Artists are considered dreamers, idealists and romantics, but rarely are they considered intellectuals, hard-workers or pragmatists. And, more generally, dreaming is seen as akin to dwelling in nostalgia, and idealism to false hope. Romanticism is illogical. Art, one may conclude, is about lingering in a world of the past — taking one’s time to stop in nature and write a poem, capturing a landscape slowly with oil paints, playing a slow piano tune in a salon. Due to the ongoing technological boom, today everything is all about maximizing efficiency. No one has time for art anymore.
I began thinking about the devaluation of art when I came across Vinod Khosla’s widely shared and fairly controversial blog post, “Is Majoring in Liberal Arts a Mistake for Students?” He argues that the arts and humanities are outdated; colleges should move towards a liberal sciences degree instead of a liberal arts degree. After reading the piece, I contemplated what it meant for me. I spent my childhood dancing, drawing and playing the piano, and I am currently considering double majoring in two humanities fields. Two beliefs seem to be responsible for the lack of appreciation for art — firstly, that art and the humanities are nothing but emotions and the expression of feelings, and secondly, that such emotions are somehow unproductive or devoid of value.
Art allows us to step back from a world in which everything has to have monetary or productive value. Watching a really good movie, hearing an impressive violin concerto or enjoying a modern dance performance has the power to move one to tears, feeling a heightened sense of emotion. To this argument, a friend told me, “But why do you want to make yourself feel sad? What’s the point?” It’s not necessarily about feeling sad. Allowing oneself to be moved by a performance or a piece of art is to let oneself partake in a shared experience. Art transcends cultural, economic and other barriers between people. It is a feat to be able to produce something powerful enough to bring together people and enhance our ability to empathize with one another. To say that the liberal arts or the arts are a mistake for student is to say that the ability to move people in this way is unimportant, perhaps even easy.
The thought process behind artistic creativity can also be applied to the sciences. In J. Bradford Hipps’ May 21 New York Times article, “To Write Better Code, Read Virginia Woolf,” he asserts the increasing prioritization of science, tecnology, engineering and math — otherwise collectively known as STEM — over the humanities. He continues, “Software powers the world, ergo, the only rational education is one built on STEM.” The article disputes this widely held belief by providing examples of non-STEM majors — including the author himself — who have achieved success in STEM by applying their experience and ability to think like a humanities major. Even in STEM careers, it is important to look towards the humanities because they break the pattern of STEM groupthink and set a precedent for creativity and innovation.
But while many think creativity is just an outpour of natural imagination, the arts and humanities are difficult fields that warrant just as much merit as STEM. The reality is, while creating powerful art is valuable, it is also grueling and often requires a shutdown of emotion. For example, a poet who merely expresses one’s own unfiltered feelings may produce poetry that seems like a middle school student’s journal entries. To produce “good” poetry, sometimes one has to take a step back and consider theory and mechanics — such as, what metaphors will allow me to portray a particular mood? What word will best portray a particular sound? Similarly, Beethoven’s extremely powerful “Symphony No. 5” is not just an explosion of sound; the chord progressions, melodies and dynamics put together are a product of almost scientific theory.
In his blog post, Khosla claims that humanities people are subject to “emotion and biases-based distortions.” It is actually quite the opposite. While it is true that a pianist must evoke feeling and literature enthusiasts must be able to empathize with characters, emotion like this is productive because it may help to develop sensitivity and compassion, both of which are important human qualities. Moreover, it is also true that the humanities and fine arts are far from unanalytical and undisciplined. Like many sciences, literature and music, just to name a few, are grounded in theory. Playing the piano involves much technique and, in fact, often first requires the shutting off of emotions. The subtitle of Khosla’s post reads, “Critical thinking and the sciences first — humanities later.” But who’s to say that arts and humanities do not require critical thinking and hard work? Surely, applying Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection to a literary text like Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” or using knowledge of jazz harmonies and chord structures to compose a piece require critical thinking — applying theoretical concepts to practice, interpreting language and sound, and creating something from essentially nothing. Non-STEM disciplines may seem like all fun and games, being both effortless and expressive, but I know from sitting hours on end at a piano that art is not as soft as people think it is. To achieve the ability to move people with art, it is necessary to spend long, rather dull hours eliminating technical difficulties to allow the music to ‘speak.’ It can be a completely unexpressive process.
Khosla writes, “Though Jane Austen and Shakespeare might be important, they are far less important than many other things that are more relevant to make an intelligent, continuously learning citizen, and a more adaptable human being in our increasingly more complex, diverse and dynamic world.” This is far from the truth. An audience to a performance or a reader of a text might only see the feelings or ideas conveyed, but the creator of the artwork or text must, to some degree, be methodical and apply theory and technique in order to produce the desired effects. Instead of discounting the work of artists, we should acknowledge the difficulty of being an artist and appreciate all they do, much the same way we appreciate the work of innovative scientists.
