Summers of Discontent: The Purpose of the Arts Today

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, philosophers have pondered the nature and purpose of the arts, but artists have gone on making them and audiences enjoying them regardless of these musings. None of their theories have met with universal or even popular acceptance. But here is theory that places the arts—all the arts—firmly and squarely within everyone's everyday experiences.

Summers of Discontent goes to the heart of the arts. It's an examination of why artists create them in the first...