Culture Vulture: The War Between Us

I meant to write a post on this ages ago but never got around to it because... well, because of reasons. But I saw this Facebook post from my friend and former flute instructor [Mickie] and felt that I should definitely get around to writing this:

Let me give the back story on this: last year, [Mickie] lost her job at the local middle school she'd been working at since I'd first met her (and long before that too). Despite tenure, despite her obvious skill and talent, she lost her job along with my high school band teacher and choir directors. Aside from hating to see such talented people unfairly lose their jobs and having some of the strongest bonds to my hometown cut through, it was another warning sign of what's happening to music programs in the US. One hidden blessing from my failed audition to the School of Music at my university is that I don't have to worry about the difficulties of finding a job in that field, which are scarce and far between, even for people with a lot of experience.

But fortunately for [Mickie], she was able to find another job at a middle school in a nearby town. Sadly, she also lost this job this year due to, what else, budget issues and staff cutbacks. Because the fine arts are "expensive" and reap less benefits to a school district than, say, football, fine arts programs are the first to go.

Also, articles like this don't help. As if "determined by science" could mean anything here.

I hate it when people play the "art vs. science" card. They've been designed to be opposites for ages, even though they got together like peanut butter and Nutella (this is the best thing on the planet. Trust me). Art can't function without science and science can't function without art. Need proof of this? Take a look at your common household plant. Aesthetically, they've very pleasing; artists have been painting still lifes of flowers and plants for many a century. But plants are also scientifically brilliant, with their photosynthesis and fertilization structure. And did you know they can get fevers? (I learned that from a Snapple cap). Point is, there is no reason for anyone to argue that art and science don't work together.

But somewhere, somehow, the philosophy behind these two fields found themselves apposed and now we're in a war between the two of them, staking claims between what can be known and what can't, what is real and what isn't, what can be created and what can't. Really, I think it's all a communication issue. Because I mean, look at this:

http://education.ezinemark.com/most-amazing-science-images-of-2010-77369ad98736.html

This is the gene map of a plant called Arabidopsis. Sweet, right?

Okay, okay, so it's easy to find art in science. But what about science in art? Harder, admittedly, because certain kinds of science have tried to firmly drawn the line between what is actual science and what is... well, not. This was something my research methods class really shoved down our throats, which I think is fascinating considering my favorite parts of psychology are admittedly very unscientific. But look at any painting and you can see how visual perception and geometry and balance play vital roles. Music of course is highly based on physics. And acting... God, acting is a science of itself, doing a case study to figure out how another human being lives and become them on stage or screen.

http://nerdnirvana.org

I could meander on about the importance of arts but there's already this brilliant post on it. So read that, because it's really really good. It's a shame that things like subjects listed on Newsweek's Tumblr are thought of as useless because they were never useless to me. What surprises me are things like philosophy and architecture and history, for God's sake, and political science being useless. Really? Are you kidding me? When we have a million nurses and but no one understands how to communicate with each other or understand where we're coming from, don't say I didn't warn you. We need nurses, yes, but we also need them to understand bedside manner and the way people think and why, sometimes, you just need to sit back and think, "Jesus, a century ago we couldn't remove limbs without being terrified that the patient was going to die of gangrene and now we can do heart transplants. DUDE."

In order to really appreciate science, you need art. In order to really appreciate art, you need science. They aren't art war; they're two sides of the same coin. So stop making them fight - they belong together more than I think we'll ever completely understand. Give our artists and writers and thespians and historians a chance - you never know if they'll win a Nobel prize for physics or find the cure for cancer. And you never know if your med student is going to win a Pulitzer or and Grammy.