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David Gosselin's avatar

People have definitely stared into the culture wars abyss for too long, and that has distracted many from other more important or noble endeavours.

That being said, culture and politics can never be really separate, in my opinion. I think it depends on how they are related. Are they weaponized or just used as a form of escapism and distraction, or is something more potent and real being allowed to freely proliferate?

Naturally, we’re not in a perfect world and there will always be attempts to weaponize or propagandize art, but at the end of the day culture does have to stand for something. And politics will always be downstream from culture, as even Plato observed in regards to the role of poets as chief “image-makers” in Ancient Greek society. Today has has arguably just been supplanted with a more modern form with the advent of the Silver Screen and Hollywood, but the function has arguably remained essentially the same.

In any case, whether a Beethoven or Aeschylus, Shakespeare or Sappho, they were hardly just aesthetes doing art for art’s sake, or creating art as merely a form of distraction or entertainment. There was always a higher transcendent purpose or aim. And it was very much a sacred vocation.

We need more of that haha.

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Marco Romano's avatar

I am very much behind the ideas and creativity that transcend politics and its ugly characters. This is why I am under my headphones when I can not listen through my PSB speakers

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anzabannanna's avatar

> That being said, culture and politics can never be really separate, in my opinion.

Not entirely, at all times, BUT: they can be separated using various techniques for short periods of time. Most people have little to no skill in such things, similar to why they have little to no skill in juggling 3 balls: they never try, let alone practice.

As an example of unrealized skills: notice how you said "in my opinion" - usually, people cannot realize they are expressing their opinion on such matters...but imagine if a couple hundred people could be trained up such they could *reliably* distinguish between opinion and fact, and then that group of people were assigned the task of sorting out some of the many "intractable" problems facing humanity!

Humans are so weird.

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