Lately, I've been thinking a lot about science and art. Someone once asked me which I thought more important: a great artistic achievement, such as modernism, or a scientific development such as penicillin.
I found this to be an unfair question. Science and art are each important to society in their own way. What would our world be like without art? There would be no paintings on the walls, no movies, no sculpture on the street. Art gives us clues about the cultures that came before us. And without science, there would be no medicine, no dishwashers, or cars.
I'm tempted to say science and art are equally important, but I'm not sure. Let's not compare modernism to penicillin.
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2 comments:
The more I become engaged with the technology that science has created - the more I long for the inspiration that comes in both creating art and being touched by it. There is something very human about art. Whereas with technology it becomes a cold way to distance humankind from its soul. How much time does technology end up wasting? Just look at You Tube to see the "outlets" and the "art" people are creating with all this extra "time" technology creates. Westernized over-indulgence of technology creates too many problems in our society and highlights the over-luxurious lifestyle we live and our inability to know what to do with it beyond consumption and self-depreciation. I'm all for pencillin - but I'd rather science inspire the way that art can and should - to touch the human soul. If it's not going to do that - there's not much point in having the medicine What's life without a soul?
You raise some interesting philosophical points.
Can one be distanced from his or her soul? What is art? Can art have an Internet presence, say on YouTube? And science has inspired art, just read Ian MacEwan's Child in Time. However, science may not be inspiring to everyone.
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