Previous Post Stolen from arcana_j. I can't find anything in this speech that I disagree with.

An interesting lecture. Personally, I think the point is more that public education devalues creativity rather than kills it, but that might just be my interpretation. As a poster boy for the "what are you going to do with *that* degree?" set, I would still say that there's a great deal of value to be had from math and literature, and that society as a whole devalues those more than they should... but yes, I do sigh heavily when I hear the usual bit about removing art and music programs from schools to make sure they focus all of their time on getting kids up to the "no child left behind" standards.

On a side note, I have noticed that hierarchy within the arts that he mentions here. It seems to me that the more one mixes the "pure" arts, the lower it ranks on the totem pole, so to speak:

The fine arts, literature and music are all "pure" art and highly respected. Combine artwork with literature and now it's slightly less so... it's a picture book. The more pictures, the less respected it becomes.

A play requires the written word... making it less respected than the word alone. Make it a musical, and it's even less respected. (Of note: Opera perhaps escapes this trap, but then it's nearly a concert with costumes on... the lines are almost all sung, rather than simply acted...) Dance requires music, so it is a bit less pure than a concert, but alone (ballet) it is far more respected than singing and dancing (and acting.) A movie requires photography, in addition to the rest of the arts above, and is often seen as less than a live stage version of the same material... and so on and so forth.

Of course, there's still plenty of room for hierarchy withing a realm of pure art itself. I listened to many professors in art school tell me why sculpture or painting was the one "true" art. Print-making? Design? Egads, those were almost "crafts". One thing both the painters and the sculptors agreed on: Drawing wasn't an art itself, it was just what you did before you got started on the actual art piece. Kind of like how a blueprint wasn't nearly a house.

I got my concentration in drawing anyway. And hey... I actually got a job with it. Go figure.