Understanding the Purpose of Art

Demography
The scientific study of population.
– U.S. Census Bureau
• Decennial Census collected every 10 years since 1790.
– Worlds largest data set.
– Determines the number of congressional representatives and
allocation of federal funds.
– Census Form
• American Community Survey (ACS) sample that supplements
the census with
ongoing data gathering on additional topics (housing, education,
occupation, etc.).
– Center for Disease Control (CDC)
• Data on diseases, life expectancy, drug use, obesity,
behaviors, etc.
• Records vital stats (births, deaths, marriages & divorces)
– Pew Research Organization
• Various surveys on such topics as immigration, personal
finance, political affiliation,
and attitudes.

Demography
http://www.census.gov/
http://www.census.gov/2010census/about/interactive-form.php
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage-divorce.htm
http://www.pewresearch.org/data-trend/society-and-
demographics/immigrants/
Demography
Issues with Census Data:
• Self enumerations may undercount specific groups
– Privacy issues, mistrust of government, and/or inability to
locate may limit
participation by minorities, inner city residents, homeless, and
transients.
– Reduces political representation and funding.
• Prisoners count as residents of the prison
– Prisoners are disproportionally adult minority males, skewing
geographical
demographics.
– May add to political representation and funding in location of
prison.
• Inter-census year data are estimates only
– Population changes are based on county birth and death data.
– County housing records are then used to allocate the

population growth to individual
cities within each county.
– Creates large gaps between decennial headcounts relative to
the prior year.
Demography
Issues with Census Data:
• Privacy
– Data is adjusted to preserve anonymity without sacrificing
demographic patterns.
• Identities of respondents are removed.
• Income values are rounded off.
• Outliers are averaged together.
• Characteristics of respondents are swapped.
Researching Undocumented Immigrants
• Lowest estimates come from surveys since many are hesitant
to reveal their
undocumented status out of fear of deportation.
• Medium estimates come from a residual approach that
involves subtracting
legal immigrants from the entire foreign-born population in the
U.S.
• Highest estimates come from Border Patrol extrapolations
measuring arrests at
the border; however, these are biased since the same individual
may be
arrested multiple times.

• Accurate counts are critical!
– Undocumented residents count for congressional
apportionment
– Allows for better cost/benefit analysis of migrants and policy
prescriptions.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/09/20/methodology-10/
Demography
Researching Race and Ethnicity
• Non-scientific conflations of biological, national origins,
and/or linguistic
traits.
• Census provides multiple categories of race but no “multi-
racial” category.
• Who is “Black” or “African American”
– NAACP estimated that despite 70% of Blacks being multi-
racial, only 3% checked more than one box.
– CDC’s Vital Statistics definition historically assigned the race
of the non-white parent to the child; since 1989
they have used the mother’s race (led to an increase in black
infant mortality rates).
– Race at death often involves a visual inspection of the body
by a mortician or physician.
• Who is “Asian”
– Typically identified by country of origin.
– Write-in surveys are especially problematic for uneducated
groups, causing an undercount.
• Who is “Hispanic”
– Broader definition using cultural characteristics; has led to

increased political power.
• Acquired an entirely separate question on Census form.
• Who is “Arab” or “Middle Eastern”
– No separate category in census.
• Summary
– Imbalances in political representation and funding for certain
groups.
– Death rates often use mortician/physician evaluation of race
in numerator but census evaluation in
denominator.
– Inconsistent results, lack of clear definition cause people to
often choose different categories at different
times in their lives.
http://www.census.gov/2010census/about/interactive-form.php
Demography
Researching LGBT Community
• 1948 Kinsey study contended 10% of the population is
homosexual.
– Sample bias: males studied were incarcerated and included
prostitutes and sex offenders.
• 1992 national opinion poll showed 2.8% (identify as gay), 6%
(attracted to same
sex), and 9% (had at least on homosexual experience since
puberty).
– Self-selection bias: volunteers may not have been
representative of all consumers.

• 1993 Yankelovich Consumer Survey found 5.7% of
respondents were gay.
– Self-selection bias: volunteers may not have been
representative of all consumers.
• 2011 Researcher Gary Gates averaged four national and two
state surveys
conducted after 2000 and concluded about 3.5% self identify as
Lesbian, Gay, or
Bisexual.
– Sample bias: one of the surveys was in California (highest gay
population in the U.S.)
• Summary
– Sample and self-selection biases limit the credibility of many
studies.
– Surveys conducted in specific geographies may not be
representative of the larger
population.
– Personal nature implies survey method (online, phone, mail,
personal interview) may yield
inconsistent results.
– Phrasing: different interpretations of “Transgender”, “Bi”,
“Homosexual”, “Gay”.
– Sexual behavior may differ from sexual orientation and
gender identity.
Demography
Researching Households
• Census identifies “Household” by the housing unit, not the

