One of the most interesting topics from this series of lectures was the distinction between the artistic value of a piece of artwork and the ability to sell the said piece. This reminded me of a conversation I had with my high school history teacher Mr. Golay. The subject of the class was Imperial Russia and he began talking about Leo Tolstoy’s role as a philosopher and his philosophical essays. This led the class into something of a tangent on philosophy. The topic of modern philosophy taught in colleges came up, and I asked, “What would you even do with a philosophy degree? How can you make money?” Mr. Golay thought for a few seconds, chuckled, and replied, “Teach philosophy.” Everyone laughed, and I didn’t think any more of it at the time, but later I remembered that moment and really thought about it. Some of history’s most famous names, the people who are still remembered thousands of years after they died, were philosophers: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, etc. Clearly philosophy is an important discipline for it to be so deeply embedded in human history. Yet in today’s society, it is more of a hobby. To be a philosopher, one must either be a philosophy professor, or have another job to sustain oneself while practicing philosophy on the side. This is quite analogous to those artists who could be quite successful in a biennial but never in an art fair: their artwork may have enormous intellectual value, but that does not necessarily translate to people actually wanting to buy it. Artworks that are sold are displayed somewhere, often in a wealthy person’s home or a museum. There are some types of art that just aren’t meant to be displayed in this way. Performance art is a particularly obvious example of this: at a biennial, art buffs would perhaps crowd around and discuss the performance at length, but it is impossible to purchase a performance and bring it home! However, performance art could obviously sell tickets to the performance, which is how they could make money off of it, but this is merely an example – there are many types of art that just can’t be brought into a museum or into the home, but still have great value to society as a whole, just as philosophers do.
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