WMN: t3_2zj7ra_t1_cpjej4s

[TITLE]

CMV: Some jobs are "useless", but still have more value than other "useless" jobs

[Hazeless]

I would like to start this CMV by stating that the view I have about jobs and occupations is rather hypocritical, in the sense that I view "useless" jobs linked to hobbies of mine as "cool", and others not linked to my hobbies as dumb and useless to society. The hypocricy in this thought is exactly why I want my view changed. I think most people will agree with me when I say that engineers are a lot more useful than artists, and that in a sense, artists are useless compared to engineers. The "harshness" of this statement is exactly why I wish to change my view; I sound like and ass, but I can't help but think this way. I sound even more foolish, as I value some "useless" jobs as "awesome" and even dream of becoming like the people who have these jobs. The best example I have for this is pro-gamers. As a gamer who loves competitiveness, I find pro-gaming awesome, and can't help but day dream of being one. Same with playing in a rock band, basically any job that would have me take one of my current hobbies, do this full time and get paid. But I view artists and art (paintings and such) as useless. I know this is probably because I don't have an emotional link to art, as I have with pro-gaming and music, but I want to at least change the fact that I view artists as useless, while I admire pro-gamers; when comparing these jobs to engineers, they are both useless, yet I value one more than another. TL;DR: I want to stop viewing some jobs as useless, give me a reason as to why all jobs are at least a tiny bit important. _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[cr0kus]

There is no objective value. Different things are valuable to different people. I might value a comfy chair as a very important thing for me but you yourself might not really care. You can't argue with me that I don't like comfy chairs. "yes I do" is the end to the discussion.

[MercuryChaos]

All animals, including humans, need more than just food, water and shelter. A rat that has enough food and water but has to live in a dark, empty cage isn't going to be as healthy as a rat in a comfortable, well lit cage with some toys and other rats. Humans are aren't that different. If we have to live in a bleak, colorless environment it negatively affects our behavior and mental health — look up what can happen to convicts and prisoners of war who are kept in isolation for even a few days. A lot of the seemingly "useless" stuff we do fulfillsthe need we have for social connection and stimulation.

[soiltostone]

Making video games requires artists. You like games, so therefore artists are useful to you, no?

[thencaapawardgoesto]

The thing is arts are often the most signficant and lasting record a period of time - what it was like to live then, what they valued, tastes, interests, events. People paint and sketch and write songs and act and create novels and poems. And not all of them will be great or famous but the top among them will ultimately shape the way we understand our past. I was in a thread a little while ago asking who the most remembered person of our age would be and people were throwing down Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I don't think that's true. Because, homie, I can't name the person who invented the computer. I got nothing. I couldn't tell you who made the mouse or the keyboard or the typewriter. Technology moves on and when it does individuals' contributions essentially scatter and are mostly forgotten outside of field specialists. Their work gets built on, absolutely, but it doesn't have the every day reach that artists do - people don't remember the engineers of Renaissance Florence - they remember the architects, sculptors, and painters. You get your Michelangelos and your Beethovens and your Andy Warhols. If you asked the public to name an artist from the last 100 years I don't doubt that you'd find that a very high percentage of them would be able to give you a name. If you asked the public to name an engineer I kind of thin you'll find that they don't have the same impact. I think they're both useful but on different scales and levels and ways. Art isn't useful for building bridges. You can't drive a poem or cure disease with an ionic column. But a corrugated cardboard box - like my engineer friend builds for a living - isn't going to give the public nearly as much enjoyment as a piece of impressionist art or a well-written book or a song. Those boxes can't capture, say, the fear of the July Revolution like Delacroix can in Liberty Leading the People. People don't pray to a well constructed road barrier. Engineering is what makes our lives functional but art is what we fill it with.

[dabolympian710]

Art is awesome. There was once a time when artists were more than artists though. After all an aspect of being an artist was being a very learned man, patron paid by someone, knew how to make your materials (the paint, clay, bronze, marble, woodworking), knew a little bit about and studied anatomy and architecture, oftentimes church people... etc. After the renaissance people really started to get an interest in art because you could just pay someone and they'd make something really pretty to look at, so they served a purpose for the elite. More than that, through the art the artist could depict christian iconography as well as pagan/roman/greek iconography, which is pretty awesome because through those things you have a window into the fantasies and stories of the past. Then later still in Paris art began to be much more every man, depicting real life, things that people could relate to. They showed the every day struggle of life. And hey, you might not consider that important because you have the internet to see how horrible life can be, but at the same time making art more than about beauty, fantasy, or religion, things that concern the upper class, people started to point a mirror on society. Art is really awesome, its just that our attention spans are too short and our life is so oversaturated with images it can be easy to forget how remarkable and important it can be. To be able to leave behind images for people to see through your eyes and hands long after you die is one of the amazing things that separates us from other animals. Folk art can be so important for those reasons. Imagine a thousand years from now what people will think of Picasso, Milet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Klimt, Rousseau, Ossawa-Tanner, Cassat... They might think us crazy or geniuses. At the vert least, art was extremely useful back when photography didn't exist because we have portraits of some of the greatest men in history thanks to art. Imagine if visual learners like us had to be blind to our past. That's what we would be without art.

