Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise

Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise

On Art Is Not the Cure

Why Great Art Is a Consequence, Not a Cause

Richard L. Johnson's avatar
Richard L. Johnson
Jan 06, 2026
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“Before art can flourish, the people themselves must flourish.” - Richard Wagner

Modern culture consoles itself with a dangerous fiction: that art leads civilization. That artists can drag a disintegrating society forward through imagination while its families, rituals, and institutions rot. When the collapse becomes impossible to ignore, the prescriptio…

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