beautiful? That which has perfect form.” This view of the truth led, for example, many philosophers in the fifth century BCE to believe that the Earth was a sphere simply because the sphere was considered to be the most perfect form! This is an example of an idea at work which propelled the thinkers of Antiquity and was developed by them. But what does it mean that the idea “was developed?” This means two things: the author is representative of his culture, and, at the same time, he is different from his predecessors, peers, and followers.
The mainstream ideas of a culture rouse dialogue among authors, and thus, culture is developed. Therefore, a creator owes culture just as much as culture owes him.
Culture and Freedom
Having said this, what is our understanding of culture now? We saw it defined by paradoxes when culture’s different faces were revealed. These faces present the development of human ways of life or ways of thinking, dialogue, creativity, and freedom. This last feature is the one I want to concentrate on now.
Culture and freedom presuppose one another at all dimensions. I mentioned already that an author must feel utterly free to build a new world. This is true with respect to ideas, emotions, art forms, techniques, genres, personages, events, chunks of other works of other authors, use of language, etc. A work of art represents a new world and, at the same time, is a form of dialogue. Therefore, it requires ultimate freedom in the same way that people require and are entitled to freedom of speech. Art represents new ideas or a new assembly of ideas or a new manner of expressing those ideas, which amounts to the seed of an entirely new virtual world. Art represents new dimensions in understanding the human way of life, humanity itself, and let us add now, human freedom. Why?
A human being is innately free. Freedom is one of the definitions of humanity. It is common knowledge that humans value freedom above all else. We know from history about people who have sacrificed their property, health, and even lives for the sake of freedom. We feel compassion and empathy for them.
