Thanks for posting about this! The experiences I’ve had with art feel like a big part of what motivates my altruism.
One of the ways art can encourage altruism is by rendering real the life of another person, making you experience their suffering or joy as your own. Many pieces of art have this effect on me, too many to name—indeed I think of it as a defining quality of good art.
Another way art can encourage altruism is by taking a zoomed-out perspective and engaging with moral ideals in the abstract. This you might call “humanistic”. I’ve listed mostly these below, as art of the other type is too numerous to name.
Books
- The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin is very meaningful to me as a vision of what a society where we cared “sufficiently” about others might look like.
- All Kurt Vonnegut, a very humanistic writer. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is explicitly about a philosophically-minded billionaire who decides to give his wealth away to the poor, and the consequences of that decision.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_Hanging (the Japanese police botch an execution, causing the criminal to lose all his memories of the crime; the police, panicking, try to jog his memory so they can execute him like they’re supposed to)
Thanks for posting about this! The experiences I’ve had with art feel like a big part of what motivates my altruism.
One of the ways art can encourage altruism is by rendering real the life of another person, making you experience their suffering or joy as your own. Many pieces of art have this effect on me, too many to name—indeed I think of it as a defining quality of good art.
Another way art can encourage altruism is by taking a zoomed-out perspective and engaging with moral ideals in the abstract. This you might call “humanistic”. I’ve listed mostly these below, as art of the other type is too numerous to name.
Books
- The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin is very meaningful to me as a vision of what a society where we cared “sufficiently” about others might look like.
- All Kurt Vonnegut, a very humanistic writer. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is explicitly about a philosophically-minded billionaire who decides to give his wealth away to the poor, and the consequences of that decision.
- George Saunders, another very humanistic writer. Tenth of December is great. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/15/the-semplica-girl-diaries is a great one of his about the banality of evil.
Poems
- https://www.pw.org/content/akhmatova_by_matthew_dickman
- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/08/11/trouble-poem-matthew-dickman (Content warning: suicide)
- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52173/what-work-is
Movies
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Jackson_Heights (a long, quiet, slice-of-life documentary that jumps between people)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_Hanging (the Japanese police botch an execution, causing the criminal to lose all his memories of the crime; the police, panicking, try to jog his memory so they can execute him like they’re supposed to)