Does Art Serve Any Purpose?

I was attracted by the first post of this thread and have read most of the replies. I won't try to give any answer to the original question as it has been answered in the most satisfactory way by St. Luke and others. It seems that OP wants to continue argument for the sake of argument. For your kind information I don't watch much Hollywood movies or movies from other countries (you know others too produce movies). I don't watch much sports. But I don't think I lead a purposeless life. Also the OP seems to treat art in a confined manner. Art and culture does not mean only American culture or European art. Try to read about other culture for example Indian and Chinese and then you'll discover what role art has played in the development of human civilization.

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Originally Posted by prickly_pete

Whoa, nothing has been whittled at all here. Nobody is discussing this seriously - just alot of hot air about "opening minds" and "enriching ones soul". Fluff is all I've heard thus far.

My original question in post #1 - I can't see how this isn't bound up with my other question of why teach the classics.

What purpose does art serve? Creates common experiences that can relayed through a common cultural dialogue. If Shakespeare (I'm just using him as an example of all classics) isn't part of a common cultural experience why bother?

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Troll sighting confirmed.

The man is no troll. He is defending the indefensible but he is no troll. He must deepen his argument certainly, however I cannot see how he can without defeating his purpose. As an old Schoolman once said, Learn everything as you never know what might be of use. It was true then and it is true now.

This has become more a discussion about Shakespeare than it is about curriculum. I'm just using Shakespeare as an example, but really I question the applicability of teaching any of the classics in school.

I mean the facts speak for themselves. The vast majority of people don't read Shakespare at all. The vast majority don't go to the theatre. The vast majority don't want anything to do with books on theory of drama, stage, lighting etc (it might do ya'll some good to note here how reading drama is something quite different than actually experiencing it which, again, just reenforces the reality that this is stuff from an era completely foreign to our own). Shakespeare constitutes absolutely no part of the everyday thinking of the vast majority of people. Just live with it, the interest is absolutely not there. Shakespeare's been marching a slow retreat from English departments for at least the last hundred years (probably due at least in part to the VAST amount of quality literature produced in the last century that inspires more interest and has more applicability) so obviously I'm not the only one who thinks along these same lines. It's plainly acknowledged by most.

I'm sorry but this "cultural heritage" bit has gotten way out of control and seems fundamentally reactionary in nature. If we clung to this "cultural heritage" you all find so sacred we'd still be painting on cavewalls and worshipping statues. Grow up. Things change. Societies change. Cultures change. The fact that Shakespeare is a dead letter isn't hurting anybody - its just the result of natural evolutions (most of which we have no control over) in our society.

Would you be suprised if some primitive tribe in the Amazon rejected Shakespeare too? Of course not, because it's completely foreign to their cultural world - there's no way that they could take something from a drastically different society and apply it to their everyday lives. But somehow for us its different because we have this "cultural heritage" we have to worry about. As if Shakespeare wrote with the audience of some radically different society in mind. It's really absurd.

"History is bunk." That's not bad for an anti-semite, in fact, it is a lesser evil.

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Originally Posted by prickly_pete

Would you be suprised if some primitive tribe in the Amazon rejected Shakespeare too? Of course not, because it's completely foreign to their cultural world - there's no way that they could take something from a drastically different society and apply it to their everyday lives. But somehow for us its different because we have this "cultural heritage" we have to worry about. As if Shakespeare wrote with the audience of some radically different society in mind. It's really absurd.

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The funny thing is that I saw a man with not education, unable to read, in a countryside in the obscure country of the amazons to storytell Chaucer and Chaucer was not even fully published in portuguese in brazil. But of course, classical art has no saying on today and everyone who takes as hot bath needs to know physics...

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

The funny thing is that I saw a man with not education, unable to read, in a countryside in the obscure country of the amazons to storytell Chaucer and Chaucer was not even fully published in portuguese in brazil. But of course, classical art has no saying on today and everyone who takes as hot bath needs to know physics...

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Aren't there a lot of poo jokes in Chaucer?

