On April 8th (today) 1973 (not today), Pablo Picasso died at age 91. Pablo Picasso was a brilliant, obviously creative man. It is a shame that such amazing talent and ingenuity would be put toward something that brings society no where. Although it has proved to stimulate the brain in certain, potentially positive ways, art is a senseless pastime much like sports (except American Baseball, which is awesome). Both art and sports allow the artist/player a way of expressing their inner pain as well as providing the art critic/sports fan a pastime of their own. However, in the modern world (basically any time in the past 800 years), science has dominated over the squabble between art and truth. Ever since the human brain evolved past fascination with colors (about the age of 7 months for most people, but as my last post showed, it can be longer for the more aggressive), art has become less and less important in modern-day life. The world today is driven by science and those who don’t learn this will be left behind. The perfect example of how art is polluting the genius of science is my English teacher. In an attempt to not completely destroy this teachers integrity, she will simply be known as L.
While sitting in class one day, some students were discussing the popular yet completely inaccurate film, The Core. This film captures the adventure in a journey to “fix” the center of the Earth, which has stopped spinning. (No no, not really, this is just a movie. I know this is hard for you hard-core art fans to grasp, but sometimes people like to pretend about scientific disasters. I will put it in art words, “flat Earth no broken.”) Back to the subject at hand, the students were discussing this movie when L overheard the conversation.
“What is this film about?” L asked.
“Well, the center of the Earth stops spinning and people are trying to save it,” the class responds.
“WHAT!!! How completely inaccurate!” L shouts (up to this point, the teacher was correct). “If the center of the Earth stopped spinning, people would be floating away because the Earth’s magnetic field would be messed up…” L said to a class who’s jaws had hit the floor. The sad part was, L was actually proud of herself that she had made such a “scientifically accurate” exclamation. Now, before you start laughing yourself into a coma, you have to remember that this is an English teacher, and not the good kind either. There are many English teachers out there who study novels and how they affect the real world (such as my uncle) however, the artsie-fartsie English teachers like L are just plain Dorian (If you watch Scrubs you will get that). These teachers are the same ones who claim that they have been taught to see the aura of energy coming off a person and claims that they can predict a persons’ strengths and weaknesses based on the color of this aura (which L has claimed, by the way).
Now I don’t want people to think that artists are completely worthless because the truth is quite the contrary. Most artists have excellent brains, they just aren’t being put towards a use that will move society in a positive direction. It is always sad to see a person who has waited so much of their life on art that they have missed key scientific developments over the past, oh, I don’t know, 792 years? When people reach adult age and don’t even know such trivial scientific truths like people are held to the Earth by gravity, NOT magnets, it makes those who do understand science clinch. If those people who waist so much time on art would just apply their imagination to physics (like Einstein did), the world could become a magnificent place to live.
This is not meant to be a slam against art. I myself enjoy art very much. I enjoy spending my spare time looking at art and traveling to museums. However, art, although cultural, does not move society towards a better life.
