The arts: what purpose do they serve?

[dirac]

I don’t regard this article as any great shakes, necessarily, but I proffer it as a discussion-starter to ask BTers what ‘purpose’ – if any—you believe the arts serve, and what do they mean to you?

The arts also let us live, imaginatively, within the world where they are produced. They give us an alternative human narrative -- and perhaps that's their most generous gift to us. History as seen through the arts doesn't portray demagogues and soldiers as the greatest figures. It's a history where delicate, fascinating traditions are handed down the generations, developed, subverted, forgotten and rediscovered, all within a drama that makes reality created by politicians seem pale and predictable.

[SanderO]

This is such a vast topic, but an interesting one. The arts do many things.

For one, they record the human experience because they are products of human who examine the human experience.

One interesting thing for me about the "arts" is that usually have an aesthetic appeal. The arts seem to discover, define and convey beauty.

Most of what we know about our past was conveyed to us by the arts, by the artists. Interesting that.

[perky]

For me great art connects to that spark of the divine that we're all searching for whether we realize it or not.

[bart]

Thanks for the article, dirac. As SanderO says, It's such a vast subject. I guess i resopnded most strongly to the author's statement:

Art gives us, as well, the opportunity to look at everything around us in a slightly different light. It changes our perspective. As Schopenhauer says, "The artist lets us peer into the world through his eyes." The eyes of the best artists see wonderful surprises.

I admit, however, that I felt a little intimidated by the grandness of the topic's scale. Then, it occurred to me, that personal commitment to the arts -- wherever it comes from, however it developed, whatever the ideology that supports us -- is something that has to be reinforced on a regular basis in our own lives. These reinforcements often happen to me in the form of snapshot memories.

Some of these snapshots are negative: images of our current culture that strike as being incomprehensible or appalling. Today there was one in our local paper:

Kids as young as 6 engage in ultimate-fighting craze. "It looks violent until you realize this teaches discipline." Larry Swinehart. Missouri police officer and father.

One father, Tommy Bloomer, defends the sport with the following statement: "As a parent, I;'d much rather have my kids here learning how to defend themselves and geteting positive reinforcement than out on the streets." Let's ignore the fact that Mr. Bloomer sees only two alternatives for his kids: either engaging in highly-organized, higly intense boxing-wrestling competitions, or hanging out "on the streets." The parents of children who engage in the arts -- and the adults who have been given that kind of opportunity and encouragement -- realize that their are other values and other ways of living your life.

The most vivid snapshots for me are very positive: I think especially of opportunities I was given by the public schools, to train for and take part in well-funded band and orchestra programs; to attend Metropolitan Opera dress rehearsals for students; and more. This hit me strongly while sittlng in the audience for the Met's HD-Live performance of Tristan und Isolde last weekend. The camera often focused on members of the orchestra including clarinetists and the bass clarinetist, my instruments. Very detailed memories arose of playing the Tristan theme on my bass clarinet in an orchestral transcription of the opera's highlights. I was in 11th grade at the time. The piece began with just the bass clarinet, just the simple notes of the Tristan theme. I felt that the entire performance rested on those few notes. I practiced for weeks. I was deeply relieved when they had passed and nothing had gone wrong. It was my own tiny transfiguration in the service of art. I had become, suddenly and on a small scale, a practicing and committed Wagnerian.

"Discipline" were certainly required, taught and reinforced during my entirely amateur musical training. I've carried these lessons into my adult life. I wonder what the very little kids who are being encouarged by their parents to punch, kick, and grapple with one other will carry into their futures.

I don't mean to discourage discussion of the larger issues in this thread. But -- for those who can't think of what to say -- how about some snapshots of what the arts have meant to you on a personal level and how it continues to do so?

[GoCoyote!]

I think the queston is too big, too vague, or maybe too obvious to answer. Maybe it would be easier and quicker to go through a list of all the things which are not art and ask the question, 'what purpose do they serve?'

.... food, shelter, healthcare, education, freedom, community, the arts ... now see how many more you can add before their actual purpose (let alone value) becomes 'vague' ...

Ultimately aren't we all works of art ourselves? Part of that greater work of art - the universe as a whole. And by virtue of the rare and wonderful feature we posses - of having awareness - can we not think of ourselves as the very process by which the universe becomes aware of itself, which would make all our artistic achievements in a very real sense one enormous work of art becoming aware of itself, and expressing that awareness through yet more art ... and using this continual process of creation / reflection to become ever more keenly aware, knowledgeable, sophisticated, elegant and in awe .....

... or to put that description of the entire universe into smily form! =

If the Arts' value or purpose is hard to measure, perhaps that is because it is the ruler, the very scale itself. (this is something to worth pointing out if anyone is applying for funding )

Anyway, this thread made me want to give this quote I heard in a documentary about the 'Mandelbrot set' - I think it came originally from Faraday who, having just discovered electricity, was asked after a demonstration 'yes this is all very well, but what is the use of electricity?', to which he replied, "what's the use of a new-born baby?"

