What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.
CultureArtEducationReadingResponsibilityCitizenshipCivic dutyCommunity
Not all cultural engagement leads to civic action.
The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings…
The marketplace does only one thing - it puts a price on everything. The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of …
Once an author finishes a poem, he becomes merely another reader. I may remember what I intended to put into a text, but what matters is what a reader actually…
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have r…
Art hath an enemy called Ignorance.