Author: Mary Kate (Page 4 of 4)

(Argument is that teaching STEAM would be an inefficient use of student’s time)

Despite the fact that STEAM education is a waste of time, many would argue that that time spent is worth it. Some, such as the skilled cellist Yo-Yo Ma, may say that, “We are addressing the same issue with different names attached to them. STEAM will help us get there by resolving the education problem. Kids will then go to school because it is a passion and a privilege, not a requirement.” Essentially, integrating arts into students’ education would make them care more about what they’re learning, and make them more happy to be in school. He has a good point; for the students that are passionate about art, STEAM would definitely make school a better experience for them. However, this integration would be detrimental to students that do not like or want to focus on art. For these students, STEAM would just mean more required classes that they don’t want to be in

1. This article was originally published in 2014 on the World Post , which was an online blogging site. As far as I can tell, the site’s main purpose was to host ideas about things from important people. It was written by Yo-Yo Ma, who is an extremely accomplished cellist. The author’s bio talks a lot about his musical achievements, like awards he’s won and music he’s made. I think this is supposed to lend credibility to his argument, because he’s worked as an artist for so long.
2. The imposed context of this article is that I have to read it for an English class, and might have to use it as a source in our second essay. In addition, I’m not sure if this is part of ‘imposed context’, but I am someone who has art as a hobby and is going into a STEM field, so it may affect my reading of the text.
3. The intentional context is the competition that people seem to think art and the sciences has. It’s also involved with the debate around art vs. science classes in schools; not just colleges, but public schools as well. The article attempts to enter the conversation around that, and argue something about it.

The two references I was unfamiliar with before reading this are:

• The edge effect:
  • When more biodiversity occurs at the edges of an ecosystem
  • Ma uses this as an allegory for how the arts and sciences would benefit from crossing over more. If they interact more with each other, there will be more diversity and creativity on both sides.
• A sarabande dance in the Cello Suites by Bach
  • A dance that, while now in the Cello Suites, was once a dance of the North African Berbers, then in Spain, then in the Americas, and finally in France.
  • Ma uses this dance to talk about how cultures can benefit from learning from one another, and that seldom are things ever in only one culture.

(Completely new quote)

In a TED Talk, Titus discusses his view on these works of art, “What is the impact of these kinds of sculptures at museums? What is the impact of these kinds of paintings on some of our most vulnerable in society, seeing these kinds of depictions of themselves all the time?” He believed that these unfair depictions of minorities could impact how people thought of themselves and others.

(Old quote)

“Still, if we were to consult our magic utilitarian consequences calculator, how often would it tell us to bother making art at all? Persuasive, progressive art might be better than nothing, but that doesn’t make it an optimal use of time and resources.” (Southan) This mindset permeates everything the Effective Altruists do.

(New quote)

“Still, if we were to consult our magic utilitarian consequences calculator, how often would it tell us to bother making art at all? Persuasive, progressive art might be better than nothing, but that doesn’t make it an optimal use of time and resources.” (Southan) Essentially, even if something is good, unless it is doing the most good, it still isn’t worth it. This perspective explains the hatred of artists by members of Effective Altruism; to them, artists are people wasting valuable time, resources, and money not doing the most good they can.

I’ve revised a couple quotes from my essay. In the one pasted above, I added more explanation and context to what the EAs believe. I also added a quote from Kaphar’s TED Talk, to cite his views more directly.

(Completely new paragraph)

A quote from Peter Singer’s essay, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, showcases this mindset perfectly: “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.” (Southan) From the viewpoint of Effective Altruists, artists, even those trying to help the world, are wasting their time and resources while thousands of children drown. It sounds good on paper, however, it’s actually wrong, because most problems have some basis in society and culture. If somebody creates art challenging a problem in society-racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other kind of injustice- they are actually addressing the root of the problem: society. If this were to be applied to Peter Singer’s allegory, it would be like an artist creating art that encourages people not to leave their children unsupervised, or to help any drowning children they see. It doesn’t matter how many laws are created to deter discrimination in work, housing, education, legal jurisdiction, and otherwise-nothing will change if the attitudes of people in society do not change, and the only way to do that is through art.  

(Old paragraph)

The art of Titus Kaphar will likely educate people about the biases of classical works, but other artists work to combat more modern prejudices. Yinka Shonebare MBE is an artist that has been working on art that can challenge people’s assumptions about different cultures. Essentially, the main idea of his art is that every culture is just as valuable as another, that no culture is superior to any other. He was raised in Nigeria until he was 17, when he moved to Britain, so his works often involve merging classical European paintings and sculptures with traditional African colors and patterns. By doing this, he aims to show that African art and culture should be valued, just as European art and culture is now. In an interview with the New York Times, he stated that “Art is a very powerful tool. It can communicate with people in a way that will actually make them more receptive to whatever the artist might be exploring, as opposed to the artist being angry and shouting at people. That never actually works: People become defensive.”(Shonibare MBE) In this way, him and Kaphar have similar goals: to change people’s mind for the better through their art. 

