What's More Important: Art or Science?

[Greenday]

And go! It's 2:25am, I'm too tired to post due to studying philosophy all night, so I shall post eventually tomorrow. But don't let that stop you from positing your opinion.

[Flyndaran]

Science feeds people.
Art is pretty.

[MaggieTheCat]

I'm an artist. I make jewelry, and I hope to be able to do it for a living (or at least some extra spending money for my husband and I.) I also used to love to draw and write and have created vast worlds worth of stories and characters.

That being said, I think science is more important.

Why? Because art didn't identify and remove my diseased, stone-filled gall bladder earlier this year and it's not going to help me recover from the UTI I have right now.

[AdminAssistant]

Why does it have to be one is more important than the other? They're both important for different ways and for different reasons.

Art is more than 'pretty'. It feeds the soul and provides social commentary. I realize it's a hard concept for Americans, but we have never had a strong fine arts culture in this country. There's no appreciation for it among the middle and lower classes, which is why the average theatre ticket buyer is a 60-70 year old white upper class woman. I can't speak for visual art or music, but in theatre we are desperately trying to bring in younger audiences.* But it's a struggle. I see it in the attitudes of my Intro students - they don't know and they don't care. They don't like being in a situation where they actually have to turn off their cell phones and unplug from their virtual world to immerse themselves in someplace else.

There's a fascinating book called The Necessity of Theatre by Paul Woodruff, and his argument is that human beings, as a part of their nature, need to watch others and need to be watched by others, and that theatre (in the broad sense of the term) fulfills that need. Example: Why would you spend a lot of money, wait in lines, and sit in a crowded arena to see a concert with crappy audio set-ups when you could stay at home and listen to a perfectly mastered and mixed recording of that same band?

I have to go to a meeting now, but I'll be back - oh, I'll be back.

*Broadway here does not count. That's spectacle-ridden fluff trying really hard to be just like movies so they'll sell lots and lots of tickets and make a jabillion dollars.

[Boozy]

Science gives us life, and art makes it worth living.

[AdminAssistant]

Science gives us life, and art makes it worth living.

Thank you, Boozy, for putting succintly what I was trying to say in my "just-woke-up" fog.

[Flyndaran]

Science gives us life, and art makes it worth living.

Not for all of us. I don't care that much about art. I enjoy life without art for art's sake.

[BroomJockey]

Not for all of us. I don't care that much about art. I enjoy life without art for art's sake.

Ever read a book? Watch a movie? Watch TV? Play a video game? If so, then sorry, you DO enjoy an art form. Paintings and live theatre are far from the only form of art.

[Flyndaran]

Ever read a book? Watch a movie? Watch TV? Play a video game? If so, then sorry, you DO enjoy an art form. Paintings and live theatre are far from the only form of art.

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.

Science itself is artistic then negating the whole discussion.

[Greenday]

I enjoy art. But I think at his point in society, science will take us further than art. Art will not save my ass from H1N1.

[Flyndaran]

I enjoy art. But I think at his point in society, science will take us further than art. Art will not save my ass from H1N1.

Science may take us to the stars for our art to survive past this little ball of wet dirt's lifespan.

[MaggieTheCat]

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.

Science itself is artistic then negating the whole discussion.

Well, isn't writing considered an art? I mean, English and literature majors get Bachelors of Art rather than Bachelors of Science, don't they? And obviously, a book is written, so I do consider that a form of art. Even the other things BJ mentioned, like movies and video games, have scripts that were written, so at least part of those things can be considered art.

[BroomJockey]

So you lump every form of entertainment as art? That seems so inclusive as to be nonsense.

Er, no, but you've just shown your lack of understanding. Leaving alone the scripts/writing part already mentioned, video games require "concept art" well before the first line of programming is coded. Voice actors are used to record dialogue. In movies/television shows, people create props and wardrobe. Acting itself is still artistic, even when not done in a live theatre.

[Boozy]

Flyndaran, Greenday capitalized "Art", so I'm inferring that he means "Arts" in an academic sense. Arts departments of universities include "artsy" stuff like music, art, dance, theatre, and creative writing -- but also history, English, rhetoric, anthropology, sociology, psychology, criminology, and linguistics and languages. Interested in any of those?

[Greenday]

but also history, English, rhetoric, anthropology, sociology, psychology, criminology, and linguistics and languages. Interested in any of those?

I'm going to go ahead and disagree that history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and criminology are arts. Understanding the human mind is science, not art. Film, paintings, drawings, writings...those are art.