How important is art to us?

[Howie]

Art - philanthropy or a luxury This month in the Cleveland Area they have what is known as "Art matters" Lyn Swan a guest speaker and many around town artist, galleries and much more propose to the community how much art matters in the development of our youth and society. Art has taught me so very much. The education and history aspect are easily quantified in my life. Even more so than books and history, I am more so talking about my own growth as a person. Like nature, it has given me a rise and fall of my perspective on life. This unfortunately is not obtainable for many cultures. There is aid that obviously supersedes that of art. So how much do you feel art plays a role in the development of our culture and mind? Share your own experiences to where art has taken you and your opinion on the importance of the arts

[Howie]

I disagree with the invisible poster. I feel that art nurtures a society and bolster creativity! A half coherant ramble

[wendylove]

I disagree, spartans didn't have that much art. They were one of the greatest civilization ever. Not only that art is very shallow. See mathematic is said to be really beautiful, however the different between art and maths is that art is shallow so can be easily understood.

[skysaw]

For my life personally, art is everything. I am a composer, and almost every waking moment I am thinking about my music. Culturally, I also think art is extremely important, and it saddens me that it is not much considered so here in the U.S. Government funding for the arts is all but non-existent these days. Many programs have had their legs cut out from under them. Art makes people think, feel, interact, and develop a sense of national pride that is based on something positive. Art has a very comforting and profound psychological impact in times of sorrow and confusion. Artistic communities form socially positive bonds that radiate outward through friends, family, and neighborhoods. Art must be a living, breathing thing. We don't just need art, we continually need new art. We can't continue to ignore those who have amazing worlds within them yearning to break out, that are imprisoned by lack of support.

[Howie]

I disagree, spartans didn't have that much art. They were one of the greatest civilization ever. Not only that art is very shallow. See mathematic is said to be really beautiful, however the different between art and maths is that art is shallow so can be easily understood. It is easily understood only by the shallow. Can elaborate on your shallow view, for my amusement please? SKYSAW We agree on something. VERY well put!

[wendylove]

It is easily understood only by the shallow. Can elaborate on your shallow view, for my amusement please? If I put a mathematical equation in front of your eyes, would you understand it? Do you understand that? The anwser is proberly no. This is because mathematics is not shallow. If I say put a picture of Van Goth and Picasso in front of you you would understand it, even if you haven't been train in art. See Art is shallow and pointless, it pointless because it is shallow. and develop a sense of national pride that is based on something positive. [SIZE=4]The cheapest' form of pride," says Schopenhauer, "is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation it follows that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise, he would not have recourse to those which he shares with his fellow-men. . . . Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies, tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his inferiority. . . .National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity, and baseness of mankind take in every country.". . . "Narrowness, prejudice, vanity, and self-interest are the main elements of patriotism."[SIZE] All the things you said are basically masterbation, does a normal person think,feel and interact? Yes See studying science is better then studying art, knowledge is better then pleasure and emotion. Music is better then art as it is free, however it is still not as good as maths or science. Art is not that much better then religion(nobody has killed in the name of art, well one person), but still it still is a wasted time or life. Art is a play to humans weakist part, that is his emotions. Obviously the strongest would be logic, note don't bring up morallity as logical people would proberly be as considerate to other people then non logical, note evolutionary logic dictates it as we all have to do what is best for us and everyone(beautiful mind). P.S. I feel this is not going to end good, I don't know if dreamviews would allow me to argue against art.

[Howie]

P.S. I feel this is not going to end good, I don't know if dreamviews would allow me to argue against art. I don't see why not. You are entitled to your opinion. Culture: the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts and depends upon the human capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. You do not think art fits anywhere in a suitable culture? Please don't reply with math analogies because it is not relevant, moreover for the fact that we are not attempting to quantify maths cause of existence.

[skysaw]

See studying science is better then studying art, knowledge is better then pleasure and emotion. Why would you think that we could only have science OR art?? No one so far here has proposed giving up science or math in the name of art. Don't be so silly. Music is better then art as it is free, however it is still not as good as maths or science. Now I see... you simply don't know what art IS. For example, music IS art. To say it is better than art is like saying Red is better than Color.