(New paragraph)

The art of Titus Kaphar willl likely educate people about the biases of classical works, and other artists are working to combat more modern prejudices. For example, Yinka Shonibare MBE is an artist working with classical European paintings and sculptures, combined with traditional African colors and patterns. He also has the goal of changing people’s minds, and of changing culture, for the better. Each artist has a different goal, and a different reason for doing so. However, Effective Altruists typically believe that artists like Kaphar and Shonibare are completely replaceable. In their words, “In equation form, Your Apparent Good Achieved minus the Good Your Counterfactual Replacement Would Have Achieved equals Your Actual Good Achieved.” (Southan) Since EAs think artists are, by nature, useless, they are by nature, replaceable. However, I would argue that artists trying to change society are actually very useful and impactful. They have the power to change people’s minds on things, and therefore, the power to make them act. Someone who sees Kaphar’s work may think more critically about the classical art they see, and someone who sees Shonibare’s work may come away feeling that African cultures are worthwhile and interesting, just as European cultures are. If that kind of change happens with enough people, then society can really change for the better. 

Most of the larger changes I’ve made so far in my essay were adding Peter Singer’s pond allegory, adding EA’s concept of replaceability, and changing the parts about Shonibare to be more concise. I’ve mostly used the parts in The Little Seagull about starting new paragraphs, which I used to break up a paragraph that was too long after I added the pond allegory. It has been useful so far, and I will continue to reference it as I edit and revise my essay.

I feel like my experience of writing a first draft was a bit different from Lamott’s description.  I, like her, also felt that just getting out the words and ideas without worrying about quality was a good thing, as I can also get paralyzed when first starting a paper. I tend to not know how to start things correctly, even if I know what I want to say, because I want it to be good the first time. However, she mentions in her writing that nobody has to see the first draft, which is the opposite for us: multiple people have to see the first draft. In this class, our first drafts do have to be somewhat good, even if they’re not perfect. I also didn’t really like that she bashed people who do write smoothly and get things right on the first draft. I don’t think there’s any right way to make art, and it kind of came off like bitterness or jealousy in her writing.

Revision Plan Strategy:

My goal in revising my paper is to improve the the content of it by adding Peter Singer’s shallow pond analogy and EA’s concept of replaceability when it comes to artists. I also want to make my opinion more clear throughout the essay, as several of my peers commented that I presented too much evidence without giving my take on the subject. I will take several steps to amend these problems:

1. Review all feedback I’ve gotten from my peers and combine identical or similar comments, so I can get a good idea of what problems I need to fix
2.  Amend small-scale issues , so I can get them out of the way and make it easier to focus on larger problems
3.  Consider if there are any problems with the essay’s structure, and find places to add in extra content
4.  Write and add extra content (shallow pond allegory and replaceability)
5.  Amend large-scale issues with the essay
6.  Review essay one last time to check for grammar, spelling, structure, and flow

I think my biggest challenges with this part of the essay writing process will be writing the sections for the shallow pond analogy and replaceability. I had originally forgotten these parts when writing my essay for the first time, so it may be difficult finding a place where they fit with the already established structure of it. It may end up sounding disjointed, and I’ll need to edit the essay further.

If I have trouble with this step, I know of a couple resources I can use. I have my English books, They Say, I Say and The Little Seagull that may have some useful information on adding new sections to an essay. If I can’t find what I need there, I’m signed up for weekly Writing Lab classes, and I can ask my teacher there to look over my essay for me and help me revise it.

Through working with my peers’ essays, I’ve learned that I probably should have included more on Effective Altruism in my essay. I think I could have said some interesting things about Peter Singer’s allegory and how it related to how culture is. Maybe if so many children are getting pushed in ponds we should try to make art to convince people to stop?

After reading Rhys Southan’s article, Is art a waste of time? and watching Titus Kaphar’s Ted talk, How Can We Address Centuries Of Racism in Art? I’ve come to a conclusion about how I feel about art. Overall I agreed more with Kaphar than with the members of Effective Altruism, in that I feel that art is not a waste of time. I think art has an amazing ability to change the culture it’s made in, for better or for worse. By visiting the EA website, I learned that they care about righting injustices and inequality in the world, but I don’t think that that’s possible without changing the mindset of the culture that is perpetuating those injustices. I think that art can do good beyond that as well, such as for education or mental wellbeing, but for the topic of my first real essay, I think I will talk about how art can affect prejudice in culture. Kaphar’s talk was mostly about racism in art, but I’d like to expand to other forms of prejudice as well in my essay.

Through my brainstorming session, I came to realize that artists like Kaphar and Effective Altruism are essentially working for the same thing: people living better lives. This realization made it especially weird to think back on Southan’s article, where the EAs portrayed artists as distant and uncaring for the state of the world. Many artists are actively trying to make the world better, in one aspect or another, they just go about it in a way that EAs don’t approve of. I think that if EAs could understand the effect that art has on culture and the power it has to do good, they would be more reluctant to think of artists as completely useless.