[metafish]

#The Matrix This post of yours is, in a way, analogous to the movie, The Matrix. You can feel something is wrong, but you don't know how to deal with it. When you resolve this, remember this and build upon these ideas in order to gain more freedom of thought in your life. You know something is true: that you have a sense that your logical mind is portraying an inconsistency. You are trapped. You don't know how (or by whom?). But you do *know*. It's a sense. You're trapped by a limitation of your words and ideas, and the way those words and ideas are structured to express your reality. Your representation of reality is incomplete, and it's forcing you to try to fit square pegs into round holes. Think of it like this... if the only words you have for all animals was "cat" and "dog" then you would have to call everything a cat or a dog. You see a person riding on top of a large animal with a saddle. What is that animal? Hmmm... maybe it's a *dog* (horse). You see an aquatic animal with flippers at the circus balancing a ball on it's nose. What is it? Hmmm.. it has whiskers. Must be a *cat* (seal). But you feel something is wrong! These animals are so different! Meanwhile, someone else thinks the seal is a *dog* because it doesn't have much fur, and he's only seen short-haired dogs and long-haired cats. So the words you are using are: value, useful, useless, society, fun, technology, art, jobs, hobby, cool, money, engineer, artist, sound, music, rock band, pro-gamer, important, harsh, ass, dumb, hypocritical, view, ass, foolish, think, fun, awesome, emotion, competitiveness, love, dream. One problem is that, like *cat* and *dog*, these words are overloaded to express a variety of experiences and ideas, and one can think that different uses of the same word mean the same thing. Another problem is that we are generally ego-centric; we think others see things the same way we do. Now let's organize some of your words into concepts: - **General judgments:** value, useful, importance - **Positive judgements:** fun, cool, important, awesome, love - **Negative judgements:** useless, unimportant, harsh, ass, dumb, hypocritical, ass, foolish. - **General terms:** society, technology, art, job, hobby, competition - **Specific terms:** artist (aka "painter"), engineer, (performance of) music, a painting, rock band, pro-gamer. Note that most of your positive terms are being applied to things you like. Also note, the negative terms are being applied to (1) things you don't like (or things you don't have an emotional connection to) and (2) yourself. I think #2 is perhaps a personal issue that's beyond the scope of this post, but an important issue nonetheless. You recognize that you're stuck in seeing things from your own point of view and that your emotions are tied to the way you see things. This is uncomfortable because you also recognize that you're being limited by these hard-wired emotional attachments. In a sense, your *freedom of thought/emotion* is being limited by.... something... and what you want is more flexibility in thought and emotion. One of the so-called "problems" here is that modern society is based on a lot of shared ~~illusions~~ concepts like money, what is important, and what is valuable. In a sense, some things are more real than others, but the way "society" links that into a world-view is an illusion. For example, it's easy to see that science and technology has a certain amazing repeatability and effectiveness. However, to then link/label that--in a way that is "absolute"--as good, better, desired, or important is kind of like a magic trick. Those are value judgments that have no basis in reality; those are social world views, or shared ~~illusions~~ concepts. We live in a society that attaches strong value to life, health, medicine, technology, and science. But those values are not shared by everyone in society, and those values are not real in an absolute sense other than the fact that they are shared value-constructs in the minds of those who believe in them. Think of it this way... technology is great... for those who can afford it. But what good is technology for the family who lives in a 3rd world country and has been displaced from their land by capitalistic forces and now has to live in poverty or work in menial jobs in factories? My point is not a rant on capitalism (it has its pros and cons), but rather, about value judgments as being abstract ideals. #What is Art? Now consider how you use the word "art" and "artist". You linked the word primarily to visual arts. But what you really need to better understand is the question, **"What is art?"** Let's start with the traditional concepts of art, like painting, sculpture, and music. Art is what we do when we manipulate stuff to change it's appearance, and then get "good at it"; that is, we can repeat the performance of manipulating stuff and arrive at similar results. **This creates interesting patterns of stuff that is either useful for a purpose or not useful for any purpose.** So a skilled primitive woman creates a clay bowl. That bowl is useful. She gets good at making bowls. She likes making bowls. People like bowls. They like them because they are useful. People generally like things that they are good at doing, and in general, humans like seeing recognizable patterns. (The brain is a pattern-matching computer.) So not only do the people like the bowls because they are useful, but they like them because they are recognizable. **In a sense, beauty = recognizable.** This is why, for example, that a person likes a particular game the more they play it, or a particular band the more they listen to it. The brain develops neural pathways that allows them to recognize finer and finer details (aka patterns) of the game/band. From an evolutionary point of view, this helps guarantee animals survival: being able to recognize places, friends, foes, food, the sound of a snake, etc. But with the advent of culture and language, humans have tapped into this pattern-matching survival function of the brain, and tricked it into delivering the same feel good neurochemicals that were previously required for survival. Back to the example of the bowl. A person might start putting designs on the bowls, and other people prefer to have the bowls with designs on them instead of the plain bowls. **That's not functionality, that's form. That's not usefulness, that's art.** We have a psychological/cognitive preference for beauty. That's human. #What is society? (What is it good for? What is good for it?) Now let's address another question. **"What does *useful to society* mean?"** There are individuals/people. There are groups of people. And bigger groups of people. But to ask what is useful to society, one has to at least *consider* **"What is useful to a single person?"** People like to be happy. To enjoy life. To have a good life. That certainly includes things like food and shelter and helpful technology. But it also includes enjoyment of things. You know, like whatever floats your boat, like games or music or art. Think of a society without any kind of art whatsoever. Everyone just working on something scientific or making some part in a factory. Never listening to any music. Never playing any games. Never drawing. Never dancing. Never writing stories or reading for enjoyment. That would be a pretty bleak "society" would it not? So "good for society" is not just advancement of science and production of products. Society is made of people, and people don't want to just have technological advancement and useful products and industry and money. **Good for society" includes enhancement of the quality of life for every individual within that society. People want to enjoy life, and art is part of the enjoyment of life.** It'a a matter of balance. A society that is all art and no science or production would die in a matter of weeks because nobody would be doing anything but painting. On the other hand, a society that is all science and production, and no enjoyment wouldn't be a sustainable society: that would devolve back into the animal form in which the only thing of value is survival. #Conclusion First, your view of things is limited and not 100% corresponding to reality. That's something that is always true for everyone, but it takes time and effort to expand ones view and understand that each of us creates our own reality, and we constantly need to transcend that to see better. The fact that you recognized that and are searching for expansion is evidence your going to succeed on that point. Secondly, at the root of things, survival is a matter of science/function. One needs to capture food, cook it, and build things to protect themselves in order to survive. Art is the ability to trick our brains into pleasure by creating recognizable forms (of sight, sound, taste). Art doesn't feed us or help us grow things, but it does help us feel good. Society is a form of mass culture that separates us from animals. The benefit of society is not just survival, but enhanced quality of life by triggering those goal driving and feel-good chemicals that were once necessary for primitive survival. Without art, there is no sense in having society and, in fact, society is not sustainable (or at least not of any value) without art.

