On Truth and Beauty
Why art and science serve different ends.
In a recent Quillette piece Jerry Coyne argues that “unlike science, the literary, visual, and performing arts are not about truth.” When he made a similar assertion last June at a Heterodox Academy conference, it “resulted in Louis Menand and John McWhorter telling me, in so many words, to stay in my lane,” he writes. Wary that people might perceive him as “just another narrow-minded disciple of the science-as-hegemony school,” Coyne writes about art from a defensive crouch—but because I’m an artist, and well within my lane, I have no such qualms. Coyne is correct when he writes:
The real value of art … is not that it conveys knowledge that can’t be acquired in other ways, but that it produces emotional and cognitive effects on the receiver, usually conferring an experience of beauty. Art can enrich how we think about ourselves and other people, and, crucially, allow us to view the world through eyes other than our own. Through reflection, this expansion of experience can enhance our knowledge of ourselves. But that is subjective rather than propositional knowledge.
Would-be defenders of art make a serious category error when they insinuate that beauty is inferior to truth—as if beauty were an insufficient goal. But it is impossible to champion art effectively unless you believe that beauty is its own justification. Coyne offers examples of poems and paintings that he admires for their beauty. But he does not go far enough. Beautiful art can guide us through places where scientific truth can’t help us.
I’ll use my favourite novel as an example. John Steinbeck recasts the Cain and Abel story in his 1952 saga East of Eden, and his wisest character ponders different English translations of that Bible story with mutually incompatible interpretations. He wants to understand the precise meaning of what God told Cain after he slew Abel, so he consults the original Hebrew to sort out what it really means:
Don’t you see? The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in “Thou shalt,” meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—“Thou mayest”—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if “Thou mayest”—it is also true that “Thou mayest not.” Don’t you see? …
Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, “Do thou,” and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in “Thou shalt.” Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But “Thou mayest”! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.
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