(The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, built during the worst famine in Japanese history.)
In a world with hunger, war, and great inequalities, although I live a simple life as a student, I do so within the richest societies of the world: the US, Japan, and Germany. I have the luxury of traveling to other countries, and I have rarely chosen to go to countries less privileged than my own. One may call this socio-economic – even a form of nationalistic – discrimination, but I will openly admit my own weakness when faced with other people’s suffering. I want to help, but know not how.
And then, there is what I do. I spend all my time pursuing the most luxurious pastimes: education and art. Both of these are only practicable when all other needs are satisfied, but they do satisfy the spirit like no other activity. Some artists and many scholars talk about the internal drive that governs their activities in art and research. I would say this drive is more fundamental than some basic needs, but why is that so? That’s what I would like to think about here, but of the two, education is perhaps more easily justified as moral. So, I would like to focus on the question: How can art be justified?
Many would say art is not justified. A criminal’s interests in literature and art even now are presented in courtrooms to condemn the criminal’s moral capacity. So it may be said that art makes evil inner desires apparent. Certainly I agree with that, and in that sense art is an indulgence, but in the act of engaging in art in whatever form, those inner desires are externalized for inspection. The artist and the audience both can then draw their own moral judgment of the situation presented artistically. Therefore, a person’s preference in art may show the challenges that person faces, but not that person’s level of moral judgment. So, art is a tool for developing moral judgment.
However, art is still a luxury. Read the rest of this entry »
Read the rest of this entry »
