The late nineteenth and early twentieth century artists: "Manipulator or manipulated."

Abstract

We are like meat, hung up, sold, bought, manipulated in every way possible. (22.22 ; Manipulation of mankind can be compared to a marionette theatre where the human becomes controlled by fellow humans, situations and everyday circumstances. "Man has employed controlling devices to maintain a position of superiority over his fellow man." (31 . 294) For centuries man has often tried to reshape people's thinking into a line of thought in politics, religion, economics and morals in order to gain maximum benefit for himself. The irony of this manipulation is that even the man at the top is often controlled. This can be seen in the case of Benito Mussolini ( 1883 - 1945). A journalist and ex-army corporal who took over the Italian Government in October 1922, he set up a fascist Grand Council with himself as President and ruled as dictator calling himself II Duce (the leader). He ruthlessly crushed his opponents using imprisonments, torture and banishment as weapons to bolster his power. Relentless as his measures were, he instilled national pride, created confidence and increased prosperi ty. Mussolini dreamed of a revived Roman Empire after the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and the use of Spain as the proving ground for his land and air forces. He allied his own country with Germany and Japan which both had their own dictat ors . Adolf Hitler in Germany dominated Mussolini and made f ul l. use of his participation call. After during the war. Mussolini adhered to Hit l er's every beck war was declared on the United States, Italy wat brought to and the brink of ruin and Mussolini was forced to resign . This did not move Hitler . The coll apse of Germany and Hit l er at the end of the war saw the execution of Mussolini by the Italian Partisans. "The Manipulator being Manipulated" . No mat ter what a man's j ob is, from doctor to bus dri ver , every moment of his li fe will be spent as a cog in a huge and sometimes piti l ess system. This canbe seen in Third World countries like the Communist-controlled African States. Here economic growth ceases to exist and starvation becomes a major drawback. Ethiopia is an example of this system which can exploit the human race to its dying nation. Alexander Solzhenitsyn ( 1918) Soviet author and 1970 Nobel i'rlze winner in Literature had his twa major navels, "Cancer Ward" and "The First Ward" banned because of their anti - soviet society ideals. He wrote in his book "Cancer Ward" : "As every man goes through life he fills in a number of forms for the r ecord, each containing a number of questions. There are thus hundreds of li ttle threads radiating from every man, millions of threads in all. Each man permanently aware of his own invisible threads naturally develops a respect for the people who manipulate the threads" (31.483). Over the centuries man has portrayed an elaborate web controlled by outside stimuli . Most peoples' identities are in large part wrapped up in wha t they use , own , control and consume. "Keeping up with the Joneses", that favourite advertising theme, works because people really believe that to own more is to be more. Individual humans are so irresponsibl~, Bggressi ve , ega-driven and conceited that they need an absolute monarch to control their li ves. One has onl y to l ook back at the t urn of the century and see what the appointed heads of contries managed to prOduce. Europe boasts the playground for the man ipulators of t waworld wars and the destruction of numerous countries. This has natputanend to the ideals of war. The cold war of the post-war years still hangs like a bleak Cloud over the world in the eighties , with its participating "Super Powers" forever planning their next move. The political situation has al so seen its t all of great "controllers" playing with their countries' future . Marxism and Fascism have a dominant role in European Politics. The artist being par t of the mass changes of politics must have found that t hi s affected his work and life.