We Need the Arts Now More than Ever
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.108
Kurt Vonnegut • Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style
The theater’s rich intellectual inheritance serves as a buffer to society’s recrudescent stupidity. Upholding this legacy seems a more vital role for a critic than operating as a tour guide of commercial entertainments. The survival of our democracy depends on the recovery of our critical thinking skills.
In the past, when I’ve made the case for cri... See more
In the past, when I’ve made the case for cri... See more
Charles McNulty • In defense of criticism: A theater critic asks what good does it do in an upside-down world
No thinking person should be indifferent to our society’s disinvestment in the humanities.53 A society without historical scholarship is like a person without memory: deluded, confused, easily exploited. Philosophy grows out of the recognition that clarity and logic don’t come easily to us and that we’re better off when our thinking is refined and
... See moreSteven Pinker • Enlightenment Now
The role of the arts as the champion for imagination in school can’t be underestimated, however. It is not a disposable add-on; it is vital to the mental health of young people. As the author Philip Pullman puts it, ‘We shouldn’t be wondering whether children need art and music and stories and poetry any more than wondering why plants need water.’
Rob Hopkins • From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want
The reason we’re alive is to express ourselves in the world. And creating art may be the most effective and beautiful method of doing so. Art goes beyond language, beyond lives. It’s a universal way to send messages between each other and through time.
Rick Rubin • The Creative Act: A Way of Being
a crisis of confidence in the relevance of the humanities.