A Peculiar Trend Among Artists: Concern with social problems, occasionally a tendency to self-destruction that may be blamed on social isolation and the failure of certain forms of artistic expression to deeply satisfy the artist, but rarely if ever do artists commit crimes against others. A Reasonable Hypothesis: the arts develop the emotional and imaginative faculty that enables human beings to feel or imagine the pain of others.
Statistical and Scientific Projects for the Future: Measure the effects of education on moral development. Does a correlation exist between education and crime? Not only between the lack of education and the financial and social needs that can lead to crime but between certain types of education and the greed and competitiveness that encourages certain forms of socially sanctioned yet “subtle” criminal behavior like the unsustainable exploitation of people one never sees, of the environment, and of one’s own mind. Murder and violence rates, as traditionally conceived, may be falling over time, but other crimes flourish.
A Question for Scientists: Does an education that promotes memorization and formulaic applications lead to mental instability? Thus far science has taken no account of the moral and psychological effects of education on humanity.
The Assumption of Science: Our teachers and professors of science operate on the assumption that the knowledge they give their students will be put to good use, but science demands proof. Students should be tracked after graduation (I’m half kidding) and their success as human beings, not only as employees, should be monitored and evaluated and the results should be used to inform hiring decisions and the future of education.
Hypothesis for Artists: some crimes are motivated, in part, by morbid curiosity to see or hear or feel something. The criminal mind half-imagines its intended crime, and then becomes fixated on it due to a lack of imaginative dexterity. The healthy imagination is dextrous and does not become fixated. Nevertheless, artists themselves continue to mistake images for beauty, whereas the great beauty is the dancing of consciousness as it apprehends the beautifully arranged pattern–a pattern that few images contain and none disclose to passive minds.