[wendylove]

You do not think art fits anywhere in a suitable culture? No, a suitable culture would be a logical culture. Culture: the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts and depends upon the human capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. Their is something called a book or wikipedia. Since the book revolution we don't need pictures to transmit ideas. Please don't reply with math analogies because it is not relevant, moreover for the fact that we are not attempting to quantify maths cause of existence. I just pointing out that art is shallow, I could have used any other science. What the point of art when we have better forms of communication now? Again the only thing left is beauty i.e. that pretty or other emotions, which is kind of like masterbation. Emotion is kind of like masterbation. Why would you think that we could only have science OR art?? No one so far here has proposed giving up science or math in the name of art. Don't be so silly. It still waste of time. I really don't like waste. See doing art or even looking at art is a waste of time, as their are better things to do like learn more about science. Now I see... you simply don't know what art IS. For example, music IS art. To say it is better than art is like saying Red is better than Color. Yes I do. See people call music art and other say they are different. As people call musician musician and some call them artist, to put it bluntly depends how you define art. Okay if you want me to get stupidly accurate then sound art is better then visual art. So I think sound art is better then visual art, like I think red is better then blue.

[thegnome54]

If I put a mathematical equation in front of your eyes, would you understand it? Do you understand that? My definition of art is quite simple - man-made beauty. Personally, I find math to be quite a beautiful shorthand for complex logical thought processes - from my point of view, math IS art. It's a man-made language of great beauty which expresses human thought. I also fail to see your connection between 'shallow' and 'useless'. For example, a hammer is quite shallow. If I showed you any number of hammers, you would immediately recognize that they were made for banging on things. Despite their transparency, they are indeed very useful. In the same way, even if you think that you can 'understand' art too easily, that in no way makes it useless. Art is not necessarily about purpose, it can simply be made for the satisfaction of having created something beautiful. A lot of art actually has a somewhat deeper purpose than you might immediately see. Take, for example, my macro photography. At first glance, you can say that it is just 'shallow' pictures of flies and grass and other tiny organisms. I'd like to think, though, that in showing people the beauty of these things, I make them see the world in a slightly different light - people tend to focus on the big things in life, but seldom realize that every square foot of this earth contains beautiful things. To me, a clump of weeds on the side of a street in Paris could be just as interesting as the Eiffel Tower itself. As for 'better methods of communication... it took me a whole paragraph to explain the intended purpose behind showing people my art. You could better understand it by simply looking at the art itself.

[skysaw]

As for 'better methods of communication... it took me a whole paragraph to explain the intended purpose behind showing people my art. You could better understand it by simply looking at the art itself. Which is another way of saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." Of course a thousand is a huge underestimation in my opinion.

[wendylove]

Art is not necessarily about purpose, it can simply be made for the satisfaction of having created something beautiful. Masterbation? As for 'better methods of communication... it took me a whole paragraph to explain the intended purpose behind showing people my art. You could better understand it by simply looking at the art itself. All you needed to say was look around you. But isn't you message shallow, you know if you look hard enough you will find something good. Thank you for your message I really didn't know that. Which is another way of saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." Of course a thousand is a huge underestimation in my opinion Again a shallow quote.

[skysaw]

Masterbation? Considering how much you love to talk about masturbation, it might be time for you to start spelling it properly. As to its meaning, I'm sure you are aware that masturbation is about self pleasure. Art is a gift from one person to many. Please explain how these two concepts are synonymous in your brain.

[thegnome54]

Masterbation? All you needed to say was look around you. But isn't you message shallow, you know if you look hard enough you will find something good. Thank you for your message I really didn't know that. Again a shallow quote. Do you have a problem with masturbation? Tell me, why do you eat ice cream? Is it for the nutritional value? Or simply the pleasure? We are biological machines, and our feelings can be categorized into two broad areas - pain, and pleasure. The purpose of life, as I see it, is to experience as much pleasure as possible. Everyone is bent on being happy (unless they have a mental disorder), whether they admit it or not. We are entirely selfish beings, and pleasure is what we seek. Do you deny the value of art as something beautiful which provides people with pleasure?

[wendylove]

Considering how much you love to talk about masturbation, it might be time for you to start spelling it properly. As to its meaning, I'm sure you are aware that masturbation is about self pleasure. Art is a gift from one person to many. Please explain how these two concepts are synonymous in your brain. Sorry for the mispell, however I think I picked up the wrong spelling from this forum. Well, to like something you would have to have some emotions attached to it. And art beauty is proberly the main part of art, now the act of masturbation could be seen as a shallow attempt to pleasure yourself with art. The artist has pleasure making it and the person who buys it has pleasure looking at it. A masturbation party, alternatively the artist is masturbating you. Tell me, why do you eat ice cream? Is it for the nutritional value? Or simply the pleasure? I don't eat Ice cream, plus I have a food problem so this is not a good argument. The purpose of life, as I see it, is to experience as much pleasure as possible. Well, I see the purpose of life is knowledge not pleasure or emotion. Do you deny the value of art as something beautiful which provides people with pleasure? We shouldn't live for pleasure, we should live for knowledge.

