The individual and the group in art (from 2012)

The centrality of group-selection in developing human ethics, as recently reaffirmed by E. O. Wilson, brings archetypes and myths back into art and culture, and tends to downplay individualism. Heroes are individuals, often with flaws, but they usually defend or affirm the group.

As we return to small states, and even ethnostates, in a world where single-state supremacy, imperialism, ect. crumbles, the character, tone and guiding beliefs of group archetypes and myth will become more relevant.

With ethnostates there will be new myths attached to the old. Sacred art is more than about art only, it is about life and our evolution beyond humans to higher life, and on to Godhood. It is the affirmation of the sacred that defines great art across human history, a theme more constant than the method of affirmation. Folk Art as well as High Art can produce the same affirmation with different levels of skill and sophistication.

Artists have the freedom during creation to produce what they want, which is a freedom that enhances creativity, but later religion and society have the ethical right to accept or reject the work of the individual artists, because life is ultimately more about group effort, survival and evolution than about the hyper-individualism of one artist.