Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth

Today I learn something very interesting from my Spanish teacher. Normally, she would teach me a unit in my textbook, but this evening she talked about Picasso.

Perhaps, I do not need to introduce him to you. He is very famous for his paintings. However, I guess many of you here do not agree with those art experts that his paintings are magnificently beautiful. I did not, either.  But it was the story of 10 hours ago. As I stated above, my teacher told me something about his paintings and it really made me wonder.

But I will skip the details of her lecture [sorry, but I need to have something up my sleeve). If you want to know, I think Google provides us a very wide range of choices. The main point here is that after her lecture, I still do not find any beauty in his paintings [ironic, I guess]. The only thing that I got from that very interesting lecture was the understanding of his paintings. Picasso is always said to have created very incomprehensible paintings. He is nothing like some artists that we are familiar with, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, or my favorite Van Gogh. To normal eyes like ours, Picasso’s art in the cubism period is very hard to comprehend. However, today, my teacher made his paintings more understandable. He was not drawing meaninglessly. Every detail in his works made sense. And only when you have some decent knowledge about art can you understand and find them priceless.

[Still I do not find it beautiful]

I have always wondered why people pay millions of dollar to buy a painting [except for some investment cases]. Some of the paintings are not really beautiful. But now I understand. Those rich people, like us, do not see any beauty in those marvelous paintings. The only reason why they accept to pay a lot for those arts is that they understand them and we do not. When they place a painting of Picasso on the wall, they are not showing to the world its beauty. They are showing to the world that they understand the art, the meaning behind it. The painting is not a source of decoration, but a certificate of knowledge because only people who have enough knowledge would pay for that. It has become a tool to emphasize the gap between those who have known and those who have not.

 “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth” – Picasso.

I have to admit that I really want to have a Picasso’s painting in my room now. But I am afraid that I still do not have enough knowledge about his paintings to have one.

Maybe one day.

Maybe never.

Kz

When good intention turns bad

(This morning I read an article on Spiegel (a German magazine which is my favorite) about how legalizing prostitution has failed in Germany, and I have to say it did offer me a different perspective on this sensitive topic)

Recently, there has been suggestion about making prostitution become legal in Vietnam. As a typical eastern people, we find it quite uncomfortable to talk about such idea. We all know the negative side of prostitution through our school books. We all know where to find it through our friends. But we do not want to talk about it all. However, currently, this topic has gained much attention from the public.

Most people when argue about legalizing prostitution often base on 2 points:

1/ The benefits if we manage it.

2/ The morality of doing prostitution: for both buyers and sellers.

The first point is the reason why people want to legalize prostitution. There are some benefits according to them. They believe that by organizing this smoke-free industry, we can help reduce the STD, especially HIV/AIDS. We can even tax those sellers and increase government budget. They argue that we can never ever make that profession totally vanish. Therefore we should instead manage it and benefit from it.

The second point is why people turn down the idea. They blame the man who buys the service. And they even blame the woman who sells that. Eastern culture hardly accepts that very natural biological demand.

However, there is something missing here. People have forgotten to mention the prostitute’s benefits if we legalize their jobs.

After all, we are all only talking about ourselves, about “we”, “we”, “we”. We take HIV/AIDS into account because we are afraid that we may get infected somehow. We consider management because we cannot stop it at the first place. We want tax so that we have more to spend. We talk about moral because we do not want our husbands to be spoiled. But we forget to talk about the main person here: the prostitute.

What will happen to the prostitute if we legalize her profession?

When a girl accepts her job at a brothel, she has to work intensively, sometimes more than the pre-legalization period. How can this happen?

It is because when we legalize prostitution, we will create a free market for it. Free market means more competitors, new standard and tax. Now that the brothel owners have to improve the facilities to meet the law standard, pay tax, compete with each other, they will have to increase the commission received from their employees. The prostitute therefore needs to work harder if they want to maintain the same wage.

Human trafficking will be a big concern as brothel owners will be searching widely to have more employees. Because now they stand on a more firm and legal ground, they can easily employ more women than before to meet the increasing demand. More women will take a risk of working as prostitute and their futures are uncertain for the career only lasts 20 years at most.

Moreover, there will be no easy way to quit as the brothel owners always know how to get things on track. Even when prostitution becomes legal, police are still not a reliable support. People know that there is a blur connection between the police and those brothel owners. Before the legalization, if a prostitute breaks out because of being abused, she will receive much help and sympathy from the community. But if prostitution becomes a legal job such as banking or teaching, I do not think she will receive the same amount of that because now everyone is equal and she is no longer miserable for we are all similar at our own jobs.

In the end, the prostitute does not benefit more if her profession is legalized. They will perhaps be safer. But there are also new problems they have to face. The law will not fully protect them.

When we study economics, we learn about benefit and cost. Any project whose benefit is bigger than its cost should be carried out. But we do not pay attention to who will benefit and to who will pay the cost. We cannot know exactly whether the benefit of legalizing prostitution is bigger than its cost or not. But there is one thing we have done: we have talked about the society so much that we almost forget those women.

The society may have a win. But this win will stink if the main character does not.

  

Kz