TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Callum J. Hackett responds to a piece by Jonathan Jones that argues science has overtaken art in expanding minds:

Jones’s conception of art’s purpose is also too narrow. Art is not just for expanding minds and revealing beauty – that is a demeaning reduction that people too often indulge in, thinking that art is a delivery service for the picturesque and delectable. But art is so much more than that: it is an unbridled form of self-reflection. Art digs deep into every facet of our being – physical, psychological, social – and offers a view of ourselves untainted by comforting romance. Where is the horror in science? Where is the loneliness, the desolation, the unwilling acceptance of mortality? Science is almost too relentlessly beautiful to replace art – it slowly reveals everything we could ever want to know about ourselves, but it tells us nothing about how to interpret and deal with that information. It is all ablaze with the most amazing facts, but void of intimacy, personality and ethics.

On the contrary, I think art—something we use to analyze our world and find truth behind it—is more important now than ever. Science can tell us about how things are, but it can’t ever tell us how they should be.

(Via Rian van der Merwe.)