P.S. If you don't know what the 'Mandelbrot set' is (you'll recognize it when you see it though) it is (I think!) a very, very simple mathematical equation which produces a pattern of infinite complexity (and beauty) with absoloutely no end to its detail no matter how much you zoom in on it - so that it is in effect (again I think) supposed to be 'bigger than the universe'. Just search youtube for 'Fractals - Mandelbrot' or 'Baroque Mandelbrot Zoom' and enjoy .... (I hope it is OK to 'link' in this way - if not please remove)

[SanderO]

How about this approach to the question posed in this thread.

What would the world be like if there were no arts? Can you conceive of this?

I have always found the notion of beauty a compelling and completely elusive "thing". I often thought that whatever beauty was or is would have to be a quality that emerged from matter, from science from mathematics somehow. Science and math seem to find a way to describe almost everything in the physical world. And beauty does have at least one foot in the physical world.

But then I thought that our conception of beauty had to do with our own brain and the attributes of our sensory system. We sample the world through our senses so beauty might be directly linked to the human nervous system. Conceptually that made sense.

Then I began to think about music and how we distinguish music from noise and that seemed to both a combination of the structure of our nervous system and some higher mathematical organization not dependent on humans.

It's interesting that we can make up rules for what beauty is and then attempt to create something beautiful by adhering as precisely as possible to them.

The arts seem to almost always concern itself with beauty, though not exclusively and we all seem to respond to whatever beauty is with some very positive feelings from the experience.

We see beauty in nature, don't we? And we often copy her.

I can never have enough beauty, but I love the pauses and spaces between, because without them I would not know how incredible an experience beauty is.

[bart]

How about this approach to the question posed in this thread.

What would the world be like if there were no arts? Can you conceive of this?

It seems that many people seem to assume that the arts will just keep going on by themselves. Rather like some sort of cultural gene that will not die, even if not particularly nurtured or even paid attention to.

These are the people -- a number of them in government -- who appear to be genuinely happy that operas are performed, art museums exist, Shakespeare continues to be played, ballet classes are available to little girls, art films are shot, etc., but who otherwise don't pay much attention to them or spend many dollars to encourage them.

Out of curiosity, has there ever been a work of art -- literary work, play, film, etc. -- which actually posits a world without art? Other than 1984?

[SanderO]

There are different flavors of "the arts".

One of them is the museum "stuff". Relics from the past which are there for our viewing. Even ballet which is a performance art can have a museum like quality to it.

And then there are the "living" arts, which are being produced in our own life time and of course the "performing arts" which up until recently lived in fleeting time. Now we can record them.

How about the art we live in? Buildings (where we place art and perform art). Or literary art which works on so many levels at the same time.

[Mel Johnson]

"Calling Plato. Calling Dr. Plato...."

[Anthony_NYC]

Stanley Fish had a more provocative take on this subject a while back in the New York Times. He concludes:

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said ... diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

[papeetepatrick]

Stanley Fish had a more provocative take on this subject a while back in the ]New York Times[/url].

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good.

This sort of thing is okay once in awhile, but only if it is being indulged in by, say, Stravinsky or Balanchine. In the former, you hear 'the music doesn't express something else, but rather itself.' In the latter, you hear talk of dancers being encouraged not to be political, or related anti-political sentiment. Both are to some degree silly elitisms, but they are at least not only silly when you have really delivered the goods. What about those vulgar 'tone poems?' Nadia Boulanger once said something about 'the little bird' in the Pastorale Symphony, after making the disclaimer 'I don't like to make literature about music.'

There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said ... diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

There may well be plenty more to say (how can anyone really write something like 'There is nothing more to say' and not be laughed at?), but I could have lived with his not having said this and gone forth with the assumed existence of both art and much else (if there is anything else, given that sublime strict demarcation, in which all that is 'justified' is relegated to the dustbin). You'd think the professional highbrows like Lionel Trilling and Samuel Lipman were back on payroll. I don't find this provocative, but rather insufferable and thoroughly ordinary.

the only honest answer is none whatsoever

How compelling! How rubbish! Those wonderful useless arts which thereby secrete honour--but only in being unjustified. This almost makes me nostalgic for some more Sascha Radetzky prose.

[SanderO]

Stanley Fish's argument may apply to fish culture, but for humans one could argue that at the most fundamental level human activity has a Darwinian purpose in our survival. While one could argue that things humans do which have no value to their species will be selected out. And in a sense what is happening with the human arts is that they are evolving, but the arts "trait" is not going away.

