about artists...

[Philosophos]

I want to think myself as an artist (not singing or else WWIII will rise) because I learn dancing moves easily, I paint, I write poems but basically I'm into acting.

So my question is this: What is your opinion about artists that say things the way they are? Are they necessary for the society or do you think they are something useless?

There were lots of societies that banned them because they could bring a revolution almost all by themselves for example in ancient Greece Plato wanted poets banned from his state because of their revolutionary characteristics. In some other societies there were some killings of painters because they draw something that the government or the church didn't like.

[Ocean Seal]

Artists are necessary, don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Don't let the bourgeois moralists tell you that you need to get a job, please a boss, to contribute to society.

[ClassLiberator]

An artist is a person analyzes the world from a unique and creative point of view that no one else would think to do. An artist is a person who sees the beauty, horror and absurdity behind everyday life and society and even outside of the real world. Was Carl Sagan an artist? Most would think of him as strictly an astronomer but he saw the pure magic behind the origins of life and the cosmos. He saw how virtually insignificant we are in the history of the Universe and even the Earth. He saw the ridiculousness behind people who have killed themselves and others countless others for temporary control of a strip of land on a speck of dust orbiting one of billions of stars in one of the hundreds of billions of galaxies.
Artists are everywhere, people just don't realize it.

[Philosophos]

Well I can't help it. I want to be an actor but if you look at how the things are in Greece and especially for actors (things were difficult enough even before the crisis). Actors don't take lots of money so they can't survive if they haven't another job...

Anyway what can you do (just a revolution )

[prolcon]

To think about it, artists make their living by selling their work and, often, the rights to its use for profit. Big name artists, like very famous actors, typically have the clout necessary to retain rights to their work even after allowing its use for profit by other agencies. In this way, the more powerful artists own, at least in part, that to the production of which they contribute. It's difficult to say at this point whether an artist can be called petty-bourgeois or a member of the labor "aristocracy."