Quote:
Originally Posted by PBzeer
After answering the song thread with the oldie, Last Kiss, I got to thinking about how the music of each generation plays a part. Which then had me wondering, does the music reflect the people, or the people the music? Kind of a Chicken or the Egg thing, I know, but it seemed like a nice, harmless topic that wouldn't lead to scathing responses 
Any old way, thought I'd throw the question out there, and see what people have to say. |
The near-instant speed and efficiency with which fine art and craftwork convey POVs is why studying artifacts can tell so much about a given culture.
Hierarchically, the ideas determine the art. (One's sense of esthetics is derived from one ethics. Ethics, in turn, rest on one's metaphysics and epistemology. BTW: the other main branch of thought that's derived from ethics is politics, which is why specific art movements link so well with specific political movements.)
Another interesting fact: Art is a main roadway by which high intellectuals impact culture.
On the whole, the cutting edge artists study higher philosophers and create the next influential movement according to what they've accepted from those studies. By trickling down, the high artists influence everyone in the arts and crafts, all the way "down" to the pop artist and cereal packaging guru.
(Example: note how Western post-Middle Ages painting and sculpture went from the representation of the highest, most heroic ideals, to representing more of the daily element, to sloppy and blurred images, to non-representational works, to no standards at all (the same can be said of the other fine arts -- literature and music -- but it's far easier to "see" things in the visual arts context.) That is the exact progression our politics have taken. Y? Our ethics went that way. Y? Because our metaphysics and epistemology went that way. Y? Because when it mattered, we didn't have an unbridled, all-the-way-down-to-the-axioms defense of the core ideas that made the West the West, leading to the collapse of the core ideas responsible for the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Our core ideas determine EVERYTHING we are and do -- whether we know it or not. And, for the most part, those ideas are determined by academia and the intelligentsia -- whether we like it or not. Want to fix the world? Fix education, ie, return all power to the parents.)
To end on something less dense: As I'm sure most members know, there is an answer to the chicken-egg thing, but it depends on whether you believe in creationism or evolution. If we accept the former, the chicken had to come first; if we accept the latter, then the egg came first.