Art

Not just stimulating, but educating

I recently listened to a podcast about Maestro. The Leonard Bernstein biopic. One of the criticisms was that the film, which I haven’t seen, doesn’t touch on the Radical Chic essay, the social activism and the Harvard Lectures.

That last point edges into today’s Good Thing.

Art as an education driver.

These five minutes from Bernstein’s lecture series is a ridiculously wonderful exploration of modern music, of the theory of music.

It’s relateable, easy to consume, but more than any of that it’s coming from a qualified and renowned source. That adds heft, increases the chances that someone will find it and that someone will learn from it.

This isn’t limited to Bernstein. In many ways Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie does the same thing. It uses art to inform about politics, about quantum theory, about the roles of high science (and scientists!) in popular culture and the power and glory of America.

And then, there’s Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton. Which nearly a decade ago premiered at the Public Theater. Those initial runs led to a magnificent ascent into the public sphere. Prompting school-kids to sing along (and learn!) about the nation’s founding, it’s political process and rules, and it’s intellectuals. The Atlantic had an interview with Miranda which touched on this and similar subjects.

Hamilton, then, has the potential to strongly influence the way Americans think about the early republic.

Too often art is defined as making you think (Cy Twombley art, Schoenberg’s music) or challenging you. But the art which inspires or brings along learning is also art.

It’s good art.