relationship of inhabitants.
• “Family” vs. “Non-Family” households: family is two people
or more people related by
birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together.
• Recent rulings on gay marriage suggest Household
composition may shift from “Non-
family” to “Family”.
• Many research projects analyze “family households”, omitting
young affluent, single,
and/or cohabiting individuals.
– May bias income, housing, education, employment, and other
key statistics.
Demography
Researching Marriage and Divorce
• Divorce & Marriage
– Since the 1980s divorces per 1000 people have fallen.
• Stat controls for population changes but not the number of
marriages.
• Over same time frame number of marriages has fallen too.
• Is the lower number of divorces because of lower marriages
failing or just less marriages?
– Longitudinal studies estimate the marriage survival rate
• For marriages occurring in the 1970s the 25-year rate was 48%
(typical media point that half of

marriages fail)
• From 2006-2010 the survival rate for first marriages was:
– 10 year: 68% for women and 78% for men.
– 20 year: 52% women and 56% men.
– Details Matter
• Divorce rates are much lower for those that marry older
relative to those that marry young.
• Cohabitation vs. Marriage
– Decline in married households is partly due to a substitution
toward long-term
cohabitation.
– In 2002 >20% of cohabitating couples had lived together for
>5 years, suggesting a
long-term arrangement.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/national-marriage-divorce-
rates-00-17.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf
Tolstoy: What is Art?
What Is Art?
by Leo Tolstoy
translation by Alymer Maude (1899)

Explanations
and Questions
CHAPTER FOUR (excerpts)
If we say that the aim of any activity is merely our pleasure, an
d define it
solely by that pleasure, our definition will evidently be a false o
ne. But
this is precisely what has occurred in the efforts to define art. N
ow, if we
consider the food question it will not occur to anyone to affirm t
hat the
importance of food consists in the pleasure we receive when eat
ing it.
Everyone understands that the satisfaction of our taste cannot se
rve as a
basis for our definition of the merits of food, and that we have t
herefore
no right to presuppose that the dinners with cayenne pepper, Li
mburg
cheese, alcohol, etc., to which we are accustomed and which ple
ase us,
form the very best human food.
Tolstoy looks to
the AIM or
PURPOSE of an
activity as the key
to defining it, so

he endorses
FUNCTIONALISM
Food has a
purpose, and it’s
not pleasure
And in the same way, beauty, or that which pleases us, can in n
o sense
serve as the basis for the definition of art; nor can a series of ob
jects which
afford us pleasure serve as the model of what art should be.
To see the aim and purpose of art in the pleasure we get from it
is like
assuming (as is done by people of the lowest moral development
, e.g., by
savages) that the purpose and aim of food is the pleasure derive
d when
consuming it.
Likewise,
pleasure is not
art’s purpose
Just as people who conceive the aim and purpose of food to be p
leasure
cannot recognize the real meaning of eating, so people who cons
ider the
aim of art to be pleasure cannot realize its true meaning and pur
pose
because they attribute to an activity the meaning of which lies i
n its
connection with other phenomena of life, the false and exceptio
nal aim of

pleasure. People come to understand that the meaning of eating
lies in the
nourishment of the body only when they cease to consider that t
he object
of that activity is pleasure. And it is the same with regard to art.
People
will come to understand the meaning of art only when they ceas
e to
consider that the aim of that activity is beauty, i.e., pleasure. Th
e
acknowledgment of beauty (i.e., of a certain kind of pleasure re
ceived
from art) as being the aim of art not only fails to assist us in fin
ding a
definition of what art is, but, on the contrary, by transferring th
e question
into a region quite foreign to art (into metaphysical, psychologi
cal,
physiological, and even historical discussions as to why such a
production pleases one person, and such another displeases or pl
eases
someone else), it renders such definition impossible. And since
discussions as to why one man likes pears and another prefers m
eat do
not help toward finding a definition of what is essential in nouri
shment,
so the solution of questions of taste in art (to which the discussi
ons on art
What is the true
purpose of

eating?
involuntarily come) not only does not help to make clear in wha
t this
particular human activity which we call art really consists, but r
enders
such elucidation quite impossible until we rid ourselves of a con
ception
which justifies every kind of art at the cost of confusing the wh
ole matter.
…
Goodness in art
must be linked to
its essential
purpose

CHAPTER FIVE (excerpts)
In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to ce
ase to
consider it as a means to pleasure and to consider it as one of th
e
conditions of human life. Viewing it in this way we cannot fail t
o observe
that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man
.
Tolstoy postulates
art’s general
purpose
Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind
of
relationship both with him who produced, or is producing, the a
rt, and
with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently,
receive
the same artistic impression.
Speech, transmitting the thoughts and experiences of men, serve
s as a
means of union among them, and art acts in a similar manner. T
he
peculiarity of this latter means of intercourse, distinguishing it f
rom
intercourse by means of words, consists in this, that whereas by

