In this article I want to argue about the role of the art-if it has one- in the society, specifically I will talk about literature, wich is my field of knowledge. In the Voice platform prompts for this week, Lucas Taylor Layden did the following affirmation: “Art influences society by changing opinions, instilling values, and chronicling humanity's visual history. How do you believe art has impacted the cultural conversation in society?”. In general terms we would agree with this, because is the common sense about art, but let´s dig a little bit in this. Is the art and literature in direct connection with society? Is there any function in the society wich is intrinsic to the art? Why people spend their time to consume pieces of art? Is it for the esthetic pleasure, or for changing the the world changing themselves first?
Literature and religion
Inside the art and literature theory, exists a critical debate around the nature of art and its function in the real world. In different moments of History, art was used as a tool to convince people about things. With the conceptualization of things, humans can imagine other realities, and can use that reality in their benefit -or not. The tribes and civilizations wich used this in a proper way progress and survive more time. When the needs of humans are fully covered, people tend to think about more abstract topics and concepts, with the free time, that humans achieve after agriculture and human organization grows the manifestation of arts and philosophy.
In the early beginning, art was used to explain the mistic experience of life, gods and dead. When we saw for example, the Greek culture, we realized that the poets-like Homero, Ovidio, and many more- were the ones that wrotes and collected the ideas of the people about gods. In other way, they wrote the religion. In this moment of the history of literature, literature has a real important value in society because created and tried to explain the things that were impossible to explain by racionalism or the science. Heroes was condem to their predestination and they challenge it they will have serious problems. In this Greek literature and culture we can observe the birth of a modern hero, wich is Odiseo, who will differenciate itself with the traditional classic hero. What Odiseo has was its own racionalism, and superior intelligent wich helped him to overcome the problems. This is a real important symbolism and we can think analogically with the whole Greek art. The art, and greek literature, started its secularization with Odiseo, the first modern hero of literature. And with that a functions of literature would change in society.
The Humanism an step towards freedom
In the western world durign all the middle age, literature was related to the influence of the catolic church and in power of their priests. In Firence, Italy, things start to change in the XV century. Petrarca, the father of the humanism started to think that maybe the literature and literature would be think as an art that allow humans to experience the pleasure of love, thinks and the reflection. The church and others tough that Petrarca was going a little bit further of the convenience of catholic religion, but they couldn´t stop the movement of thinkers wich had been started. Inside the humanism, intelectuals of Firenze though that dialogue and debates where the milestone of the grow of a society-yes, similar to the principles of Voice- , this movement begins and manifest itself in all the disciplines of arts: sculture, painting, architecture, music and many more.
With the European Firenze humanism, the ideas about the function of literature had been started to change. Literature allowed writters from differents cultures and parts of the world, to dialogue and exchange ideas. This ideas and dialogues builded different behaviors and mindsets in people ideas, going further than catholic roman religion, wich was ruling all Europe. In this way, literature could be tough as a internet today, wich allowed people from different locations, to read about others ideas and cultures. So, culture starts to unites more. An important event in this first extension of the culture was the birth of the printing, wich allows scalability in literature and text.
And Beyond
Literature started its path towards the secularization and the usability of the books as a platform where writters spread different cultures and ideas around the world. As we said, books were a platform where the debates that the mainstream wanted to shade. What if Voice with its blockchain based technology give us again the possibility to rebirth the dreams of the Humanists of Firenze? Are you prepared to rebuild the milestones and the confidence of the social debate trough Social Media?
Exciting times are waiting for us, in the near future. Let´s begin the Renaissance of the Social Media debate.
Ignacio Arreses.-
Disclaimer: The photos was taken from https://unsplash.com/s/photos/printing-machine, free hd photos.