[Gumbee]

Hope I'm not too late to the pot here, because I hope you see this. Art is important, it informs and influences the aesthetics of your every day life! Visual art is the birthing place of pretty much every visual design trend...ever. Every ad campaign, mobile OS UI, movie poster, kraft dinner package, album cover, building, t-shirt, outfit, etc have all either been influenced by, or created by an artist. To address your CMV more specifically, I don't think it's reasonable to say any job at all is useless. Any profession where money is involved in any way whatsoever contributes to the economy, even if in a small way, and thus has a use.

[Hazeless]

I didn't think about the contributing to the economy part, thank you!

[Butter_Baller]

I don't think you can compare "usefulness" of one career to another. Every career has a different purpose, and to say that one is greater or less than another is pointless. Ex: An electrician's purpose is to install and maintain electrical wires, set up electricity in a building, and handle other such issues An artist's purpose is to create art that people find appealing and enjoy You wouldn't call an artist to rewire your house, he or she would be useless in helping you with your electrical needs You don't commission an electrician to construct a new sculpture in your park, he or she would be useless in this avenue

[Hazeless]

But then what would be the artist's (and I usuallly refer to a painter/drawing guy) purpouse?

[Field-K]

Entertainment? People *crave* entertainment, so providing it is far from useless. Aesthetic value? No one wants a butt-ugly bridge in their city, an artist understands the subject of aesthetics and can aid in the design of the bridge to compliment the surrounding architecture.

