Philosophy Module Week 3

A Whole Lot of Culture…and Lecturing

17 hours later and I’m DONE. I just finished Paul A. Cantor’s lecture series on Commerce and Culture. It was good but lengthy. From Shakespeare to video games to the Casablanca movie. Cantor spoke on how culture, art, economics and the market work together, and what viewpoints have produced the best results over time. A consistent theme was that art thrives in the free market. Another consistent idea presented was that art has changed over time, and it has almost always concerned people as it changes.

Art created in a free, or commercial market means that artists have incentive to create art that people love. Cantor notes that government support of art can look good to a society at times, but it often leads to greatly limiting art over time. Throughout time from musical compositions to novels to movies, artists have been better off being supported by the free market, because when they create for the free market audience they have buyers!

Overtime not only has the invention of the video game scared parents when their kids played them but Cantor notes that so did novels at one point in history, because they weren’t poems. Another point made concerning this topic was that some are concerned we don’t have enough poets around today Cantor noted that he believes we have more today than any other point in history. What a contrast! 

Overall I really liked the lecture series and learned a lot about art and culture. The series also further confirmed some thoughts I already had. History culture, politics, and art are all far more intertwined than I previously thought, and although they’re all important, they don’t all get enough attention. 

See my analysis video: here.