R: This House Prefers the Artist to the Philosopher

Few have managed to marry art and philosophy. One of those few was Lucretius, the Roman philosopher and poet of the first century who wrote De Rerum Natura, a philosophical treatise in the form of an epic poem. De Rerum Natura manages to be both our major source for Epicurean philosophy as well as one of the greatest Latin poetic works, having heavily influenced Vergil and contemporary poets. Over time, the disciplines of philosophy and art have drifted from each other, until today artists and philosophers inhabit separate departments, separate journals, separate sections in the bookstore. Direct incursions into philosophy by poets like Tennyson (“The Higher Pantheism”) often fall flat, while the poetry of philosophers leaves much to be desired aesthetically (Nietzsche in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”). For our purposes, art and philosophy represent two distinct ways of shaping culture and looking at the world, one focused on beauty and creation, the other focused on ideas and dialogue. 

The affirmative may argue that culture is only shaped to a very limited degree by philosophers, and that it is the artists who create real cultural change. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey soaked into Western culture to such a degree that much of Latin and Greek literature are practically unintelligible without understanding the wealth of Homeric references. In the modern age, too, poets, musicians, and writers have a monopoly on cultural sway. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) was one of the major sparks of the American Civil War, to the extent that President Lincoln greeted the author as “the little lady who started this great war.” Today, first place among artists is given to actors and musicians, who have celebrity and cultural influence for good or ill that was unimaginable before the era of mass media. The affirmative may argue that the only way to achieve cultural renewal and install life, truth, and beauty as primary cultural values is through art, not philosophy. All the proof texts and philosophical treatises in the world will not make a iota of difference in creating a culture that values the life of the unborn, nor will they establish a society of orderly and free citizens. Art represents a worldview that prizes beauty and encourages creation as the most redemptive form of activity. 

The negative may argue that the artist cannot engage with ideas to the same extent and with the same seriousness as the philosopher. Philosophers do not run the risk of becoming cheap entertainment or of having their message lost beneath cheap advertising or a four-chord melody–philosophy is engaged in for its own sake, for the love of wisdom itself. Philosophy, when reconciled with Christianity, can provide profound insights into our state as humans and the nature of the divine. Art may produce passing fads in

culture, but philosophy is responsible for seismic cultural shifts: Romantic philosophy brought secularism and the sublime into mainstream culture, while postmodern philosophy ushered in subjectivity and skepticism. Culture may not realize that it is being influenced by philosophy, but eventually the advances of the ivory tower make their way to Main Street. Conservatives should strive to emulate the life of the philosopher, a life of self-examination and contemplation of high truths. As Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Serious engagement with ideas and putting one’s conclusions into practice is what separates the Federalist Party from its sister parties, and also separates the philosopher from his artistic peers. 

To an extent, of course, the division between artist and philosopher is arbitrary–art done properly can be philosophical, while philosophy done properly can be artistic. Exceptional figures like Lucretius and Kierkegaard who meld the two disciplines are proof enough of this caveat. However, the main division between the affirmative and negative persists. The decision is one of preference and vision–do we need more artists or more philosophers? Was Lucretius’s philosophy or his art more valuable? Will you pick up a tragedy or a treatise? Do you prefer to fight on the battlefield of beauty or in the trenches of ideas? Whom do you prefer, Milton or Mill?