High Arts Importance in the World

Pablo Picasso, a famous painter, sculptor, and poet, declared, The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls (Sherzai). Art gives people a reason to question society and look at the complexities of life. Life is boring and unvalued without craftsmanship. Art, whether it is music, drawing, or painting, gives people a way to express what they are really feeling and gives people an outlet from their daily life. In Aldous Huxleys book, Brave New World, art is banned and destroyed. No one is allowed to read, see, or have any contact with any form of art. ""Without literature, people will never think and learn of course they will live in a stable society where nothing will ever change, but people pay the price of creativity and the ability to think"" (Gehlhaus). The leaders in Brave New World suggest that ""youve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art""(Huxley 220). Huxley depicts the true nature of man. Man would rather be happy than learn and grow as a person. In todays world, art teaches and explains values and when art is sacrificed in Brave New World, its people lose the valuable teachings and growth it brings.

In fact, high art should not be sacrificed because art is filled with values and teachings that man can always learn from. For example, it is through art that human beings have found the real meaning of beauty and are able to make it a reality in their lives as well(Sherzai). Without art, humans have no idea what true beauty is because they would have no reference of true beauty. There would not be no images or relations of the amazing wonders art can bring. Subsequently, high arts impact on humans cause the expansion of ideas and creativity. Nobody wants to live in a world where everything is boring and unexciting. If it is difficult to live without science, living without art would be tasteless and colorless (Sherzai). In Brave New World, it is exactly that, tasteless and colorless. The citizens live their lives day to day doing nothing but what they have always done; nothing is different and nothing makes them think. If they very start to question why, they just use soma, a hallucinogen that helps people escape from troubling times, to get rid of those thoughts. Art not only has made life interesting and colorful but arts have enriched the human culture, influenced their way of living and even their thinking (Sherzai). Humans are not dolls to be manipulated by whoever and whenever. They have their own thought, opinions, and ideas. Art gives them a way to express those ideas but it also provides people with the opportunity to learn about those different ideas or opinions. If everyone is only fed one concept or belief then that is all they are going to believe, but if everyone is fed a multitude of diverse beliefs then they will have the option of what they want to believe in. High art gives that option to be different and explore various ideas. That is why the leaders in Brave New World banned all high art; they did not want contrasting ideas than their own floating around the world. Moreover, high art should not be sacrificed because of the multitude of positive impacts it has on human beings.

In particular, high art needs to be valued because of the valuable growth it brings. Humans are very conditioned to live life for money. They go to school so they can earn a good job to make lots of money for their future. Humans do not stop to smell the roses and see the beauty of the world. They have a one track mind and do not lift their foot off the gas pedal, but art can stop the constant self-centered life. Art can teach us how to go into life with the ability to see the beauty of everything in the natural world (Unknown). With high art, not only will people stop their one track minds but they will be able to appreciate the beauty in life. Also, Art teaches you how to see the world in your own imagination (Unknown). It is one thing to see the world, but it is another to see it through ones own lense. Everyone has different interpretations of the world that helps them grow as a person. If every person thought the same way, this world would be very boring and unattractive. One thing that makes this world amazing and beautiful is the diversity and uniqueness it is filled with, and that is all thanks to high art and its valuable teachings.

High art deserves to be valued and taught. It not only impacts human perspective but the way they live their lives. Humans can easily get sidetracked by how important science and math are but if art is not taught, humans will not get the opportunity to express themselves in diverse ways. In Brave New World, the world leaders were only focused on math and science. They did not care about any high art or anything that creates different answers than their own. Since their primary focus was on science, people turned into robots. They only followed one schedule everyday, when something was difficult they would take soma, and everyone thought and felt the same way. After all, what people care the most about reflects who they are. Since, art searches beauty, finds it, and brings it to human life (Sherzai), there is no real question as to why there was no beauty in their world. They had nothing to bring in beauty to their world; they were forced to live in a bland and boring world. For example:

Take the collective memory from our museums; remove the bands from our schools and choirs from our communities; lose the empathetic plays and dance from our theatres or the books from our libraries; expunge our festivals, literature and paintings, and youre left with a society bereft of a national conversation...about its identity or anything else. (Bazalgette)

Arts Council chief Peter Bazalgette just gave the perfect picture of what an art free world looks like. No music, books, paintings, nothing that would give a society its culture. High art has more of an impact on daily life than one would expect. Every which way has something influenced by art. High art not only gives people a voice but it gives them culture and meaning to their lives. When high art is left behind, everything would change and life as one knows it would be different. Art is not just important because of the beauty it brings, but the identity it delivers.

In Brave New World, Huxley emphasizes that in order for a utopian society to achieve a state of stability, loss of individuality, and the undoing of Mother Nature must occur. Successfully engineering these conditions produces a world where people are finally living happily ever after, but at a great cost(Gehlhaus). Those great costs are losing anything that causes people to be different; high art, religion, and any unrelatable books were the first to go. They did not care nor see the impact they were causing by banning the arts. They lost all sense of beauty, free thought, imagination, and different styles of thinking. In their world state motto, they endorse community, identity, and stability but they have no sense of identity if everyone is the same. Even though their world is fictional, it still plays a prominent role today. It shows what will happen if high art is left behind and what will come of it. If art ends up being left behind, the world will become unbeautiful, colorless, unimaginative, uncreative, and robotic in days to come.

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