[skysaw]

The artist has pleasure making it and the person who buys it has pleasure looking at it. A masturbation party, alternatively the artist is masturbating you. I completely see your viewpoint now. I had no idea that's what you thought masturbation was. Of course now I also see that the following acts are masturbation: 1. Saying hello to your neighbor 2. Shaking a friend's hand 3. Sending and reading mail 4. Eating food 5. Taking a walk in the park 6. Petting your dog on the head 7. Planting a garden 8. Showing people some deep mathematical equations It all makes sense now. We are merely masturbation machines.

[thegnome54]

Sorry for the mispell, however I think I picked up the wrong spelling from this forum. Well, to like something you would have to have some emotions attached to it. And art beauty is proberly the main part of art, now the act of masturbation could be seen as a shallow attempt to pleasure yourself with art. The artist has pleasure making it and the person who buys it has pleasure looking at it. A masturbation party, alternatively the artist is masturbating you. Well, I see the purpose of life is knowledge not pleasure or emotion. We shouldn't live for pleasure, we should live for knowledge. First of all, always account for the incompetence of others. Failing to correct this is essentially just incompetence on your part. Second, what's wrong with getting pleasure? You seem to be saying that masturbation and other forms of getting pleasure are 'shallow'. Let me ask you this - is gaining knowledge not a shallow way of getting pleasure? WHY do you want to get knowledge? You want this because it brings you pleasure, obviously. You can deny it all you want, the only thing anyone is ever looking for in life is personal pleasure.

[wendylove]

is gaining knowledge not a shallow way of getting pleasure? No see pleasure has no higher purpose, however knowledge does? Do you value the theory of everything or how the universe was created over porn. I certainly do not, do you? WHY do you want to get knowledge? You want this because it brings you pleasure, obviously. You can deny it all you want, the only thing anyone is ever looking for in life is personal pleasure Seriously it dosen't, first off if it was pleasurable I would not need to force myself to do it, secondly reading maths books are boring. I mean hellishly boring, if reading maths books was like masturbation then I would be the greatest mathematician ever(Note I don't masturbate I'm just saying that if maths was pleasurable then I would do it every moment of my waking life). The point is this even now I am wasting time because I don't want to study maths. You could argue that I like pain, however this would be stupid. I remeber a statement Ignorance is bliss, however their a second part Enlightenment is hell. You can deny it all you want, the only thing anyone is ever looking for in life is personal pleasure. If I wanted pleasure I would do art start believing in god and then finally take anti depressant and pain killers. However I want truth and knowledge which means no masturbation and reading boring maths books and doing endless problems. First of all, always account for the incompetence of others. Failing to correct this is essentially just incompetence on your part. As you can see I don't care much about grammer and spelling.

[thegnome54]

Seriously it dosen't, first off if it was pleasurable I would not need to force myself to do it, secondly reading maths books are boring. Why do you do it? That's the question. I learn for the pleasure of knowing, perhaps you learn to avoid the displeasure of ignorance? It makes no difference really, we as biological machines do everything for a purpose, and this purpose is, invariably, to gain pleasure and avoid pain.

[wendylove]

Why do you do it? That's the question. It is the only logical course of action. I learn for the pleasure of knowing, perhaps you learn to avoid the displeasure of ignorance? It makes no difference really, we as biological machines do everything for a purpose, and this purpose is, invariably, to gain pleasure and avoid pain. Your basically lumping life into two things pleasure and pain. This is wrong, if we were just animals then I would agree with you, however we are not we can think. Now you could argue that I am displeasured at ignorance and this makes me want knowledge, however knowledge is the only logical course of action one could take. Hypothetically speaking if you were always in pain and you couldn't avoid it then what the point of going for pleasure? as the end of the day your in pain. Humans can act logically so they can break their basic instincts. So people choose to not have children and some not even to have sex? As humans we don't need to act like animals.

