Winter 2006

Will Globalization make Hatred More Lethal?

by Robert Wright

The Future

My hope is that, over the coming decades, art’s spirituality can be demonstrated for a skeptical American public. This effort would require a massive conversion of the educational establishment at the primary and secondary levels. The authentic vision of the 1960s counterculture, which still inspires me, was of the magnitude of both art and nature. Yet over the past 35 years, a nihilistic brand of theory (poststructuralist and postmodernist) invaded American humanities departments. It excluded nature from its discourse and subordinated aesthetics to a crusading politics. I may agree with those politics, but I abhor the distortion and marginalization of art that have resulted.

Theory is thankfully ebbing, but what will rise in its place? I am betting that a young generation of scholars will take up the cause of renewed evangelism for art. Secular humanists who deplore the interference of religious activism in debates over public policy must begin to recognize that rote appeals for "social justice" are simply not enough: The soul too must be fed. Intellectuals must offer a spiritual alternative to religion—the kind of expansion of consciousness and refinement of perception that are the gifts of art.

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