Don’t bring your piano on the lifeboat
The following was posted as a response/comment to a commentary, “Anna Marie Gewirtz: Art as protest”, on vtdigger.org — https://vtdigger.org/2019/10/29/anna-marie-gewirtz-art-as-protest/
“Science – the darling ally of the Left now – would tell us that Love does not change everything. Love is not a deity, and neither is art. Professor Gewirtz, will you love Trump; will you sing for him? Picasso’s painting is famous; some famous people visited it; General Franco didn’t, and he didn’t end the bombing because of it. Activists often declare their protests effective; the claim is usually baseless. The recent Climate Strike was declared effective, but few students who left school even attended the strike. Similarly here you confuse news coverage with belief. People saw the news, but did it change anyone’s mind ?
I have loved art since I was a kid, but I have ended my budding art career. What we need is not more art; it’s more realism, money, time, commitment, hard work, conservation and thrift. Art has a long-term benefit. People should direct their creativity to the crises that prevail now. Don’t bring your piano on the lifeboat. BrattleboroCommonSense.org”