The arts aren’t a luxury: we evolve towards art.
John Adams explained it thoroughly. On May 12, 1780 John Adams wrote his wife Abigail from Paris, where he was on a diplomatic mission:
“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”
In his viewpoint, the arts are no less essential to society than politics or commerce; they’re further up the list, not down. We expand upwards into the arts.
Too often our society views arts as a luxury, easy to eliminate in favor of other pursuits (athletics, academics, tax cuts). But the arts aren’t a luxury; they are the pursuit that makes us most fully human and connects us to each other most deeply.