Hello Folks,
In an article from yesterday's NYTimes, it said that the arts,
cultural activities and sports had been eleminated from the Yonkers
city schools for budgetary reasons.
I began to think about the killer assumptions about the arts that
could imagine such a thing.
Following are some assumptions that I have that is based in my life
experience and training in the arts, education and child development
including my many years of discussion with you folks.
I believe in discussion and the development of the perceptions,
however I think the public administration, the media and half of
society believes along with a parody policeman on a recent silly
sit-com who said: "Tell 'em if they want music, they should go to
church!"
That started me thinking. In church you can hear everything from
Hip-Hop to Palestrina to Ned Rorem and all for free. Last night I
went to a night of opera at the local church all for $10.
Perhaps that is the real reason that America has an 85% attendance in
the one religion that does that. But that is a whole other set of
assumptions. I'll let you just go with these. If you feel like it,
write and let me know what you think.
Ray Evans Harrell
What is the purpose of the Arts?
Fifty Assumptions by Ray Evans Harrell.
First let me say that I assume that all structures are based in the
human body. That we get our intelligence, imagination, and creativity
etc. from the way in which the human body has been developed from
childhood through old age. And as someone getting older I now realize
that Hardwiring does exist and that refusal to develop it or societal
deprivation is the root of most of our problems with intelligent
solutions.
Assumption 1: That being my first assumption that it is from the body.
Assumption 2: I then assume that consciousness is possible and
potential is developable.
Assumption 3: It follows that the tools for that development are
primally located in the perceptions and that the development of the
perceptual hardwiring in the brain has a great deal to do with the
environment.
Assumption 4: My next assumption is that as we get older we can
choose the environment that will create our hardwiring and that wisdom
has a great deal to do with how and what you choose.
Assumption 5: I assume that aesthetics and the arts are the primal
builders of the perceptual instrument through the biological device of
pleasure.
Assumption 6: I assume that all concurrent expertise activities of
the human species flow from the quality of the instrument that has
been developed by perception and the practice of the Arts. You might
say that in the beginning everything is built on the Arts. Eating,
toilet training, walking, sounding, smelling, hearing, talking,
touching, moving, etc.
Assumption 7: I assume that talents (potential) and opportunity
interact at various times and places in the individual's life to
direct the Artistic Hardwiring into either further artistic
development e.g. taste and technique or the development of skills in
the flowering of human endeavor.
Assumption 8: I assume that at certain times in life the brain wiring
becomes more rigid and the likelihood of change becomes more
difficult.
Assumption 9: I assume that perceptual practice in the arts keeps the
mind flexible and slows down the pulse of aging and keeps change more
available.
Assumption 10: I assume that every profession has an artistic side to
it and that side is what does the same thing using other skills. But
the primal skill is based in the arts themselves.
Assumption 11: I assume that the professions of a modern society are
the same to that society as systems in the body.
Assumption 12: I assume that a complete look at the intelligence and
health of the society requires not only artistic thought but also an
examination from the viewpoint of each system.
Assumption 13. I assume that humans cannot exist without other humans
input and that at its heart the primal activity is sexual just as the
perceptual activity is Aesthetic. In short we could say that all
ensemble or team learning has sexual pleasure as the original
motivating factor for the first communication.
Assumption 14: I assume that it is good to go beyond that primal
motivation and find further purposes in human interaction.
Assumption 15: I make the same assumption about the arts.
Assumption 16: I assume that the physical pleasure of sexuality and
the physical pleasure of aesthetic are not the same biological
purposes and therefore are a balancing factor in nature. Friendship
is based in the balance of the senses while procreation is based in
competition for best mate.
Assumption 17: I assume that nature calls up the evolving systems of
the body.
Assumption 18: I assume that group dynamics calls up the evolving
systems of the society based on the systems of the body.
Assumption 19: I assume that the symmetry of parallel structures in
the body are mirrored in the necessity for symmetry in societal
structures as well.
Assumption 20: I assume therefore that all societal structures are
architectural and exist in time and space.
Assumption 21: I assume that we choose to develop societal structures
in the same way that we choose to develop the body. A lot of nature
and unconsciousness and some choice.
Assumption 22: I assume that a mature, intelligent society begins to
take responsibility for the development of its tools and systems.
Assumption 23: I assume that the sustenance and development of the
primal root systems are necessary for the activities of life both
individually and societally.
Assumption 24: I assume that the root systems in American life are
severely dysfunctional.
Assumption 25: I assume that there are social structures in place to
protect that dysfunction based upon cultural pathologies.
Assumption 26: I assume that the balancing of systems in a
symmetrical fashion is desirable and necessary for the return to
health of the American system.
Assumption 27: I assume the necessity of leadership in achieving that
balance.
Assumption 28: I assume that every system in society has both growth
and cycles as well as a beginning and an end.
Assumption 29: I assume that research, exploration, practice and
mastery are necessary to make sure that societies grow symmetrically
and that the growth cycles don't become cancerous.
Assumption 30: I assume that the intelligence gained through the
practice of Music and the Arts are essential to both individual and
societal symmetricallity.
Assumption 31: I assume that it is possible to find a societal
symmetricallity that balances the systems of society.
Assumption 32: I assume that business or trade economics is the
central system of choice of the American culture.
Assumption 33: I assume that America has chosen to have a society of
economic classes rather than an egalitarian society.
Assumption 34: I assume that this choice is more recent than the
founding of the Republic.
Assumption 35: I assume that argument about it is not an artistic
issue but a political one and therefore not relevant to this
discussion of the Arts.
Assumption 36: I assume that the choice was made for the government to
fund the arts and other "not for profits" through subsidy of the
wealthy class (tax exemption).
Assumption 37: I assume that the choice was made because of the
ongoing culture war and not because they wished to completely "social
engineer" the society.
Assumption 38: I assume that the belief that trade economics is the
only engine that can run an economy is erroneus.
Assumption 39: I assume that most jobs in the trade economy are not
ultimately necessary except as a form of "make work" that
redistributes income.
Assumption 40: I assume that is the reason that downsizing doesn't
effect companies negatively but only workers. Saving money but not
loosing product or labor productivity.
Assumption 41: I assume that Artistic jobs that develop intelligence
and perceptions are good for the society.
Assumption 42: I assume that the most complex contemporary artistic
jobs can never exist in the world solely as trade items.
Assumption 43: I assume that the values of society determine the
health of the society.
Assumption 44: I assume that values must always be developed in
negotiation with the society's structures allowing each structure to
do its job and serve the health of the whole society.
Assumption 45: I assume that starving the average artist does nothing
for society or for the creativity of the artist inspite of local
myths.
Assumption 46: I assume that there are several systems at work trying
to serve the primal needs of the Artistic function and that none of
them work very well since the artists are starving and excellence in
art can't cover costs of producing them.
Assumption 47: I assume that this can be solved short of declaring
war.
Assumption 48: I assume that every member of a Florentine Symposium
must have crucial information necessary to the solving of the problem
of the societal dysfunction in the arts.
Assumption 49: I assume that any Interactive Management Team that we
assemble must be world class and capable of facilitating the flow of
knowledge in the search for a solution to the societal dysfunction in
the arts as can be found.
Assumption 50: I assume that there is an answer.
Ray Evans Harrell
--"Ray Evans Harrell" <mcore@nyc.rr.com>
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