The Arts as a Lens to “See Life Whole”

By Travis Anderson

Years ago, while serving as director of BYU International Cinema, I noticed that when people in our culture reference “good, wholesome entertainment,” they generally use the word “wholesome” in a strange way. They typically don’t mean that the movie, TV show, music, or book they have in mind is actually salutary or edifying—which is how we define the word, of course. They simply mean it is without objectionable content. I also observed that when people speak in this way, they almost always pair the word “wholesome” with “entertainment” rather than with “education” or “art.”

Granted, there is a certain logic to this pairing. After all, most education is edifying by its very nature, so it might seem redundant to say “wholesome education.” And while entertainment by definition is amusing, relaxing, and thereby rejuvenating, it is rarely edifying or nourishing in any substantial sense. By contrast, while art has the capacity to entertain, it is quite frequently a source of genuine edification. So, wouldn’t it seem much more reasonable for “wholesome art” to be a common catchphrase than “wholesome entertainment”?

Aristotle conceded almost 2,500 years ago that there is nothing wrong with entertainment. But perhaps because entertainment is its own reward, he also thought there is nothing inherently praiseworthy about it either. Predictably, he spoke very highly of activities that educate, noting that they cultivate a virtuous character, improve the mind, and occasion what he called “intellectual enjoyment.” But most people—today as in Aristotle’s age—generally prefer entertainment to education and art. Why? Aristotle’s answer, in part, was that entertainment appeals primarily to the body, while education and the more demanding forms of art (like dramatic tragedies in Aristotle’s day, and artistic films, music, and literature in ours) mostly engage the mind. In fact, the sensual pleasures derived from entertainment often explicitly free us from our mental cares. By contrast, art and education require attentiveness and effort. So, as Aristotle also pointed out, learning from the arts often involves some degree of mental or physical discomfort rather than physical enjoyment. These differences readily explain why people will opt to watch a pedestrian Hollywood movie instead of a cinematic milestone, or curl up with a cheap paperback novel instead of a literary masterpiece. People prefer entertainment over art and education because both art and education require work to harvest their manifold endowments, while most amusements demand no more effort than reaching for a remote or pulling up a phone app . . .

Dangers of Applying a Negative Standard

Because entertainment is not necessarily edifying even when it is free from morally objectionable content, mere entertainment is the moral and educational equivalent of diet soda—no unwanted calories, perhaps, but nothing very good for you either. In consequence, when we judge the worth of art solely by its entertainment value and lack of objectionable content, the results are bound to be problematic. The reason is twofold. First, as we have already established, the tendency of amusements to divert us from serious concerns and to please us without edifying us, makes mere entertainment as likely to be harmful as beneficial. Second, value judgments made primarily with reference to a negative standard implicitly require an eye focused precisely on the bad rather than on the good. It is this negative focus I wish to discuss further, for its effects can be particularly pernicious.

One unfortunate consequence of a negative focus when evaluating art is not only an inclination to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but an incapacity to see the baby at all. Conversations with people who have been offended by a book, film, or other work of art often reveal they can remember little or nothing good about the work in question, even when they acknowledge the offending material was trivial. Their well-intended but immoderate focus on the bad apparently dulls their capacity to perceive the good, even within works that others have found both artistically praiseworthy and spiritually uplifting. Then again, as anyone with moral sensitivity is likely to ask, in today’s high-risk world of deceptive and subversive media, wouldn’t it be irresponsible not to exercise at least some degree of active surveillance against evil? Well, yes…and no. On the one hand, evil indeed demands vigilance against its insidious strategies and forms. On the other hand, we must differentiate vigilance from surveillance. The latter denotes the kind of obsessive attention to evil that is precisely the problem. We don’t vanquish evil or even avoid it by watching, monitoring, and studying it with singular focus. Life certainly demands a moral sensibility or standard with at least a few explicitly formulated “don’ts.” But any moral standard composed entirely or even predominantly of things to avoid—in other words, any moral outlook obsessively focused on the myriad textures and hues of evil’s chameleon skin—is destined to be detrimental.

