What Is Art Good For

 

Featured image: Kaleidoscope Of Raw Reality: We Are So Small – Northern Lights

Recently, I came across a question in an art magazine that made me pause: What is art good for?

It’s a good question—and it got me thinking. If you really consider it, art isn’t "useful" in the traditional sense. It's often seen as self-indulgent. We don’t need art the way we need food, water, or shelter.

And yet, many people responded to the question with deep conviction.

Imagine our culture without art. It would feel robotic, mechanical, empty. Don’t you think?

Do we need art? Or do we need something we call art? Isn't that the question posed by the film The Matrix? Doesn’t art make things feel real? Doesn’t it also question what we consider real?

Isn’t that the very issue we face today—and one we’ve faced for a very, very long time? Hasn’t this question existed since the beginning of consciousness and our recognition of “reality”?

What is art good for? It’s a huge question, one that can’t be taken lightly. The answer is something we must keep thinking about—and even fighting for.

If the answer is lost within our society, if it disappears from our culture and never reemerges—which could seriously happen in today’s world—it would be unimaginably tragic.

I don’t even want to think about that possibility.

Still, we have to.
We just have to.

Art is good for everything—but perhaps most importantly, it protects our freedom and preserves our free spaces.