[Butter_Baller]

Whats the purpose of an artist? I guess at it's most basic level an artist's purpose is to make art, but that doesn't really answer the question. An artist express his or her view on society, life, the universe, relationships, or anything really through whatever medium he or she chooses to use. Art is an expression of self, a way for one to show the world how he or she views it. Art taken on its own may not have much value, but the emphasis that we as humans put on art that we enjoy says a lot about us. The paintings we see, the music we listen to, the buildings we construct, the design of our homes is all art. And it says a lot about who we are. Not everyone can make art, but everyone can consume it. An artist expresses his or her outlooks on a particular topic, and people can use it to see the world in a different way. That's my opinion on it at least

[Hazeless]

But this is one of the things I don't get about art! I mean, if I write something, I want people to understant what I said, and interpret it as I meant it. However, with art (especially paintings), it seems that everyone has his own meaning. If I am an artist, wouldn't I want people to understand and relate to what I felt when I painted the peice, not what they feal when they view it?

[VincentPepper]

Art can have different purposes. While some is just there for entertainment there are endless works of art about the joys and tragedies of human life and everything in between. The beauty of great art is that it is MORE then just a Opinion brought to Paper for Consumption. * Some is intended to just be pleasant. (Most Pop Music, Films, Nice Paintings) * Some is intended to provoke a response in the Viewer and is used to critique Something. (Satire, Documentaries, Some abstract Art) * Some is just an expression of something the Artist thinks/Feels/Likes or a showcase of his skill. * And probably more But great Art manages to COMBINE these things. It can convey more than one meaning AND look good at the same time. Sure there is a lot of shitty and hyped art out there as well. But there are a lot of Shitty Bridges out there as well that won't survive the next Flood/Quake. That doesn't mean Bridges are useless either. I think the point where something stops being just a Document/Image and Art instead is when it invokes Emotion on Side of the Consumer, when it doesn't affect your ratio but your feelings more or less. But that's wonky personal defintion so please don't nail me to it :D The fact that different people can have different reasons why they enjoy it and still be right for themselves is just another Bonus imo.

[Butter_Baller]

Maybe that's the unexplainable part about art. An artist will try to express him or herself in some way, but not everyone will see it that way. However, there will be a few people who can look into whatever medium the artist is using and decipher how the artist intended his or her art to be. Through that, they gain perspective on how the artist sees the world I think the biggest hang up you have over art is that you expect it to have a utilitarian purpose. Art isn't really like that. Art can't actually *do* anything, it's what the people do with the art that defines it

[longlivedp]

Let's imagine a world completely devoid of art. Or, let's go a bit further and imagine a world completely devoid of ANY job that involves "superfluous" creativity. Where all jobs are "useful" and exclusively about function. No music, no films, no galleries, no literature, no poetry, no dance, no comedy, no games, no visually appealing architecture, no tasty food, no fashion, no web design, no street performers, no festivals. I find it hard to imagine a world like that. Perhaps George Orwell's 1984 is the best example I can think of. In the real word, North Korea and the territory occupied by ISIS come to mind. To me, that's not a world worth living in. Which raises the question, what is the point of having engineers if the society they are helping create is not a worthy end goal? **tl;dr Engineers are a means to an end; Artists are an end in themselves.**

[swearrengen]

Artists are actually more useful than Engineers! It's just that the use of engineering is physical, catering for our physical needs for survival. And the use of Art is metaphysical (or psychological if you prefer), catering for our mental/spiritual needs for survival. Happiness (and Meaning and Truth and Purpose and more) are *invisible* things - but much more important than Buildings and Bridges. Afterall, all those Buildings and Bridges and the Food on our table exist in servitude to the further purpose that we can live and enjoy our life! Without meaning, a life is of little value, and catering for it's physical needs only is rather pointless; you'd be no better than a zombie going through the motions of eating, shitting and sleeping. But music, novels, gaming, TV shows, competitions, sculpture - all these things that artists make - they show us who we are and what we can do and what we might and could and would like (or dislike) to do and become. Do I want to be like James Bond or Dudley Dursley? This music is what life feels like to me! Or this music is what life *should* feel like! Or that character in a book is the type of girl I love. Or that character is the type I hate. Art gives us values and teaches us the virtues we need to practise to attain those values that make life worthwhile!

[Hazeless]

My view towards art has been change, but I don't agree with the fact that it is more useful than engineering, I do think both have a purpouse, but I still think engineering is more important. What I get of what you are saying is that art helps us dream, and aim towards goals. But then again, why can't engineering. Some people, like me, could see a rocket and be inspired by this marvel of engineering, so in this case engineering would both fill the "practicallity" and the "dreamy" aspects. Would you say that, in this case, the rocket is a form of art?