I remember once hearing of a visit Spencer W. Kimball made to BYU while he was President of the Church. According to the story, as he walked across campus one of his hosts noticed some young people who were perhaps inappropriately dressed. The host remarked, in a disapproving tone, “Will you just look at those students?” assuming, as the story goes, that President Kimball would endorse his implied criticism. Instead, President Kimball responded, “Yes, aren’t they beautiful?” Now, I can’t verify this account, and since it has something of an apocryphal tone it may not have actually happened. But regardless of the story’s veracity, its moral illustrates my point: Where there is good to be found, even where there might also be something bad, we should be able to acknowledge and benefit from the good. We should not refuse an occasion to praise simply because there may also be some reason to condemn, as if something is worthy of appreciation or capable of edification only when it cannot cause any offense. Keeping our gaze obsessively directed toward the bad virtually guarantees we will overlook the good. 

Blinding us to goodness is not the only problem with a negative standard, however. Another is the simple fact that any attempt to avoid the bad by making it the center of our focus is an enterprise doomed to failure. When I was first learning to ride a motorcycle, a more experienced rider taught me a life-saving lesson: If you see something dangerous in your path—road debris or patch of loose gravel, for instance—don’t try to avoid it by staring at it; instead, look in the direction you want to go and your gaze will naturally direct you away from whatever you want to avoid. In other words, don’t look where you don’t want to go. However much we intend otherwise, we will inevitably go exactly where we look. The moral parallel is obvious. The only safe and reliable way to avoid the bad is to look constantly for the good. Focusing on the bad, however laudable one’s intentions, will always lead toward that very point of focus. I believe this is why Christ teaches in the New Testament that the way toward a sinless life is not to study sins and their endless variants, as did the Pharisees, but to pattern our life after Him who lived without sin. I also think this is why wise spiritual leaders teach us to vanquish temptation by engaging our mind in some charitable or wholesome activity. Doing so will naturally incline us away from evil by directing our attention toward righteousness. And since we can’t be moving in two directions at once, any move toward the good is simultaneously a move away from the bad.

Seeking Virtue in the Arts

In view of these inherent problems with a negative standard of judgment, why are we so easily and frequently seduced into thinking we can become good solely by not being bad? What has happened to our notion of virtue that we think we can achieve it simply by avoiding vice? . . . After all, we do not identify something as “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy” on the basis of what it is not, but on the basis of what it is. Consider in this regard the Thirteenth Article of Faith:

We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

As Joseph Smith intimated, this article of faith paraphrases an admonition of Paul found in his epistle to the Philippians: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). It is worth noting that Joseph’s paraphrase of Paul mentions both chastity and virtue, which implies the one is not reducible to the other. Moreover, only one adjective is emphasized by being repeated twice. It is the word “virtuous.”

As many are aware, the word “virtue” has an interesting pedigree in Western civilization. It is a word commonly used to translate the Greek arete—which is the word originally spoken by Paul in the passage above. . . . [I]n every case for the Greeks, virtue meant goodness or excellence of some kind—excellence of character or behavior, excellence in the performance of some function or task, or excellence of aspirations and accomplishments. In sum, virtue referred not just to a lack of bad qualities, but to an abundance of good ones. . . .

We cannot develop such traits only by evaluating our choices against a negative list of “don’ts.” We must also actively seek the good—not just in order to do good, but to become good. And it helps to recognize that when we are seeking what is virtuous in human art and learning, they rarely come with everything objectionable completely refined out of them. Even the writings of Shakespeare, lovingly carried across the plains by our pioneer ancestors and so often quoted in LDS books and general conferences, contain their fair share of potentially objectionable material. But we read Shakespeare despite that fact because there is so much to praise among what little there is to condemn. 

Learning to Recognize and Value Good Art

How, then, do we seek after excellence when it is sometimes entangled with mediocrity and perhaps evil, when both personal maturity and cultural sensitivities play such a determinative role, and when individual perceptions of good and bad often vary widely?

