32/365 - Art and Commerce
Poverty is the strength of an artist. If given no other option and no hope of payment, artists will continue to create. The only way to stop them is to kill them. Dictators know this. Ideas are contagious. That is why free speech is the first to go when the powerful get hungry.
However, if you take away an artists’ materials, that artist will find others. The artist will draw designs in the snow or sand, write on a sidewalk with discarded chalk, use sharpened rock to sculpt wood, hang things that make noise in the wind, compose poems in their heads, or think of stories. The artist will dance. The artist will sing.
This is what scares the powerful. Art is accessible to all people at all times. It cannot be suppressed because it costs nothing. It cannot be controlled because it is free by definition. To control art, you must control the minds and that is impossible. A long list of dictators have tried. To kill an artist is to give that artist’s work more power than before.
Any ant can organize. That is not makes us powerful. Any mammal can feel love for a child. Compassion is not what marks us as different.
Art.
Art is something humans can be proud of. It is what sets us apart from most of the other lifeforms on this planet. Those that see art as useless are stupid, more alike to a mole. Those that see art as dangerous are at least smart enough to recognize its power.
Art is what awakens us in the morning and fuels our dreams.
Without money, we still have art.
Without art, we have nothing.
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However, if you take away an artists’ materials, that artist will find others. The artist will draw designs in the snow or sand, write on a sidewalk with discarded chalk, use sharpened rock to sculpt wood, hang things that make noise in the wind, compose poems in their heads, or think of stories. The artist will dance. The artist will sing.
This is what scares the powerful. Art is accessible to all people at all times. It cannot be suppressed because it costs nothing. It cannot be controlled because it is free by definition. To control art, you must control the minds and that is impossible. A long list of dictators have tried. To kill an artist is to give that artist’s work more power than before.
Any ant can organize. That is not makes us powerful. Any mammal can feel love for a child. Compassion is not what marks us as different.
Art.
Art is something humans can be proud of. It is what sets us apart from most of the other lifeforms on this planet. Those that see art as useless are stupid, more alike to a mole. Those that see art as dangerous are at least smart enough to recognize its power.
Art is what awakens us in the morning and fuels our dreams.
Without money, we still have art.
Without art, we have nothing.
tags