I would argue that human civilization which is a meta level of human activity involves the creation of institutions and "memes" which represent a continuous kind of living "thing" of sorts. Without human activity supporting these memes and institutions, there is no civilization.

This means that these meta creations by humans are what defines our civilization.

Wiki says:

"The term civilization is often used as a synonym for culture in both popular and academic circles.[1] Every human being participates in a culture, defined as "the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behavior and material habits that constitute a people's way of life".[2] Civilizations can be distinguished from other cultures by their high level of social complexity and organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities."

There ya go Mr. Fish. Your ability to communicate in language is an example of what you claim has no purpose.

Look what Wiki writes about Mr Fish:

"In her essay "Sophistry about Conventions," Martha Nussbaum argues that Stanley Fish's theoretical views are based on "extreme relativism and even radical subjectivism." Discounting his work as nothing more than sophistry, Nussbaum claims that Fish "relies on the regulative principle of non-contradiction in order to adjudicate between competing principles," thereby relying on normative standards of argumentation even as he argues against them."

[dirac]

I think the queston is too big, too vague, or maybe too obvious to answer. Maybe it would be easier and quicker to go through a list of all the things which are not art and ask the question, 'what purpose do they serve?'

I don’t think the question itself is too large. Sometimes it can be worth it to ask a Big Picture question even if there is no final or complete answer.

Thank you, AnthonyNYC, for the link to Fish’s article.

And that, I believe, is how it should be. Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

“Poetry makes nothing happen.” He’s arguing, with deliberate provocation, against the view of the arts as morally uplifting – that we become Better People through their appreciation.

"Calling Plato. Calling Dr. Plato...."

Yes, indeed. If there are any BTers out there with a broader base in philosophy than my own who'd like to chime in, I'd be interested to hear from them. Thanks to everyone who's posted so far!

[bart]

I also want to thank Anthony_NYC for the link to the article by Stanley Fish. I'm far from being a studente of philosophy, but from what I can remember from college long, long ago, Fish's take is indeed somewhat Platonic. He's being a bit playful think, arguing for the existence of an is an ideal form, "the arts," which exists for its own sake and does not need (in ultimate terms) any other justification. A Platonic ideal type does not even need a human being to see it, think about it, or respond to it. It simply IS.

Platonism is a rich theory, but the ancients did tend to bog themselves down when they actually tried to practice it, or to use it to imagine social systems for human beings. The followers of Plato became distinctly odd -- one might even say wacky -- as the generations passed and neoplatonism evolved.)

(Neo-Platonists, as I understand them, are not unlike neo-classicists in ballet. They tended to stretch inherited ideas, giving them new and -- to the old-timers -- disturbing and even "ugly" shapes and meanings, including some who sought the truth through ritual magic.)

I suspect that most people living in the natural world tend to be, intuitively and almost automatically, Utilitarians. At least in part. We seem complelled to explain and justify ideas, concepts, and values in terms of their social or personal usefulness.

This is not to deny, of course, that we often experience art for its own sake on a personal level. I think that we would all agree that, as Fish writes,

The humanities are their own good.

I wonder how many would continue to agree with the next few sentences:

There is nothing more to say [ ... ]

Though Fish's article is much more elegant than the Robert Fulford piece with which dirac began this thread, it brings us to something of a dead end when it comes to thinking about -- and acting on -- the position of the arts in the world that all of us actually inhabit.

[kfw]

And that, I believe, is how it should be. Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do†is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

“Poetry makes nothing happen.†He’s arguing, with deliberate provocation, against the view of the arts as morally uplifting – that we become Better People through their appreciation.

It seems to me that Fish loses faith in the humanities in the same way a lot of people lose faith in religion, concluding that if the humanities don’t make everyone radically better, they have no power at all. I may misread him but think that’s a simplistic conclusion, as is a black and white question like “is it the business of the humanities . . . to save us?†and the answer that, no, they merely to improve us intellectually. In fact they increase our knowledge of ourselves and of each other. The immediate business of a literature professor is to develop smart readers, sure, but at the same time a student’s character is formed by what he’s taught to value and come to love (which makes the ongoing formulation of canons so important), and open-hearted students learn a lot from what wise professors find in the material. Anything we study thoughtfully teaches us life lessons, and the humanities is a richer firled than most.

On a related note, I wonder if Fish would say that cultural exchanges like the one that took NYCB to Russia have no utilitarian value. Would he gainsay the testimonies of Soviet and Eastern Bloc dissidents for whom literature and art were such a source of strength to resist, or that religious literature has often done the same?

As someone who believes we're created in the image of a creator God -- or as some have it, that we're sparks of the divine -- I also believe in art for art's sake in the same way I believe in play for play's sake for children. It's true that kids learn a lot from play, but there is a sense in which is good for it's own sake. It's a sign of health.