What Is the Importance of the Arts & Humanities?
In a tech-minded world, we remain incessantly connected, caught up in the emotional turmoil that festers in the masses of information at our fingertips. Our smartphones, our computers, our TVs, our cars, our books, our houses are all integrated with technology, and this trend will only continue, a pursuit for the seamless blend of daily life and technology. In the face of such social, academic, economic, and cultural change, we need a pause. This respite will restore our mindset, refresh us with ideas, and provide us with essential sustainability. In a world where the rate of our accomplishments is moving ever faster, how can human nature continue to maintain itself? What could happen in an environment where everything has progressed to the extent that we stagnate in our success?
Thus lies the importance of the Arts & Humanities. They provide the pause, the respite, the safe haven, while allowing our society to continue to flourish. The empathy found by engrossing yourself in a novel, the emotional capacity that paper and ink can hold, the discussions that have emerged from texts – no matter their publication date – all prove how the Arts & Humanities can sustain a culture. Rather than restricting their readers, books immerse audiences in universal, even undeniable truths. They educate those who will listen through stories, and stories will never cease to exist. They will be our link between our past and our present, and pave the way for our future. As our sponsor, Mrs. Gena Dye, says, “We are all storytellers, no matter where we have landed in time or place. The need to share those stories will never fade from our culture. It connects us in often unspoken ways and provides a kinship that math and science, as vital to our world as they are, can never truly replace.”