Hec,

Would you make a distinction between artists and "artists"? That is, if I spend all day painting because I'm a trustafarian, but never create anything anyone is interested in, am I doing something useful/valuable?

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I think art is extremely useful, but I have an exceptionally broad definition of art which enables me to duck many questions.

I do think that the fine arts are useful because, as Hec noted, they promote empathy. But I'm not much of a utilitarian, really. I do not value books because of their practical benefit. That's a gift with purchase.

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Would you make a distinction between artists and "artists"? That is, if I spend all day painting because I'm a trustafarian, but never create anything anyone is interested in, am I doing something useful/valuable?

The utility of art may indeed depend on its ability to stir things in the culture. To be apprehendable or to engage with the world around it. However, there are so many examples of artists who were "ahead of their time" - like Van Gogh or Kafka - that you have to also acknowledge that the world, the culture, is a vast, lumbering, slow moving, deaf, behemoth that gets cranky and rejecty in the face of provocation.

The virtue (utility?) of outside artists is their critique of the culture itself. It challenges things as known. At that point you have to engage the art on its own terms and see whether it has merit. I don't think this is simply relativism - you can see fairly easily whether a work coheres or offers a new vision, even if you don't agree with the vision or dislike how it achieves those means. Whether the work has integrity (wholeness) or is simply a dilletante pissing around.

Here's the thing for me. I spent a fair amount of time in college reading old NY Times on microfiche. And it was illuminating to see how many weird, twisted biases are accepted as true in any given time. Which, at least for me, underscored the consenual hallucination of any time. People agree to believe that a piece of paper in your wallet with a presidential portrait is a medium of exchange. Currency. This is consensus.

Most everything we believe as true came through some weird committee procedure, and it's almost impossible to see the intrinsic biases from within the culture itself. Art is one of the only correctives on these weird pyramids of presumption.

Andy Warhol is useful. He said, "Your life is mediated through images which influence you daily and they're both extremely shallow and manipulative but the effect on you is unconscious and profound." That's like a fucking inoculation.

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Ah, this is the "is a poem valuable if no one ever reads it?" discussion.

t sits back to watch

Actually, I have to say I'm with David. Art is valuable--even bad art. Not just for the, um, recipients, and the society at large, but for the creator. Pre-industrialization, I think there were more people living ordinary lives who were creators, even if they didn't think of themselves as artists. Artisans and crafts people, and women making quilts, and people singing rounds while shucking corn or putting up the hay.

Art or creativity is an engagement with the world (and often with the community), even if it's not as immediately useful as, say, planting a garden or programming code. It's good for the doer, and I think every poem or painting, no matter how bad, helps stave off the heat death of the universe.

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Speaking of bad art...

It's one thing to do it to finance Showboat or Long Day's Journey Into Night. But No, No Nanette?

I did No, No, Nanette in high school. It's not really bad, it's a cute little show, but not amazing. Tea for Two, I Want to be Happy, and my personal fav, Where Have My Hubby Gone Blues.

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Art or creativity is an engagement with the world (and often with the community), even if it's not as immediately useful as, say, planting a garden or programming code.

Both of which can be art too.

It's good for the doer, and I think every poem or painting, no matter how bad, helps stave off the heat death of the universe.

Absolutely.

Art is not a luxury. Even in subsistence societies people find a way to include art in their lives. Our society is tough, because frequently only the extremely affluent or the extremely poor can afford to do art.

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Both of which can be art too.

Oh, no question. But they're evidently useful to the world in a way that, say, writing poetry (or, say, fanfiction) isn't.

Our society is tough, because frequently only the extremely affluent or the extremely poor can afford to do art.

Or art is only valued when it's part of the market economy. Which is too bad.

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Even in subsistence societies people find a way to include art in their lives.

And Raq provides what is probably closest to "proof" that art is useful.

Our society is tough, because frequently only the extremely affluent or the extremely poor can afford to do art.

Raq, do you mean the above in a for-a-living sense?

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ah, a good 8 ours of sleep does the body right. Looks like it is going to be a gorgeous day here.

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I, on the other hand, don't think my brain should be the thing to decide how much sleep I get any more, and it looks overcast here.

Fun day planned though, so that's good.

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