ISSUE190 求拍~

夏の末UID: 2603892

ISSUE 190

As long as people in a society are hungry or out of work or lack the basic skills needed to survive, the use of public resources to support the arts is inappropriate--and, perhaps, even cruel--when one considers all the potential uses of such money.

There is no denying that material life should take precedence over spiritual life, and people must firstly satisfy their physiological needs in order to pursue higher level’s life. However, society should take citizens from various social strata into consideration, and the relatively rich people need to pursue spiritual life, which include arts. Besides, the development of art can benefit the whole economics, this in turn can help society better resolve the problems of poverty and unemployment. In addition, arts also serve as a spiritual pursuit which should not be abandoned even in adverse times.

Obviously, poor people who are unable to eat one’s fill or take a stable job would care little about the music, painting or poems, and resolving basic living problems should on top of a society’s proprieties. According to the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of human needs, the lowest level is related to the physiological needs, whose realization is the foundation upon which personal growth and the accomplishment of higher level’s human needs can be established. It should be realized that the allocation of resource to support people’s basic survival needs is the most important ingredient to the recipe of society success because it guarantees the human living rights and societal equity.

While I concede that the allocation of social resources should center on people’s basic living, it cannot be ignored that compared to some poor people, there are relatively rich people whose needs have improved from material level to spiritual experience. The job of society is not only meeting the basic living needs but also satisfying the higher spiritual pursuits. While some people may maintain that it is cruel to appropriate money into establishing arts course to meet the requirements of some relatively rich people when there are still poor people struggling to live their life. But rich people are also citizens of a society and through their process of getting rich they also make great contributions to the society. Merely by guaranteeing people’s basic living is far from security of a successful society because the accomplishments of a society are reflected in many respects. It should be realized that hunger, unemployment and other living problems always exist, even in the most developed countries. Thus blindly postponing investing in arts until all people in the world have resolved the basic living problems will end up in accomplishing nothing. In addition, the investment in arts can in fact bring in rewards and foster the development of economics as a whole. With stronger economic ability, society can better resolve people’s living problems. Therefore society should strike a balance between different needs and interests of various social levels in order to maintain social progress and harmony.

In fact, arts are by no means confined to only rich people, and there is an illusion that art is nothing more than luxurious decoration, leisurely enjoyment or other things that are useless or unproductive. But the truth is that arts are motivated, they equip people with inner strength and power and provide necessary impetus for people to pursue happiness, especially in adverse conditions. Music, painting, poems, films and other art forms can all serve to rich people’s psychological world and transform them into brave, strong and optimistic people who can create their destiny and live a better life. Art is also a source of pleasure and relaxation which can release people from the stress of life. The world famous comedic actor Charlie Chaplin, for example, brought great happiness to the world’s audience in his silent film eras, but behind his funny performance lies in a misery story about his early life. The desperate poverty profoundly influenced his characters, but through the pursuit of arts, he manifests himself an inner conviction and determination, which lead him to gigantic success. Arts provide eternal spiritual strength of human beings and strong inner power to overcome external obstacles.

In conclusion, resolving the basic living problems should come first but people should never stop the step to pursuing arts even in the hard times since arts serve to rich people’s inner world and encourage people to work hard to create better life. Society should strike a balance in their policy and practice when allocating social resources.