Ah gotcha! Sorry my head had wandered off trying out some new dance steps .I simply wanted to make a distinction of "tribal art" as in cave paintings and in dance-and-songs that preserved the history by and for a tribe. They are called "folklore art" in my language. There are two very strong elements to them: 1. they must be appealing to the artistic senses (whatever those are), and 2. they must uphold the tradition by not changing the piece. This second part is the one thing that I wanted to so desperately point out separates cultural / commissioned / industrial art from creative arts.
In the folklore tradition, in the deep past, the stories were told unchanged. The songs were sung the same way, and there were no variations in the dance steps from an original.
That said, this preservation was more an effort than an all-out success. Some generations did change the content, even if ever so slightly.
So even though the songs, lyrics and dances lifted the spirit of the tribal members, they were emotive and mood-generating, they were not the brain children of the creative efforts of the performers.
Whereas today more and more never-before-heard, catchy, beautiful, spirit-lifting poetry and songs are made by artists, and the public values these individual creative efforts. In the song-and-dance you talked about before, there were no ongoing creative efforts.
Yeah, that's true.
Right, hence your talk of -So I am trying to say that many people in this thread put down that to them art comes from within, it is a giving out of the self, writing a poem, story, song, takes them down to depths they can't fathom, etc. etc. etc., but the other kind, which you surprised our readership here with, the traditional carrying on of old tales, can't be reconciled with the process when this incredible need to put out what's inside a person makes peole poe, sing, or dance.
It's an interesting idea. We have psychology and sociology, but 'a culture of individualism' is a bit of a conundrum, maybe needs a new meta philosophical approach. An anthropologist mate of mine reckons 'the individual' was invented, I forget, a couple of hundred years ago, something like that. Not exactly sure what she meant, but it feels sort of right. And what you're saying about art reflects that.There should be a branch of philosophy that treats human endeavours from two points of view, each, and without exception: from the individual's point of view, and from society's point of view. One shall be forced to realize that there are two religions, two moralities, two emotions, two laws, two educational systems, two institutions of each kind, two of everything, as the needs and understandings of individuals are incredibly (but not wholly) different from those of society.