On the one hand, we must indeed be selective. Brigham Young once advised, “I cannot say that I would recommend the reading of all books, for it is not all books which are good. Read good books, and extract from them wisdom and understanding as much as you possibly can, aided by the Spirit of God.” Then too, as Brigham Young also advised, we must be open-minded and appreciative of all genuine truth and beauty—regardless of its source: “Seek after knowledge, all knowledge, and especially that which is from above” and “Let us not narrow ourselves up; for the world, with all its variety of useful information and its rich hoard of hidden treasure, is before us.” . . .

 Does this mean devotional art or art produced by and for Latter-day Saints is the only kind of art we should create, view, and allow others to view? No. Is art produced by the world worthless or evil? Of course not. If it were, then we could not praise a Greek tragedy or the Parthenon. Can we produce our own great artists by turning our back on what the Greeks, Romans, Renaissance Italians, French Impressionists, and other artists of the world can teach us? Again, the answer is no. So, the real question is not, how do we completely avoid the world and its influence in producing, teaching, and appreciating art? It is, how do we teach and learn to seek after what is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy in the world, and despite the world’s failings?

And how do we carry out that search without single-mindedly looking for vice or its absence? 

Art is not always entertaining; sometimes art educates and edifies in a decidedly demanding, unentertaining fashion. And good art, whether by entertaining, educating, or inspiring us, always enriches life in ways no other human enterprise can do. Hence, it should be taken seriously, and at times, with a certain degree of tolerance. As the Scottish philosopher David Hume once claimed, we should be capable of excusing religious and cultural differences in works of art because it would be ridiculous to expect the beliefs and tastes of every culture to resemble our own. More importantly, it would be wrong to assume that artworks that manifest such differences cannot otherwise ennoble and educate us.7 In order for good art to accomplish that enrichment, however, we need to learn and teach the language, history, conventions, and mechanics of the various arts.

Education and inspiration constitute an important second step in seeking after virtue: acquainting ourselves with art that does not merely reflect our own views and preferences, but expands our appreciation for beauty, truth and goodness beyond the confines of our individual experience.

Lastly, all study and analysis of art requires substantial preparation and effort—which is partly why challenging art is often undervalued or criticized. Real art will always stretch our abilities in ways entertainment will not. And we must prepare for such challenges. But that is part of what makes art praiseworthy.

Seeing Life Whole

Brigham Young organized the Deseret Dramatic Association just two years after entering the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. . . . In 1853, he wrote the following about theater—though I think we can extrapolate his remarks to any and all of the arts:

Upon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its traps and snares can be revealed, and how to shun it.

Brigham Young suggests here that art has the capacity to nurture within us an understanding of what Aristotle in the Poetics called “universal truths.” This capacity is perhaps what BYU’s own Gerrit de Jong called “culture”—the ability to see life whole, a familiarity with “the best that has been thought and the best that has been done in the world.” Such wisdom is not developed by limiting our experiences to artistic portrayals of what Brigham Young called the “good and its happy results.” It also requires being able to learn from wise, truthful, and tasteful representations of “evil and its consequences.” It indeed requires an ability to see life whole.

In conclusion, I hope that, yes, we will be wise in deciding what art we embrace. But I also hope our decisions will be judicious and not judgmental, aimed at seeking the good, rather than just avoiding the bad. I especially hope we will redouble our commitment to kindle and rekindle in each other’s hearts the passion for art, music, drama, philosophy, and literature that fired the flame of our own various searches after all that is virtuous and good. For only thereby can we realize the creativity and love of beauty and goodness that constitutes our true spiritual likeness to God.

• Travis T. Anderson, associate professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University, regularly teaches film artistry and theory classes in addition to philosophy courses. He has mentored more than 20 film projects for his students in film classes for the Philosophy Department and the BYU Honors Program. He directed the BYU International Cinema Program from 2000 to 2007.
• This article was adapted from a devotional address given to Brigham Young University’s College of Humanities on March 8, 2001.

Please visit https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/seeking-after-the-good-in-art-drama-film-and-literature/ to read the complete, unabridged version, “Seeking After the Good in Art, Film, and Drama, and Literature,” first published in BYU Studies 46, No. 2 (2007), pp. 231–246.