Finding enjoy-

ment in man-kind’s artistic

achievements — painting, photography, literature, film, — is uniquely fulfilling. Anyone who disagrees is ignorant. Alongside the hard sciences, representative democracy, and market economics, the arts represent the highest achievements of mankind. Their sophistication elevates us above other animal species.

But attempts to promote the arts among young people have often been met with apathy or even a backlash. Can the educational system force you to appreciate them if you don’t or simply aren’t ready to do so?

The idea of reestablishing a broad “core curriculum” in universities has gained some support as a way of reversing our alleged cultural decline. Back when studying the arts was an upper-class luxury, breadth of knowledge was favored over depth. In the modern industrial economy, specialized marketable skills take precedence, and this aristocratic tradition has become increasingly dated and obsolete. Brown University dropped “general education” requirements some time ago; to them, there’s no reason you should pay $35,000 a year only to be forced into prescribed classes.

But science fiction author Robert Heinlein once said that every human being should be able to pitch manure, plan an invasion, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and write a sonnet, among other things. He punctuated a 21-point list with the phrase “Specialization is for insects.”

This list is often cited in defense of “well-rounded” education, but it’s as wrong as it is witty. Although everyone should know some things, it is precisely due to specialization that we don’t have to spend all our time subsistence farming, and can seek enjoyment in physically useless but mentally fulfilling activities like painting and writing poetry.

It’s not the province of schools to impose breadth on students. We should not be forced to write sonnets in high school in the name of well-roundedness any more than we should be forced to fight mock battles or pitch manure (though both of those skills might be useful at the next Apple Cup). Planning invasions is taught to military officers at general staff colleges, and cooking meals is best learnt from — your mom, or your dad, for that matter.

Most of us will agree that it is better to appreciate the value of all of these things, including the arts. But the nobility of the ends do not excuse the ineffectiveness of the heavy-handed means employed to achieve them. How many of us have really come to an appreciation of the arts by having them dictated into the curriculum by arrogant principals acting in loco parentis?

General art classes below the college level often consist of a teacher saying “Here’s some brushes and paint, here’s the vague gist of what to do — now go paint something.” This is a terrible way to learn to appreciate art, especially under the prevailing “everyone’s a winner” education model.

When you produce garbage and everyone calls it good, you will never learn what it means to be great.

Instead, you must see true beauty before even attempting to create it. Speaking from personal experience, I learned more about art in four days in New York City wandering the MoMA, the Met and the Guggenheim than I did in five years of compulsory paint-slinging and jumbled field trips in junior high and high school.

The point is that artistic appreciation cannot be drilled into a person. It often comes late, and it must be gently nurtured and not forcefully imposed. You cannot create a genuinely “whole” person by educational fiat. Many people don’t learn to appreciate art until they mature somewhat with age and grow some self-driven curiosity about it, and that’s fine.

So if you want to take arts classes, take them — but take them if and only if you’re interested in the subject matter, not because you need them to graduate. If VLPAs are your only concern, you might as well bite the bullet and get a marketable skill by doing a second-year language.

[Reach columnist Russ Wung at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]