Politics & Power Quote by Holly Near

Holly Near’s line refuses the two most common scripts assigned to political artists: the saint and the scold. By insisting her creativity and political work are linked, she’s not pitching activism as an extracurricular add-on to the “real” art; she’s naming politics as a generative engine, the same source code that powers the song. Then she cuts the moral cord that usually tethers celebrity advocacy: “I don’t do this work out of guilt or out of responsibility.” That’s not a dodge of accountability so much as a rejection of a joyless, punitive model of engagement where the artist performs virtue to earn absolution.

The subtext is strategic. Guilt is fragile fuel: it burns hot, then turns into avoidance. Responsibility can curdle into duty, branding political work as grim penance and art as a lecture. Near frames her activism as desire rather than obligation, which is a more sustainable posture and a more convincing invitation. It also signals solidarity over charity. She’s not “helping” from above to quiet a conscience; she’s participating from within a community and a set of values that also shape her music.

Context matters: Near came up in the post-’60s ecosystem of feminist and antiwar movements, where music wasn’t background but infrastructure - a way to organize, narrate, and endure. Her wording is almost a rebuttal to liberal hand-wringing and to the suspicion that political art is propaganda. She’s arguing that the politics aren’t a constraint on creativity; they’re the reason the work has pulse.