[MUSIC]
What's the value we create right now?
This is gonna be a little bit of a festival of quotations throughout
the ages, but I align myself with that great social
observer Fran Lebowitz who observed that original thoughts,
like original sin, happened a long time before we were on the scene.
Let's look at, if you like, a plethora,
of reassuring observations about the value of arts and
culture through the ages and then what makes it valuable right now.
Let's look at what hasn't changed.
Arts and culture from the time we were hunter-gatherers have been part of what we
need for creative expression.
In Desmond Morris' heroic work, The Artistic Ape, which followed,
by 40 years, his equally heroic work The Naked Ape, we can see that
from the earliest time that we are able to find any records of our existence,
creative expression and artistic celebration are an important
part of marking the occasions of who we are as a species.