So, making sense of nonsense? Dada has a whimsical yet apathetic feeling about it. The Manifesto is Anti-Manifesto. It claims beauty is dead. What do they mean by that? The concept of beauty or all beauty? They claim man can’t be boxed in by ideals and that the Bible can’t explain everything. So man has no limits according to them, but there are still limitations outside of morality? Dada wants independence vs. unity, so we cannot all get along. Why can’t a person be independent and still get along with others that they may not be in lock step with in thought? These kind of ideologies seem to have an all or nothing pattern. They can be so creative with art, but with thought battle each other for supremacy.  

In the Anti-Manifesto, they mention everything is false. Then why are you writing and why am I reading this and supposed to trust you? Don’t trust my own logic? Then what am I supposed to use? Dada is paradoxical, a kind of ‘I have no brain and I must think’ instead of mouth and scream. I’m guessing this is one of the precursors to the whole idea of countercultural revolutions of thought and action. Instead of art being for the public, Dada argues art is supposed to be for the artist. One could make that argument, but it also implies the artist is of a selfish nature if they will not share with others. They seem to be making the assumption that an artist who is loved by the public is a sellout. Would you call Rembrandt or Picasso or Warhol sellouts? I find this line of reasoning to be quite flawed if funny. The artists who stand the test of time did NOT just think about themselves, they were often influenced by the humanity that lived and suffered around them. I’m not sure what they hope to gain by saying morality creates atrophy, but I much rather an artist care about their subjects and people when they paint than being emotionally cut off from society and our problems.