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

classical art has no saying on today

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Sorry mate. Shoot, even the scholars of art have no access to the cultures that produced the works they're claiming to be interpreting faithfully. It's really ludicris to pretend like we have access to the coneptual world of people that lived 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago. Beyond hair-brained stupid.

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Originally Posted by prickly_pete

Sorry mate. Shoot, even the scholars of art have no access to the cultures that produced the works they're claiming to be interpreting faithfully. It's really ludicris to pretend like we have access to the coneptual world of people that lived 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago. Beyond hair-brained stupid.

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Sorry, mate, but humanity is not limited to the space inside your head.

PP you seem to be permanently stuck in combat mode. Off damned mode!

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Originally Posted by prickly_pete

Shakespeare's been marching a slow retreat from English departments for at least the last hundred years (probably due at least in part to the VAST amount of quality literature produced in the last century that inspires more interest and has more applicability) so obviously I'm not the only one who thinks along these same lines. It's plainly acknowledged by most.

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Repeating the same tired argument that has already been debunked by every member on this thread doesn't magically prove your argument no matter how many times you repeat it and throw a temper tantrum about it.

Where do you have any evidence that Shakespeare has "been marching a slow retreat from English departments for at least the last hundred years?" As an English Major who has attended minimally 3 different colleges, everyone of them offered multiple Shakespeare courses every semester. In fact, I'm pretty confident just about every university's English department offers a Shakespeare course once a semester minimum. So what evidence are you presenting that demonstrates Shakespeare is slowly retreating from English departments besides you just making stuff up?

Well, apparently since you cannot find another member on this forum thus far who agrees with you there can't be a lot of people who are "thinking[ing] along these same lines" and it's clearly not "plainly acknowledged by most."

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

Repeating the same tired argument that has already been debunked by every member on this thread doesn't magically prove your argument no matter how many times you repeat it and throw a temper tantrum about it.

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Whoa player - I'm not mad about anything. Just dissapointed that some folks seem unwilling to listen to a dissenting voice. It is true that Shakespeare is still read, but his prominence in English departments isn't anywhere near what it once was because - as I mentioned before - Shakespeare has to compete with other authors. The college I'm planning on attending is not planning a single Shakespeare course for Fall 2011. I could post the syllabus if you like? Bowdoin - which is right down the road and one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country - offered 23 courses in their English department for Spring 2011 only one of which offered Shakespeare and that was a special interest course confined specifically to the Sonnets. You need me to post that syllabus too?

In most high school's Shakespeare has been phased out almost entirely aside from maybe the token reading of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet that teachers still feel the need to cling to. American literature is far more popular probably, I would guess, because someone came to their senses and realized the massive societal changes that have occured in the last 400 years (you know nothing big, just the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, World War II, emancipation of women) and realized that the needed to switch things up just get students to begin caring again.

I mean, you must be aware that this is an ongoing cultural debate - whether classics or 'great books' should even by taught anymore. What about The Closing of the American Mind? What do you think inspired that work? What about Harold Bloom's ranting? Surely thats a response to some challenge. Roger Scruton? I mean, there's mountains of material by widely respected scholars addressing this same issue we're talking about now so don't act as though questioning the legitimacy of teaching Shakespeare is akin to saying the earth is flat. This has been a heated academic debate for some time now.

When is it really enough though? How long should we continue to hold on to these relics from the past - 1000 years? 5,000 years? In 25,000 years should students be reading Shakespeare?

How long are we going to ignore the avalanche of art that's been produced just within the last 10 years nevermind the last 50 or 100? Why restrict ourselves to material produced 400 years ago by people who lived in radically different societies from our own? I'm no scholar but I know these aren't questions that can be flippantly tossed aside with "We're English - Shakespeare was English - Shakespeare needs to be taught" erat quod demonstradum. As if its obvious.

Grade A trolling.

