Quote from Dada Manifesto

Quote:” I don't want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own.”  Dada Manifesto (1916, By Hugo Ball)

This quote is saying how Dadaists want to recreate the world to their own view. Moreover, the quote gives us a sense of rejection of everything that existed before Dadaism. For instance, they want to have their own language by inventing a new alphabet. In this quote the author wanted to point out that people who were for the Dadaism felt that artists were missing to report exactly what was happened in their society. That is why they wanted artists to have their work talking about the two wars that were going on instead of expressing their own life. Based on Dadaism ideology, I believe that they want artists to talk about real life. For example, during World War I and II some artists giving their personal expression through their arts instead of painting the horror of war was not accepted by Dadists.

I am interested by this quote because like the word dad I can not give a meaning or a sense to this article. I don’t agree with the idea of saying: “I don’t want word that other people have invented”. From this point I believe that Dada is not going anywhere because I do not see them starting their life from scratch. Whatever initiative that they will take, will interfere with existent life. However, what they can do is to move to another planet where they can start a whole new life. Conquering a new planet would not be the best solution because they could not get there without using the pre-existing resources invented by other people. This is a vicious circle.

Putting the quote in the context of war, this article makes sense because in difficult times people want to deal with real problems instead of talking about things that we are usually enjoy in time of peace. People were devastated during World War II and did not want to see art work that has a subject like love or romance. The same situation could be applied to our present life dominated by a high unemployment. A person who does not have a job wants a national debate that is focused on job creation but not on guns control even though it is a social issue. In addition, immigrants who want to legalize their statute in the U.S tend to be more interested to have debates on immigration reform. Therefore, these people will be more than happy to read, listen and watch any news from the media that is talking about immigration. I believe that European and German were able to understand the attitude of Dadaism because they were living in the same difficult time and I would be able comprehend their point of view if I were there.