The TED Talk I chose to talk about was Titus Kaphar’s talk on how art can amend history. Kaphar mainly discusses how, in most classical paintings and sculptures, black people were often painted in the background, being behind the primary focus of the white characters. I think that Kaphar’s method of putting black characters more into the foreground is a great way to show the bias in the older paintings. Seeing the original paintings compared with his re-paints really highlights how much more visual focus was put on the white characters than the black characters, almost as if they were an afterthought. He mentions in his talk that he can find extensive information on the type of lace that is in a dress of a white character, but can’t find anything on a black background character. I don’t think this is necessarily a fault of the people writing about the piece; the black character was treated as insignificant to the painter, and so was treated as insignificant to art historians.

Despite the power that art has to convey this message, there are some disadvantages to painting as a medium when it comes to discussing this topic. While Kaphar said explicitly in his TED Talk that he didn’t want his message to be of erasure, without the context for the pieces of art, some people might misinterpret it that way. People who hadn’t noticed the emphasis on white characters in classical paintings would probably be confused by his repaintings of those classical pieces. However, his paintings are still powerful works of art, and will hopefully start a dialogue on black erasure in classical art.

My second reading of Southan’s article, Is it OK to make art? was slightly, but not completely different than my first reading. During my first reading of the article, I took Southan’s experiences with the EA members as how they present themselves to everybody. Once I took a quick look at their website, I realized that for the most part, Effective Altruism presents itself as less extreme than it’s members seem to be. Either that, or Southan just happened to run into some particularly hardcore members of the movement. The site also doesn’t upfront state it’s hatred of art, which might be why Southan ended up going on a retreat with some members for a couple days. The first difference that I noticed was that the article makes it seem like EA is only focused on the worst of physical suffering, while the website is more lenient with it’s definition of suffering. The site included injustices and mental suffering, as well as physical suffering. Strangely, art is not seen as a factor to alleviate mental suffering, despite it having a positive effect for both creators and observers. They also seem to think that LGBT acceptance and well-being is good, but that would be extremely difficult to achieve without art promoting acceptance. Art promoting EA is given a pass in the article, but there is no mention of art that passively normalizes acceptance, like simply having a queer character in a movie or TV show. I also found it strange that in utilitarian mindset of the EAs, suffering is not given a hierarchy. Why fight injustices in America when there are children dying of preventable diseases in Africa? I would personally disagree with this line of thinking, but nonetheless, it is hypocritical to the group’s internal logic.

One piece of the essay that I did not understand before researching it was what egalitarianism was. According to the Merriam Webster website, Egalitarianism is “A belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs.” After looking this definition up, I understood a little better the context in which it was used. Effective Altruism seems to be aiming to be the most egalitarian movement, making all societies equal in suffering.

Transcript of underlined and written pieces:

Page 1: I think this world would be unlivable without art. Art can help people through bad situations, maybe not physically, but mentally

It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those dying of poverty and preventable diseases all over the world, though we could easily help them. One incident is different from a lifetime of service though?

which suggests a baseline donation of 10 per cent of your income to effective charities. 10% is much more manageable than 100%

Page 2: This is a disconcerting calculation, because even if you think you’ve been doing great work, your final score could be small or negative. This might discourage people from helping if they know they can’t do better than everyone else

If you happen to be successful already, you can always earn to give. Yeah good luck finding someone like that

It would be great to have people think about how Effective Altruism could be promoted through art. Would the art to promote EA be less effective than actual EA? Also how do you get art skills to promote EA if practicing art is bad?

Page 3: If all people are alive in the quantum multiverse, isn’t that good enough?

While reading this article, I found several things that I found interesting, and wanted to talk about more. The first was a part where the author started explaining the ideology of Effective Altruism, stating that to truly be considered important or irreplaceable, you have to do better than the average of your peers. I felt that, along with the idea that nothing else matters except helping, that this might discourage other people from joining the group. Not everybody has the time or money to contribute that much to the movement, so the feeling that that aid is ultimately useless may make some people feel like they might as well just use their resources on other things. It’s also fundamentally false. even if someone contributes just an hour of service or a dollar of donations, that would be one more hour or one more dollar that goes to helping people. However, this ideal may be beneficial to hardcore members of the movement, because it encourages them to help more. In other words, it might increase service and donations for current members, but prevent new members from joining the movement.

The second part that I thought was interesting was when the author talked to one of the members of EA, and he explained the movement’s relationship to art. While art is seen as a complete waste of time to the ideology of EA, there are two, extremely difficult to obtain, ways to contribute to the movement. The first is to earn enough to donate to effective causes, which is difficult because art is not usually a very lucrative job. In my experience, many artists struggle to take care of themselves through their job, or live paycheck to paycheck. The second is to exclusively promote Effective Altruism through their art. Which begs the question: is art promoting EA less or more helpful than actual EA? Also, if a person practices art for years to make promotional art for the movement, is that time spent practicing and learning the craft less helpful than actual EA? I’m not part of the movement, but I feel like practicing actual Effective Altruism would help more people than creating art about it.