ISSUE131 第二天

ISSUE131 - "The arts (painting, music, literature, etc.) reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society."

With the development of technology in today's society, the pressure from various aspects has become greater than ever before. Arts, the primary way to express and release people's emotions and thoughts, turn to be more and more crucial and independent in human society. I agree with the statement that under most circumstances, arts can reveal hidden ideas and impulses of a society, but actually, they cannot always serve this function.

To begin with, arts meet the necessary psychological needs of human being, since its main function is to convey individuals’ ideas and emotions, they serve the purpose to reveal the hidden ideas of a society which cannot be discovered and expressed easily. Especially in the period of war, this special function of arts is more important and conspicuous. To support this point, one can look no further than Picasso, one of the most the famous painters in the world, created the preeminent painting--Dove, in the World War Two. Picasso expressed his enormous indignation to the atrocity of the Nazi as well as the strong desire to a peaceful world through the painting. Dove successful embodied this hidden feeling under the truculent domination of Nazi, and receives the high praise after the war. Because of this meaningful painting, dove becomes the symbol of peace which is accepted around the world.

Moreover, since the strength of human thoughts and emotions is more significant than one can image, not only the arts can represent the hidden ideas of a society, they also have great impact to the society. History provides a series of examples. Robison Crusoe, the outstanding work of D. Defoe, is read and appreciated by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world unfailing. In describing Robison's life on the island, Defoe glorifies human labor and the Puritan fortitude. The unyielding spirit move many people and encourage them to strive for their goals despite how difficult they seems to be. The impulse of this novel to the society is undoubtedly considerable. The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin of H. Stow is a more striking example. The thoughts about opposing the slavery as well as the desire of miserable life of the black people stirred up an immense respondence and far-reaching influence to the American society, and ultimately, even became one of the main reasons leaded to the Civil War. From these examples, we can discover that the arts can sometimes cause significant impulses on the society.

However, we should realize that the arts not always truly embody the real emotion of the hidden opinions and occasionally may have a negative impact on society. If the artists are controlled by the government and the dominant power, the arts created by these artists become the byproducts of the politics. There are many artists become the slaves of the political authority in history. Moreover, if the arts extremely express the subjective emotions of individuals, and such emotion is negative and unhealthy, they may generate some detrimental influence. Take Punk for example, just represented the unsatisfactory and disdain towards the modern value which regards the money and materials as the highest aims of life, Punk turns to be more and more cynical, and thus, results in some harmful problems such as violence, drug abuse and so on.  

In sum, the arts can expose the hidden ideas and impulse of the society for that embodying human thoughts and emotions is the primary function of arts. However, as they sometimes may be controlled by the political power, they not always represent the true feeling and ideas of people. Moreover, if the arts advance towards the extreme directions, they may generate some detrimental influences.

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