[swearrengen]

Oh, of course Engineering can inspire us to have goals. And yes, there is artistic value and a spiritual response to seeing a rocket or an amazing feat of engineering. And Engineering can fulfill both your needs, to dream and have purpose! Not all Art is inspiring to everyone (and not all engineering is either). But the thing that makes us have a capacity to value Engineering (and awesome design and feats of human success) is our *mind*, our consciousness, that values being alive and that values it's capacity to find meaning in things. So the health of our mind (what and how well it values things and ideas) is required in order that we can appreciate and love things like rockets. A disintegrated mind that values nothing, not itself or or the world around it is depressed and can't see value in things like rockets. The rocket feels meaningless to it. As food provides material for the body, Art provides material for the mind to integrate together what it values so that a person's identity make sense to himself. Such a mind can improve itself, grow, integrate better so that it can value more, and go after more. It's our capacity to value that all jobs ultimately serve. Even going to the moon or mars - it's so we can expand our consciousnesses. When a caveman of Altamira painted a bison on a cave wall, the shocking thing about that bison is that it never existed; it was idealised, selective. He imagined a value that should have existed. And by painting it, he bought an immaterial value into a physical form that made other cave people value it and say "this is what a *good* (or idealised or better or more perfect) bison" looks like! And now all the other cave people possessed this immaterial value. He enlarged the values their mind's possessed. He raised the standards of other hunters.

[___OccamsChainsaw___]

This is impossible to talk about unless you first grant us a rigorous definition of "useful".

[Hazeless]

Should've thought about this, my bad. What I mean by "useful" is that it benifits directly to society. ie: the engineer designs the bridge so it won't fall, everyone likes that. The bridge builder man builds the bridge correctly, so it doesnn't fall, everybody likes that. An artist, how I see it, doesn't directly ontribute to society, but neither do pro-gamers or musician, and yet I praise the later, and not the artist. Maybe you could say the artist can help the engineer wind down, making him more focus next-day at work, so he designs a better bridge? Seems weird to me...

[___OccamsChainsaw___]

Well then how do you decide if something directly benefits society? The way I see it, artistic (i.e., music, visual art, literature, games, film &c.) and scientific (not *practical*, but frontier) endeavour is The Point. That bridge the engineer designed is only meaningful insofar as it facilitates those other things; it is valueless on its own. I suppose a simple way to put it is that things like engineering and computer and medical science make modern life possible, but the arts make it worth living. Not to mention that many engineers don't provide much of value even in practical terms.

[-Jamerican]

The artist can make the bridge look pretty. Society doesn't *need* pretty bridges, but if we only had bland bridges we'd look like North Korea. On a more serious note, I find culture very useful to society. It separates us from other cultures and induces a sort of pride in our country. Artists are one channel to culture. Sure, their job isn't very profitable but many do it out of great interest or hopes that one day their art would become profitable. I mean, look at the famous artists we have today, they're loaded as fuck. Some artists market their talents to something very profitable, like video game design or music video production. Sure society doesn't *need* these things, but we hold them in high regard.

[TornadoCreator]

Art is the expression of the human condition, it's what allows our society to grow and change. Art is the catalyst that enables us to examine political movements, social convention, and cultural norms and question them. Everything from attitudes towards sex, to our criminal justice system is questioned through art... but it's not just that. Art is by definition "useless" but for it's aesthetics; this is no bad thing. As people we require beauty and entertainment for emotional and mental well being. The lack of artistic fulfilment drives people to depression and is just as unhealthy as the lack of a good diet or exercise on the physical body. You say you have no emotional link to art but this is clearly untrue. You enjoy music and gaming which are simply mediums of art. Different people have different tastes and requirements in art be it film, sculpture, painting, literature, drama, music, gaming, or even sport to some extent as a way to express our primal instincts and desire to compete. We need these to be emotionally healthy and they are the very essence of an enriched society. Art dictates everything about us from our own mental wellbeing to the political and social direction in which we progress. I hope this has helped challenge your opinion.

[Hazeless]

It certainly has, I can see how we need a form of art to wind down, distract our selves and such. This is exactly the response I needed, helped me realize that art helps keep us "sane", and this is different for different people. Thank you very much! ∆

[MontiBurns]

Just to add to this. Art can also stimulate the imagination and inspire developments. "Dr. Martin Cooper, inventor of the first handheld mobile phone, credits the [Star Trek] TOS communicator as being his inspiration for the technology"

[TornadoCreator]

You're quite welcome, glad I could answer your question.

[DeltaBot]

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