I suppose it is not terribly surprising that an artist, writer, and career art teacher would be grateful for something that has been such a vibrant force throughout her life, but I realized that I've heard very little being said, recently, about the value of the arts in our lives.
I think we're missing something important, by such an omission. There's a quote from C. S. Lewis that I've seen popping up with fair frequency: "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art . . . . It has no survival value; rather, it is one of those things that give value to survival." For me, this quote encapsulates the problem I see.
I believe it is being circulated because people think it affirms the value of art. But to my mind, it understates and diminishes the value, not only of art, but also of friendship and philosophy.
I may decide I need to get into the particulars of this argument someday, but here's the short version:
- Friendship is perhaps one of our most important evolutionary tools for survival.
- Philosophy--our understanding of the world and our place in it--is vital to our ability to make evaluations and judge situations.
- The arts tap into our deepest levels of meaning-making, and offer a variety of media by which we are empowered to interpret our experiences and form our philosophies. In this bedrock respect, all humans are artists.
Lewis's unrecognized devaluation of of friendship, philosophy, and art comes from a narrowed definition of these concepts:
- The preposterous notion that any man could be an island.
- The idea that philosophy is only conceived by the most abstract (or famous) of introspective thinkers.
- An elitist assumption that true art is only created by those operating as high-level professionals in creative fields.
Unfortunately, this understanding is far too widely shared, to the detriment of us all. I think this is part of the reason why the arts have been under siege for years, in this country.
Even as we repeatedly discover that a vibrant arts community is as important a business asset to a city or region as excellent public schools, it remains a dual lesson that painfully few in Kansas, Missouri (where cuts have impacted all aspects of education, and arts often are cut first), or our national government seem to have mastered.
Certainly the importance--and the powerful positive results--of teaching the arts in schools has been amply documented.
But the power of the arts to continue connecting people with their true selves doesn't stop when they graduate. The arts are a lifelong enricher of souls, giving depth to the lives of all who are willing to embrace them.
Yet the arts continue to be considered as "frills," unnecessary, or "a side issue," by all too many people. If art is understood only to be a grace-note in life, it can safely be ignored (and need not be publicly funded). I think Winston Churchill had a better grasp of the issue.
We live in a bitterly divided society, here in the US. All too often, we seem exclusively focused on the ugly, the evil, and the terrifying. Granted, the tenor of politics, the upward spiral of natural disaster occurrences, and the number of mass shootings, terror incidents, and other violence we've seen in the daily headlines recently seem designed to drag us down. In such an environment, it's easier for nationalist and authoritarian movements to gain a footing.
I think the rise in nationalism and authoritarianism in recent decades is largely to blame for the trivialization of the arts (noted above as "part of the reason") that has come to characterize many funding battles in the public sector.
Authoritarians have a natural distrust of free-thinkers (who are everywhere in the arts), of empirical research, which is less amenable to ideology than other approaches (hence the all-too-common contemporary negative views of science), and of critical thinking in general (because it too readily pokes holes in authoritarian dogma).
The arts lift us beyond our immediate struggles. They can show us other points of view, new ways of thinking and seeing. They give us a rich context for meaning-making and help us build more complete understandings.
The arts, in their best expressions, build bridges of understanding rather than walls of division. They heal us and grant us a wider vision, so we can see--and therefore seek--a better way forward. That's the most important reason of all, why I give thanks for the arts.
IMAGES: The "Seven Days of Gratitude" design is my own creation, for well or ill. So is the design for the Eve L. Ewing quote, for which I gratefully acknowledge the BBC, Wikipedia, and Reuters, via the BBC, which provided the vintage photos. If for some reason you'd like to use it, please feel free to do so, but I request attribution and a link back to this post. Many thanks to AZ Quotes for the C.S. Lewis quote image; to The Artful Parent, for the Ananda Coomaraswamy quote image; to The Keep Forever Box, for the Sydney Gurewitz Clemens quote; to Jen Bissou's Pinterest page for the Churchill quote; and to Brainy Quote, for both the Picasso and Degas quote images. I am deeply appreciative to all.
But the power of the arts to continue connecting people with their true selves doesn't stop when they graduate. The arts are a lifelong enricher of souls, giving depth to the lives of all who are willing to embrace them.
Yet the arts continue to be considered as "frills," unnecessary, or "a side issue," by all too many people. If art is understood only to be a grace-note in life, it can safely be ignored (and need not be publicly funded). I think Winston Churchill had a better grasp of the issue.
We live in a bitterly divided society, here in the US. All too often, we seem exclusively focused on the ugly, the evil, and the terrifying. Granted, the tenor of politics, the upward spiral of natural disaster occurrences, and the number of mass shootings, terror incidents, and other violence we've seen in the daily headlines recently seem designed to drag us down. In such an environment, it's easier for nationalist and authoritarian movements to gain a footing.
I think the rise in nationalism and authoritarianism in recent decades is largely to blame for the trivialization of the arts (noted above as "part of the reason") that has come to characterize many funding battles in the public sector.
Authoritarians have a natural distrust of free-thinkers (who are everywhere in the arts), of empirical research, which is less amenable to ideology than other approaches (hence the all-too-common contemporary negative views of science), and of critical thinking in general (because it too readily pokes holes in authoritarian dogma).
The arts lift us beyond our immediate struggles. They can show us other points of view, new ways of thinking and seeing. They give us a rich context for meaning-making and help us build more complete understandings.
The arts, in their best expressions, build bridges of understanding rather than walls of division. They heal us and grant us a wider vision, so we can see--and therefore seek--a better way forward. That's the most important reason of all, why I give thanks for the arts.
IMAGES: The "Seven Days of Gratitude" design is my own creation, for well or ill. So is the design for the Eve L. Ewing quote, for which I gratefully acknowledge the BBC, Wikipedia, and Reuters, via the BBC, which provided the vintage photos. If for some reason you'd like to use it, please feel free to do so, but I request attribution and a link back to this post. Many thanks to AZ Quotes for the C.S. Lewis quote image; to The Artful Parent, for the Ananda Coomaraswamy quote image; to The Keep Forever Box, for the Sydney Gurewitz Clemens quote; to Jen Bissou's Pinterest page for the Churchill quote; and to Brainy Quote, for both the Picasso and Degas quote images. I am deeply appreciative to all.
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