*curtsies* So, I really, REALLY don't want to offend anyone, Duke, but a question has been bothering me for a really long time and I was afraid to ask it because I didn't want to piss off anyone and since you're really eloquent and knowledgeable, I thought I'd ask you. So here it goes: you always say that arts and sciences are equally important, but how can analysing Chaucer or ecopoetics or anything similar compare to biomedicine or engineering in improving human lives? I'm genuinely curious!
*Curtsies* All right. Let me tell you a story:Â
When I lived in London, I shared a flat with a guy who was 26 years old, getting his PhD in theoretical physics. Letâs call him Ron. Ron could not for the life of him figure out why I was wasting my time with an MA in Shakespeare studies or why my chosen method of providing for myself was writing fiction. Furthermore, it was utterly beyond him why I should take offense to someone whose field literally has the word âtheoreticalâ in the title ridiculing the practical inefficacy of art. My pointing out that he spent his free time listening to music, watching television, and sketching famous sculptures in his notebook somehow didnât convince him that art is a necessary part of a healthy human existence.Â
Three other things that happened with Ron:Â
I came home late one night and he asked where Iâd been. When I told him Iâd been at a friendâs flat for a Hanukkah celebration, he said, âWhatâs Hanukkah?â I thought he was joking. He was not.
A few weeks later, I came downstairs holding a book. He asked what I was reading and when I said, âJohn Keats,â he (and the three other science grad students in the room) did not know who that was. This would be like me not knowing who Thomas Edison is.
One night we got into an argument about the issue of gay marriage, and at one point he actually said, âIt doesnât affect me so I donât see why I should care about it.â
Now: If Ron had ever read Number the Stars, or heard Ode to a Nightingale, or been to a performance of The Laramie Project, do you think he ever would have asked any of these questions?Â
Obviously this is an extreme example. This guy was amazingly ignorant, but he was also the walking embodiment of the questions youâre asking. What does art matter compared with something like science, that saves peopleâs lives? Hereâs the thing: Thereâs a flaw in the question, because art saves lives, too. Maybe not in the same âEureka, weâve cured cancer!â kind of way, but that doesnât make it any less important. Sometimes the impact of art is relatively small, even invisible to the naked eye. For example: as a young teenager I was (no exaggeration) suicidally unhappy. Learning to write is what kept me (literally and figuratively) off the ledge. But I was one nameless teenager; in the greater scheme of things, who cares? Fair enough. Letâs talk big picture. Letâs talk about George Orwell. George Orwell wrote books, the two most famous of which are Animal Farm and 1984. You probably read at least one of those in high school. Why do these books matter? Because theyâre cautionary tales about limiting the power of oppressive governments, and their influence is so pervasive that the term âBig Brother,â which refers to the omniscient government agency which watches its citizensâ every move in 1984, has become common parlance to refer to any abuse of power and invasion of privacy by a governmental body. Another interesting fact, and the reason I chose this example: sales of 1984 fucking skyrocketed in 2017, Donald Trumpâs first year in office. Why? Well, people are terrified. People are re-reading that cautionary tale, looking for the warning signs.Â
Art, as Shakespeare taught us, âholds a mirror up to nature.â Art is a form of self-examination. Art forces us to confront our own mortality. (Consider Hamlet. Consider Dylan Thomas.) Art forces us to confront inequality. (Consider Oliver Twist. Consider Audre Lorde. Consider A Raisin in the Sun. Consider Greta Gerwig getting snubbed at the Golden Globes.) Art forces us to confront our own power structures. (Consider Fahrenheit 451. Consider âWe Shall Overcome.â Consider All the Presidentâs Men. Consider âCat Person.â) Art reminds us of our own history, and keeps us from repeating the same tragic mistakes. (Consider The Things They Carried. Consider Schindlerâs List. Consider Hamilton.) Art forces us to make sense of ourselves. (Consider Fun House. Consider Growing Up Absurd.) Art forces us to stop and ask not just whether we can do something but whether we should. (Consider Brave New World. Consider Catâs Cradle.) Youâre curious about ecopoetics? The whole point is to call attention to human impact on the environment. Some of our scientific advances are poisoning our planet, and the ecopoetics of people like the Beats and the popular musicians of the 20th century led to greater environmental awareness and the first Earth Day in 1970 . Art inspires changeâpolitical, social, environmental, you name it. Moreover, art encourages empathy. Without books and movies and music, we would all be stumbling around like Ron, completely ignorant of every other culture, every social, political, or historical experience except our own. Since we have such faith in science: science has proved that art makes us better people. Science has proved that people who read fiction not only improve their own mental health but become proportionally more empathetic. (Really. I wrote an article about this when I was working for a health and wellness magazine in 2012.) If you want a more specific example: science has proved that kids who read Harry Potter growing up are less bigoted. (Hereâs an article from Scientific American, so you donât have to take my word for it.) That is a big fucking deal. Increased empathy can make a life-or-death difference for marginalized people.
But the Defense of Arts and Humanities is about more than empirical data, precisely because you canât quantify it, unlike a scientific experiment. Art isâin my opinionâliterally what makes life worth living. What the fuck is the point of being healthier and living longer and doing all those wonderful things science enables us to do if we donât have Michelangeloâs David or Rimbaudâs poetry or the Taj Mahal or Cirque de Soleil or fucking Jimi Hendrix playing âAll Along the Watchtowerâ to remind us how fucking amazing it is to be alive and to be human despite all the terrible shit in this world? Art doesnât just âimprove human lives.â Art makes human life bearable.
I hope this answers your question.Â
To it I would like to add: Please remember that just because you donât see the value in something doesnât mean it is not valuable. Please remember that the importance of science does not negate or diminish the importance of the arts, despite what every Republican politician would like you to believe. And above all, please remember that artists are every bit as serious about what they do as astronomers and mathematicians and doctors, and what they do is every bit as vital to humanity, if in a different way. Belittling their work by questioning its importance, or relegating it to a category of lesser endeavors because it isnât going to cure a disease, or even just making jokes about how poor theyâre going to be when they graduate is insensitive, ignorant, humiliating, and, yes, offensive. And believe me: theyâve heard it before. They donât need to hear it again. We know exactly how frivolous and childish and idealistic and unimportant everyone thinks we are. Working in the arts is a constant battle against the prevailing idea that what you do is useless. But itâs bad enough that the government is doing its best to sacrifice all arts and humanities on the altar of STEMâwe donât need to be reminded on a regular basis that ordinary people think our work is a waste of time and money, too.Â
Artists are exhausted. Theyâre sick and tired of being made to justify their work and prove the validity of what they do. Nobody else in the world is made to do that the way artists are. Thatâs why these questions upset them. Thatâs why it exasperates me. I have to answer some version of this question every goddamn day, and I am so, so tired. But Iâve taken the effort to answer it here, again, in the hopes that maybe a couple fewer people will ask it in the future. But even if youâre not convinced by everything Iâve just said, please try to find some of that empathy, and just keep it to yourself.Â
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