transform, enliven, and generate new art, it is not successful. And one of the main ways art remains vital and new is through influence from other people, other places, other cultures. The art world is a great Silk Road, populated by wanderers, travelers with strange goods and magical new energies. These are the artists, those who love to make. Let them meet, let them trade, let them love the world by sharing their gifts.

Terence said this about the matter, a long time ago: "Homo sum, human nihil a me alienum putt." That is, "I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me" (from Heautontimorumenos, or The Self-Tormentor.) Born a slave, Terence put what he knew of the human into six plays before he died at the age of 25. Hurrah for the African-Roman playwright, Publius Terentius Afer, who told us well before B. C. became A. D. what we still need to know.