Moral Imagination

Among the many assignments inherited in human creativity, one of the most

important is the ability to display the underlying mental processes.

The emergence of artistic culture in a certain sense, is the human response

the need for balance and harmony to the world.

Art has many faces, forever, but unfortunately, it can not influence people

without their will, mental stress, some of the ideas. A person must be willing to

learn to see and understand the fine, then the art will positively influence them,

society as a whole.

Literature is an example of an art form influencing people through centuries.

The secret of the fragility of literary works is that the material from which they are

created quickly “gets old”, or rather changes. Language is changing rapidly,

absorbing new words and getting rid of the old ones. Reader is most interested in

the language of his time. Nevertheless, there are literary works that do not lose

their value over many centuries. It is those eternals that speak to the inner lives.

"Eternal Images" in the literature are scarce. For example, Shakespeare's

Macbeth and Hamlet, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Goethe’s Faust, etc. Truly "eternal

themes" are sparse : love, death, a deed in the name of all humanity...

The work of art, therefore, provides a sense of something eternal,

reassurance that some things will stay as grand as they were made to be even

after generations pass, it provides harmony in the sense that the influence of an

artwork is influential to a number of people in one way or another. It connects the

people through similar experiences the viewers might have from the piece of art.

The behavioral influence of art was there since humans themselves. In

ancient times the aesthetic thought was sometimes expressed in the form of myth:

the primitive man firmly believed that a successful hunt is enough to pierce a real

or painted arrow image of the beast, and to be sure to win over the enemy - to

execute the war dance.

Art was organically woven into the daily lives of people, was inseparable

from crafts, to create the necessary items for people and things. It is closely

associated with magic rituals through which people wanted to work on the

unknown forces of nature.

The ancient philosophers sought to understand the importance of art in

one's life. Plato recognized only the strengthened foundations of morality of the

aristocratic state’s works of art, emphasizing the unity of aesthetic and moral

significance. Aristotle argued that art can influence a person providing moral and

aesthetic impact, contribute to a person's character, his feelings.

In the history of art culture knows many examples of how the perception of a

work of art led to the commission of acts that change the way of life.
 Thus, the origins of art concealed in reality, but a work of art - a special

world, implying the perception that differs from the experiences in real life.

Awareness of the social role of art as a means of understanding its social

education can be found already in ancient authors (Plato, Aristotle), in ancient

aesthetics of the East (Confucius). If medieval philosophers have advanced to the

forefront of religious art, the thinkers of the Renaissance emphasized the role of art

in full and free development of the personality (Campanella). The representatives

of German classical aesthetics (Goethe, Hegel) treated art as "a way of freedom"

as an active social force in the struggle for human liberation. Russian revolutionary

thinkers saw in the art of "living textbook" and appreciated its function to be a

"sentence" for the phenomena of reality.

Art does not act on a single property, or any human power, whether intellect

or emotion, but to the whole person. Its aim is not to encourage people to a specific

act. It forms, sometimes unconsciously, subconsciously, the very system of human

values and attitudes, the effect of which will sooner or later manifest itself and often

unpredictable. The power of art lies precisely in the fact that the appeal to human

conscience and awaken the spiritual faculties of man, show the best that there is.

Listening to beautiful music, looking at a beautiful painting or other work of

art, the man pushing the boundaries of rationality unambiguous: the art discovers

something mysterious, unexplained scientific knowledge.

Therein lies the secret of the powerful impact of art on the moral world of
man, his lifestyle and behavior. That's why people are in dire need of art.

The ending credits of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: Space Odyssey”,

accompanied by “Also Sprach Zarathustra”, are followed by at least four minutes of

the composition but not by anything on the screen - it is completely black, as if it is

a void, perhaps having something to do with Nietzsche’s established presence in

the movie (staring back at the staring viewer). Before the beginning of the digital

era and before shooting and storing film was a much more difficult process than

pressing a button and deleting or copying over files, air time and “rented” cinema

time were of more labor value, plus this particular filmmaker was renown to be the

most intentional, which made me think Kubrick let the void go on not just for the

sake of letting Zarathustra finish. I believe it was done to emphasize the

importance of art; there is the void, the nothing, and there is art, illustrated here as

a piece of classical music. The only thing that separates us from the darkness is

art.

Art is a form of social consciousness, the most important part of culture.

Culture can not exist without man, and vice versa - there is no society or social

group, or a person without culture. And it seems to me, the individual can not exist

without culture. The culture elevates man above the animal world, creating a

spiritual world, it contributes to human enrichment. Unlike animals people do not

only enjoy what nature provides, but also create a cultural environment that is the

"second nature." The man, seeing an art reproduction, experience aesthetic

pleasure, spiritual joy.

 There is no doubt in the fact that each person has the instincts,

unconditioned and conditioned reflexes, tried and tested over time to an automated

behavior. Also, a person has a mind (intellect), a person can be creative, and you

can still see such a thing as intuition (that is, information that comes from the

unconscious levels of the human psyche). If we consider the subject from the point

of view of information theory, all this is information to support human life and

activity. Therefore, we can conclude that a man is the information, a being who can

not live without art and culture - which is in a general sense all kinds of information.