Art Changes the World

I saw an ad on TV for some educational program that stated “Technology Changes the World”.  Wrong.

Technology complicates the world, for sure.  It is intended to simplify life, but in fact we have to learn how to use new tools.  But the more that technology advances, the more the world stays the same.  We always will rely on technology.  In fact, we count on and anticipate its advances.  The law is often up-ended in its failure to keep-up with the swift advance of technology, but the main thing is that right is still right and wrong is still wrong.  Leveraging a computer to cheat still has to be programmed in by a human.  Cheating is still wrong, that has never changed.

Part of the problem is that lawyers and lobbyists step in and muck-up the mucky-muck law to take advantage of us.  The rich and corporate entities that can influence the law do so in order to take advantage of it for their own gain at our expense.  Hence, you have slave labor when corporations take advantage of us by paying minimum wage with no real benefits, no significant recognition or care of its employees, while it builds millions, even billions on their backs.

It is a shame that we, as a people are so dismissed by corporate society, when we are its very core.  But technology won’t change that, only art will.  Corporations leverage technology to their advantage, but it doesn’t change their attitude or outlook, only encourages their abuse of power.

Not all rich people or large corporations are like this.  The few 1%-ers and corporations that are acting responsibly usually do well by doing right by its people, treating them as family.  Employees are flocking their posted career opportunities and a culture is created that is nurturing and interested in each individual’s lives.  But this humanity does not arrive from technology, it arrives from humans making correct decisions and doing the right thing.

So where do we pick-up these inclinations to do right by others?  You can look to religion, but perhaps a more important concept is the art of parenting.  It certainly doesn’t come from technology, as technology doesn’t teach us what to do, it only enables and enhances our opportunities to either do right or do wrong.

Technology has never changed the world.  It advances civilization, and the one constant in this world is change.  Technology simply allows faster and further change with a broader reach.  But change, real change that tugs at our soul comes from education.  The teachings of which, are art.  The art of writing, the art of communication, the art of understanding, the art of compassion, even our own morality and ethics are formed in an art of our perception of the world.

If you are like me, it is the art of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne, Goya that inspires us to not just do our best, but appreciate other’s work, even when it is not their best.  the lessons we have to learn of morality and ethics are echoed through-out literature not just in education and leadership classes, but in the art of parenting (which by no means is a science).

Technology, on the other hand, gives art a new voice, and we see this in television and digital, where concious decisions are openly made to deceive the public not only in advertising, but even through the art of journalism by deep pockets that want to use art to twist the reality of politics, news, human rights and pacify the public with how well we should be doing, how great our slave nation has become.

Don’t think that the slaves weren’t paid.  True, very little, but in better houses they were paid a bit to maintain their lives so that they were presentable and clean.  And that seems to be all the growing working class poor can afford in this country, enough to keep their nose clean, but not enough to meet any life crisis or even afford their own healthcare.

And yet, there will be those that will try to convince you that it is better to have poor, because otherwise their own profits are robbed.

No, it is not technology that changes the world, but the artists that control and mold its impressions on us, and how we allow the arts, even fashion, to grab us and take a hold of us.  How art moves us, in books, education, parenting, what we see in the beauty of art, in the humanity of others and how we feel about the art that they reveal through their lives…

Art Changes the World!