Functional Explanations of Art

Introduction What is art’s purpose in society? Why do we spend so much time and money consuming, producing, and criticizing it? What separates “good” art from “bad” art (is there even such a thing?), and why do we honor and esteem “good” artists while ridiculing the bad ones? Why do we read movie reviews or discuss movies we’ve seen on internet message boards (especially if we’ve already seen the…