What Can Replace Art?

Once upon a time, the cathedral was humbling not only because of its size and expense, but also because it contained works of art that only a talented few could create. Gather enough people for enough time and anyone could make a giant building, but only a genius could make great art. Men encountered art rarely, and, when they did, it confronted them as irrefutable proof that not all men are created equal. What could possibly replace art as proof that human genius is rare?

In the man-vs-society battle, humility is the surrender of man. When art humbles us, it teaches us to support society, so that society can support geniuses. Today, however, art is nearly as common as dirt. Powerpoint presentations, movies, glogs and prezis are assignments for elementary school students. Technology empowers them to capture real-life scenes as digital images, compose and edit soundtracks, design 3D animations, and leverage the seemingly limitless stream of art flowing through the Internet. Entertainment has become a market like never before. Classic art no longer seems impressive, and neither does any other art. 

JR, the 2011 TED Prize winner, is an artist. He is famous for taking photographs of ordinary people, printing blow-ups on ordinary paper, and pasting them like graffiti on the walls of slums. His dream is for everyone to participate in art--send him a photo, and he will send you the printed blow-up with instructions about how to glue it. It has become easy to suppose that there are no geniuses, that we really are equal to the best. But, our growing sense of individual dignity must be a delusion--far from winning the battle against society, humans become increasingly dependent, like cogs in a great machine--and delusions can be dangerous.

Can an IQ or SAT test humble us the way art used to humble men? I find it hard to imagine awe and reverence being inspired by excellent test-taking. Art is accessible to virtually everyone, and it seems unlikely that even a majority can appreciate any other kind of genius. If someone says so-and-so did something great in mathematics, we can't really be sure to what extent that's true. For similar reasons, political parties can disagree sharply about the quality of a speech or proposed legislation. We simply cannot recognize other forms of greatness as we can artistic talent, so the automation of art seems to relegate greatness to myth, or at least to debate.

We do remain unified in our awe of a beautiful sky or mountain-top view, but I wonder whether that too will be lost as our TV screens expand to IMAX format (perhaps via virtual reality). I am concerned that some unspoken truth will become forgotten and obscured. The new technologies of art are wonderful, but so is the atom bomb. We need to understand the costs: when we believe that all humans are geniuses, when humility becomes anachronistic, will humans turn desperately to pets as our only remaining source of respect?