The arts are not relevant to society

In this round I will defend my logical syllogism that I proposed in round one as well as offer a rebuttal to the arguments made by my opponent. I accept the definition of society as provided by my opponent (an organized group of persons associated together for religious,benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes). I will begin by restating my logical syllogism. Argument A (argument about the basics of society) P1: If the arts are fundamental to society, then society could not function without them P2: A society only needs things vital to survival in order to thrive P3: The only things vital to survival are food, clothing, and housing P4: These things can happen without the arts C: The arts are not fundamental to society. In his rebuttal, my opponent never really attacks any of my premises. The con does two things when offering his rebuttal. He supplements premise three and refutes premise four. I will address these both separately starting with con's rebuttal of premise four. Con's rebuttal of premise four ------------------------------ Con attempts to refute my claim in premise four by saying that food, clothing, and housing are in fact art. This argument, however, fails to address my premise. Just because something is art does not mean it has to be. My premise is that the things necessary to a function society can exist without the arts, not that they don't. Just because "the building of homes can be described as a production of something appealing" does not mean they have to be. An ugly brown square is just as functional a house as a beautiful mansion and therefore has the same value to society. Same goes for food and clothing. We could eat nothing but plain protein crackers and wear nothing but grey jumpsuits and society would still be able to function. Con's supplementation of premise three -------------------------------------- Other than refuting premise four con attempts to supplement premise three by adding another thing crucial to the survival of a society, communication. I concede that communication is vital to a society however I will make the same argument that I did with the other things vital to society; it does not have to be beautiful in order to function properly. I can communicate everything I need to without the help of poetry or prose. All of the communication we need can be done through scholarly essays or academic discussions. Now that I have defended my syllogism I will address the arguments made by the con. Because my opponents argument only pertains to modern society, I will keep my rebuttal focused on modern society. In my opponents argument, he provides many functions of art in modern society. I believe each one could be dismissed by asking the question "If the arts did not provide this service, could modern society still function? " I will now go through each service and test it against this question. The arts provide an economic service ------------------------------------ The con begins by stating the arts serve an economic function. This is true. According to the con, "The arts currently provide 5% of the US total GDP, and employ 2% of the US population. Based on 225 million people the arts employ 4500000 people in the United States". Let's apply the question to this. If the arts did not provide the economic service they do, could modern society still function? The answer is yes. The fact that 95% of the US total GDP is not provided by the arts prove that the US (and other countries for that matter) could still have an economy without the arts. I would say that the two percent of people employed in the arts could find other non-arts related jobs to do. According to my opponent, the arts also boost tourism. This is also true. I would even say that without the arts, tourism would not exist. Without the leaning tower of Pisa, it's doubtful I would even know where Pisa is. Without the Beatles I would not know what abby road is. With that said, society could function without tourism. Tourism and travel accounts for 9.5% of the global economy [1]. Again, the fact that the other 90.5% of the world economy is something other than tourism shows that the world economy can function without tourism (and therefore the arts). Basically what I'm saying here is that because the arts are not our only way of making money, society could survive without them. The arts provide an educational/motivational service ---------------------------------------------------- The con continues his argument by saying that the arts, music specifically, provide a service in the education and motivation of students. This again is true. Plato makes a good point when he says, "Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul. " Let's put this to the test. If the arts did not provide this service in education could modern society survive? Well, education is vital to society. I would argue that (I feel the con would accept this assertion). So the question becomes, "If the arts did not provide this service in education, could education survive? " The answer is yes. Plato himself admits this in his quote. The key phrase is "more potent instrument than any other". While the arts may be a useful instrument in education, it isn't the only one we have. If the arts were taken out of school, people would maybe be a little less motivated and have a little harder time but they would nevertheless be educated. In a nutshell my rebuttal is this. The arts provide a service to society, however without them we could find other ways to provide these services. We should be grateful that we have them because society could just as well function without them. They are a privilege, not a corner stone. They are the icing on the cake of life.