ISSUE131 【五一互助小组】

为了忘记UID: 2317994

TOPIC: ISSUE131 - "The arts (painting, music, literature, etc.) reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society."
WORDS: 493          TIME: 00:49:53          DATE: 2007-7-6 18:16:56

To be sure, the arts expose certain ideas and impulses of our modern society. However, it is not the only way to reveal. Society has some other ways to disclose itself. Moreover, it is unfair to draw the conclusion that the mention of arts is to reveal the society's ideas and impulses.

Admittedly, the arts influence the society greatly in some places. The musicians, writers, actors and other person working on arts express their own minds to the authentic society though their works, whose minds mostly accord with the mainstream of minds in that times. Even sometimes, the work what the artists do make the great effects of our world. Take the book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for example. It was written by the female writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, and expressed the ideas of anti-slavery which was commonly held in the northern states and damage the benefit of the southern farm owners. It is the book that caused the civil war directly. Consequently, no body can deny the fact that the arts is a way to express the artists themselves as well as the society as a whole.

However, the speaker's statement can not be accepted for two reasons. The first one is that, it is not the only way to disclose the ideas and impulses of the society. That means we can express individual ideas from some other ways. Let us come back to the example above, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" reveal the ideas of freeing the slaves. But not every person who has this idea should write a book or song to get their voice out. More people hold the guns and get into the war fighting for the slaves' freedom. It is also a way to express the ideas of themselves as well as the society. Even the president of America at that time, Abraham Lincoln, supported it and played a great role in the civil wars. After all, it is too absolutely to say that the ideas and impulses of a society will be hidden without arts.

The second reason I can not agree with the speaker is that it is the original purpose of arts to expose the ideas and impulses of a society. Retrospect the history of human, in the primal   society, our forefathers draw painting in stones. There was no concept of society, and the ancestor just draw this painting to record their essential life and express their own mind. Even in the modern society, some artists also soar in their own world and have no more touch with society. Before the speaker draw this conclusion, he or she should think clearly about the root of the arts and its maintain purpose.

There is no double that the arts contribute directly on revealing ideas and impulses of a society. However, it is premature to say the arts is the only way to express the society. And the speaker seem to fail to take into account the basic fact that expressing of society is not the maintain purpose of the arts.