by If the Church mandates morality, and if the state fixes our appropriate behavior with laws, ethics, rules and values, what then, is the role of The Arts in the lives of the everyday citizen and must we require the state and the Church to not only support The Arts but to practice them as well?
Can, and should, Poetry and Art reflexively create moral consequence in society?
Or is the role of The Arts in society to only reflectively celebrate beauty and wisdom?
I know that in a lot of ways, art can influence and has had a tremendous influence on certain world religions. I’m not sure that it means that it necessarily should create moral consequence. Hmm.
Can you give us some examples, Gordon?
The bahai faith, for example, is all about making the world beautiful through art.
They do not kill people for depicting their holy figures in art, as some religions do.
Is there a moral consequence in that “beautiful art,” Gordon?
Could you define moral consequence? I’m not sure what you mean.
Can you think of any Jewish iconography, Gordon, like a painting or a sculpture or a print or a play that plays the moral role of the religious teaching and then admonishes a particular behavior and while demonstrating the consequences of that immoral action?