[thegnome54]

Your basically lumping life into two things pleasure and pain. This is wrong, if we were just animals then I would agree with you, however we are not we can think. Now you could argue that I am displeasured at ignorance and this makes me want knowledge, however knowledge is the only logical course of action one could take. Hypothetically speaking if you were always in pain and you couldn't avoid it then what the point of going for pleasure? as the end of the day your in pain. Humans can act logically so they can break their basic instincts. So people choose to not have children and some not even to have sex? As humans we don't need to act like animals. We ARE animals. What did you think we were, minerals?! We have instincts just like the rest of the animals, and other animals 'break' their instincts just like we do. I've trained my bird to push people away instead of biting, which is an instinct. What do you mean, knowledge is the 'only logical course of action'? You seem to be saying that doing anything else would be illogical, and thus displeasure you. If you were always in pain, you would commit suicide. It happens.

[wendylove]

What do you mean, knowledge is the 'only logical course of action'? You seem to be saying that doing anything else would be illogical, and thus displeasure you. Yes, illogical is displeasing. Human can act logically and can do logical things like work out complex problems e.t.c. A normal animal cannot. Now we have a greater capacity to logic then any other animal we have also the capacity to work out what this universe is about, i.e. the theory of everything and the big bang e.t.c. Now emotion are not logic, emotion can be logical. See science is logical and maths is logical, so I study them. Art is not as logical as science and other things so I think it is rubbish, plus it is a waste of intelligence. We ARE animals. What did you think we were, minerals?! We have instincts just like the rest of the animals, and other animals 'break' their instincts just like we do. I've trained my bird to push people away instead of biting, which is an instinct. The difference between your bird and you is that your bird did not train itself. You have the capacity to change your instincts on your own, your bird has not got that degree of freedom. Also you can act logically and your smarter then the bird. If you were always in pain, you would commit suicide. It happens. I have a form of headaches nicknamed suicide headaches. Since I live for more then pleasure I will not commit suicide, however I have heard 10% of people with this condition commit suicide, it proberly higher as a dead person can't say they have this. Yeah so I present myself as evidence against you. I am in pain everyday and very tired most of the time, and yet instead of pleasuring myself I do boring maths all day. I really haven't had a pleasurable exprience during the past few weeks or so.

[Tornado Joe]

It all makes sense now. We are merely masturbation machines Ahhh... somewhere up there Salvador Dali is looking down at you and smiling Howe, how the hell could you mention the "Art Matters" and not even bring up the "Cleveland Ingenuity Fest" event which combined both art AND technology together?! We freakin went to the damn thing ourselves!! I think it pretty much sums up how art and technology (Wendy's mathematics and Spock-like logic) come together to create something greater than either might by themselves. Look, there are really only two kinds of "creators" in this world: Artists and Engineers. Think about it, the computer you're on right now is a combination of art and science. The building you're in, seat your sittin in. If you can't see art has no logical or 'useful' purpose other than to make us "feel good" or intrigue us, then you're not using your keen intellectual skills enough to understand it. On a side note - art isn't just about "ooh how pretty" or "oh, that sounds so wonderful". Art has played many roles in our culture that math or structured thinking could not. It can raise contaversy, which leads to thinking, which leads to discussion, which leads to...well, I'll be damned - LEARNING! And yah, sometimes war. Mathematics can teach us plenty about the things around us. But nothing can teach us about ourselves as much as art.

[wendylove]

Art has played many roles in our culture that math or structured thinking could not. It can raise contaversy, which leads to thinking, which leads to discussion, which leads to...well, I'll be damned - LEARNING! Like what? Now I pretty sure someone using logic and thinking would not come to some bad decision. Like someone using logic and then coming to the conclusion to kill innocent people. But doesn't thinking raise issues. If someone came to you and was going to take your house to give to rapist, I'm pretty sure you won't start drawing pictures. The point is this alot of things make you think, what does art do that makes it special, now it comes back to masturbation and oh that pretty. Live eath comes to my mind, I hate bob girldoff so much. Mathematics can teach us plenty about the things around us. But nothing can teach us about ourselves as much as art. This is wrong, scientist can know why you think and why you do things e.t.c. Are minds are just computers and with advancement with biology, neurology and psychology were pretty close to understanding human nature.

[thegnome54]

Are minds are just computers and with advancement with biology, neurology and psychology were pretty close to understanding human nature. Just a minute ago you said we were more than animals because we could 'break our instincts'...?? And we're certainly not close, at all. One thing to notice is that your picture of human nature seems to lack the involvement of art, which has been around since the dawn of man (cave paintings, anyone?)