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Originally Posted by prickly_pete

Whoa player - I'm not mad about anything. Just dissapointed that some folks seem unwilling to listen to a dissenting voice. It is true that Shakespeare is still read, but his prominence in English departments isn't anywhere near what it once was because - as I mentioned before - Shakespeare has to compete with other authors. The college I'm planning on attending is not planning a single Shakespeare course for Fall 2011. I could post the syllabus if you like? Bowdoin - which is right down the road and one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country - offered 23 courses in their English department for Spring 2011 only one of which offered Shakespeare and that was a special interest course confined specifically to the Sonnets. You need me to post that syllabus too?

In most high school's Shakespeare has been phased out almost entirely aside from maybe the token reading of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet that teachers still feel the need to cling to. American literature is far more popular probably, I would guess, because someone came to their senses and realized the massive societal changes that have occured in the last 400 years (you know nothing big, just the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, World War II, emancipation of women) and realized that the needed to switch things up just get students to begin caring again.

I mean, you must be aware that this is an ongoing cultural debate - whether classics or 'great books' should even by taught anymore. What about The Closing of the American Mind? What do you think inspired that work? What about Harold Bloom's ranting? Surely thats a response to some challenge. Roger Scruton? I mean, there's mountains of material by widely respected scholars addressing this same issue we're talking about now so don't act as though questioning the legitimacy of teaching Shakespeare is akin to saying the earth is flat. This has been a heated academic debate for some time now.

When is it really enough though? How long should we continue to hold on to these relics from the past - 1000 years? 5,000 years? In 25,000 years should students be reading Shakespeare?

How long are we going to ignore the avalanche of art that's been produced just within the last 10 years nevermind the last 50 or 100? Why restrict ourselves to material produced 400 years ago by people who lived in radically different societies from our own? I'm no scholar but I know these aren't questions that can be flippantly tossed aside with "We're English - Shakespeare was English - Shakespeare needs to be taught" erat quod demonstradum. As if its obvious.

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Checking out Bowdoin, there is one course on Shakespeare's sonnets and at least two courses that include Shakespeare's works (Intro to Drama and Renaissance Sexuality) for the Spring 2011 semester. I also checked a few of the previous semesters course offerings (not all of them) and they all pretty much had a course on Shakespeare and a couple of broader courses that included Shakespeare's work each semester. The Atheist gave a similar argument when we had a similar debate about the relevancy of the Bible for literature studies. On average there was about one Bible as literature class per a semester at most of the universities I checked. The problem, of course, is try the same thing with any of newer contemporary writers or Chaucer or Virginia Woolf or whomever and most likely there will only be one course also. Does that mean no author is relevant because they only get one course a semester and in some cases those contemporary writers only get one course every two years? Meanwhile, as already noted there is an entire course on Shakespeare's work every semester and other courses that include his work each semester as well, so he is over-represented compared to the rest of them. Both you and the atheist in his previous argument act like if Work X is really that important than there should be 9 courses per a semester offered. None this really speaks to importance or relevance of these works; all this really means is there are only X amount of English majors per a semester and Y amount of instructors to offer courses who don't want to continually teach the same exact course over and over again.

I am not arguing we should restrict ourselves to the last 400 years. On this point I am sympathetic and even in agreement to an extent. I think it's good to read contemporary literature and for it to be taught at universities and in some cases high school. And most universities offer a course or two on contemporary work (although far less than they offer Shakespeare from my experience).

I think you're falsely creating a golden age of Shakespeare's plays in high school to make your point as if once upon time people used to read ALL of Shakespeare's play. When my parents went to school they read about 2 - 3 of Shakespeare's plays in high school (about the same amount most high schoolers read it today).

I'm well aware of the culture war debates. The debate is basically between younger hippy art critics/English majors versus other older generation art critic/English majors. If you look at most English departments course offerings they seem a compromise between both sides. And personally I agree with both sides. We should read more contemporary works (more previously excluded works such as Science Fiction), more people of color, more women writers, but I also think we shouldn't jettison all the great works of the past because newer works build off of them, they are time tested, and they still have plenty to offer us.

prickly_pete is not a troll! Look at the Shakespeare Discussion Group below on this forum and tell me it's not dead. He has a point. I, for one, am willing to hear it.