These are the paragraphs (the first two) from my essay that I chose to revise:
What if you were told that every piece of artwork made was useless unless it was contributing to the betterment of society? Members of Effective Altruism believe that creating artwork is a waste of time. They believe that the time and money spent creating art, music, movies, or other types of media could be used for making the world a better place. For example, in “Is Art a Waste of Time?,” Rhys Southan says that Effective Altruists don’t care about “beauty, knowledge, life or the environment for their own sake,” but rather they care about these things only as much as they contribute to wellbeing. Their focus is to end the suffering, hunger, and poverty of the world and to create global happiness. In the TED Radio Hour episode “How Art Changes Us” Benjamin Zander talks about his experience with conducting classical music. He believes that music has the power to “change us from within.” Music may not affect everyone in the same way but it conveys emotion that they might not have felt before. If the EA wants to bring happiness they use music and other artforms to help them? I think that the EA has good intentions to their work but they can’t exclude these large areas of creativity from which people draw so much happiness. I think that art is not a waste of time and that it can be used alongside altruism to do good in the world.
In his essay, Southan references a thought experiment from Peter Singer which reads as follows: “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those of us dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.” I don’t think that is a fair comparison because saving a drowning child is a firsthand, small-scale issue. The person is witnessing it right up close and can easily remedy the problem. Ending poverty and disease is a much different issue because it is much more difficult to do and also, people tend to turn a blind-eye to problems when they are not up-close. It is unfair to assume that people should dedicate their lives and donate all of their money to the “greater good.” Acts of goodness can be performed on a small-scale. For example, in Zander’s TED talk, he explains that he played music for a group of 12-year-olds and the next day and told him how it had affected him. “He said ‘my brother was shot last year and I didn’t cry for him. But last night when you played that piece, he was the one I was thinking about. And I felt tears streaming down my face. And you know, it felt really good to cry for my brother.’” This piece of art had a positive impact on this young boy and even though this piece may not change the whole world, it still did an act of good.
After Revision:
What if you were told that every piece of artwork made was useless unless it was contributing to the betterment of society? This is a bold statement considering so many of us devote their lives to creating art. While we can all do more to better the world, we cannot flat-out say that art is a waste of time. In the TED Radio Hour episode “How Art Changes Us” Benjamin Zander talks about his experience with conducting classical music. He believes that music has the power to “change us from within.” Music may not affect everyone in the same way but it conveys emotion that they might not have felt before. In today’s world, it is imperative that we strive to do as much good as we can in any way we see fit. I believe that art is not a waste of time and that it can enhance the acts of good that we perform not only by letting people express their creativity and emotions but also to spread awareness of the bad that needs to be corrected.
In an essay by Rhys Southan entitled “Is Art a Waste of Time?” a group called Effective Altruism claims that it is. They believe that the time and money spent creating art, music, movies, or other types of media could be used for making the world a better place. Effective Altruism’s main objective is to end poverty and suffering, and create global happiness. They believe that art does not add to this “net positivity” because it does not directly bring about change or amass enough money to. Their radical ideas can be summed up in a thought experiment from Peter Singer which reads as follows: “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond: would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed her in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say ‘no’ – and yet most of us manage to ignore those of us dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world, though we could easily help them.” I don’t think that is a fair comparison because saving a drowning child is a firsthand, small-scale issue. The person is witnessing it up close and can easily remedy the problem. Ending poverty and disease is a much different issue to solve because it is much more difficult and also, people tend to turn a blind-eye to problems when they are not up-close. It is unfair to assume that people should dedicate their lives and donate all of their money to the “greater good.”
The first thing I did was shorten my introduction paragraph by cutting out the introduction of Effective Altruism and put it in the introduction of my second paragraph to give the shallow pond analogy more context. I wanted the focus of my intro paragraph to be of my beliefs so I could then strengthen my thesis statement, which I did. These are the main changes I made to these paragraphs besides fine-tuning the language. I was inspired to do this because of the section W-4b from The Little Seagull. It helped me strengthen my claim. Also, section W-4c helped me make my paragraphs flow better. I did this by breaking up my second paragraph into two separate paragraphs and focusing it on the beliefs of Effective Altruism.
I’m glad you found the reading helpful!