words a
man transmits his thoughts to another, by means of art he trans
mits his
feelings.
Art must be
contrasted with
speech, since
they have the
same general
purpose
The activity of art is based on the fact that a man, receiving thro
ugh his
sense of hearing or sight another manʹs expression of feeling, is
capable of
experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed i
t. To
take the simplest example; one man laughs, and another who he
ars
becomes merry; or a man weeps, and another who hears feels so
rrow. A
man is excited or irritated, and another man seeing him comes t
o a similar
state of mind. By his movements or by the sounds of his voice,
a man
expresses courage and determination or sadness and calmness, a
nd this
state of mind passes on to others. A man suffers, expressing his
sufferings
by groans and spasms, and this suffering transmits itself to othe
r people;
a man expresses his feeling of admiration, devotion, fear, respec
t, or love
to certain objects, persons, or phenomena, and others are infecte

d by the
same feelings of admiration, devotion, fear, respect, or love to t
he same
objects, persons, and phenomena.
Speech
communicates
thought; art must
communicate
emotion
Why does Tolstoy
describe the
transmission of
emotion as
“infection”? How
does it differ from
“expression”?
And it is upon this capacity of man to receive another manʹs exp
ression of
feeling and experience those feelings himself, that the activity o
f art is
based.
Art is “based” on
infection (so not
all infection is art)
If a man infects another or others directly, immediately, by his
appearance or by the sounds he gives vent to at the very time he

experiences the feeling; if he causes another man to yawn when
he
himself cannot help yawning, or to laugh or cry when he himself
is
obliged to laugh or cry, or to suffer when he himself is sufferin
g — that
Examples of
infection that are
not art
does not amount to art.
Art begins when one person, with the object of joining another
or others
to himself in one and the same feeling, expresses that feeling by
certain
external indications. To take the simplest example: a boy, havin
g
experienced, let us say, fear on encountering a wolf, relates that
encounter; and, in order to evoke in others the feeling he has ex
perienced,
describes himself, his condition before the encounter, the surrou
ndings,
the woods, his own lightheartedness, and then the wolfʹs appear
ance, its
movements, the distance between himself and the wolf, etc. All
this, if
only the boy, when telling the story, again experiences the feeli
ngs he had

lived through and infects the hearers and compels them to feel
what the
narrator had experienced is art. If even the boy had not seen a w
olf but
had frequently been afraid of one, and if, wishing to evoke in ot
hers the
fear he had felt, he invented an encounter with a wolf and recou
nted it so
as to make his hearers share the feelings he experienced when h
e feared
the world, that also would be art. And just in the same way it is
art if a
man, having experienced either the fear of suffering or the attra
ction of
enjoyment (whether in reality or in imagination) expresses these
feelings
on canvas or in marble so that others are infected by them. And
it is also
art if a man feels or imagines to himself feelings of delight, gla
dness,
sorrow, despair, courage, or despondency and the transition fro
m one to
another of these feelings, and expresses these feelings by sound
s so that
the hearers are infected by them and experience them as they we
re
experienced by the composer.
Art is a conscious
infection that is
brought about by
“external
indicators” – what
does this mean?

Words are
examples of
external indicators
Painting and
sculpture
Music
The feelings with which the artist infects others may be most va
rious —
very strong or very weak, very important or very insignificant,
very bad
or very good: feelings of love for oneʹs own country, self‐devoti
on and
submission to fate or to God expressed in a drama, raptures of l
overs
described in a novel, feelings of voluptuousness expressed in a
picture,
courage expressed in a triumphal march, merriment evoked by a
dance,
humor evoked by a funny story, the feeling of quietness transmi
tted by
an evening landscape or by a lullaby, or the feeling of admiratio
n evoked
by a beautiful arabesque — it is all art.

If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings wh
ich the
author has felt, it is art.
The kind of
emotion that is
communicated
does not matter.
Any intentional
“infection” by
means of external
material is art
To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and hav
ing
evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors
, sounds,
or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that oth
ers may
experience the same feeling — this is the activity of art.
Art is primarily an
activity.
Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciou
sly, by
means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he h
as lived
through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and
also
experience them.
Tolstoy

summarizes his
definition of art
Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some
mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical ph
ysiologists
say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored‐up energy
; it is not
the expression of manʹs emotions by external signs; it is not the
production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure;
but it is a
means of union among men, joining them together in the same f
eelings,
and indispensable for the life and progress toward well‐being of
individuals and of humanity.
Because art is
produced to share
emotions, it has a
kind of “union
among men” as
its overall purpose
As, thanks to manʹs capacity to express thoughts by words, ever
y man
may know all that has been done for him in the realms of though
t by all

humanity before his day, and can in the present, thanks to this c
apacity to
understand the thoughts of others, become a sharer in their activ
ity and
can himself hand on to his contemporaries and descendants the t
houghts
he has assimilated from others, as well as those which have aris
en within
himself; so, thanks to manʹs capacity to be infected with the feel
ings of
others by means of art, all that is being lived through by his
contemporaries is accessible to him, as well as the feelings expe
rienced by
men thousands of years ago, and he has also the possibility of
transmitting his own feelings to others.
Tolstoy returns to
the parallel
beyond speech
and art.
Art can make use
of speech, but
when it does, the
purpose is a union
of “feelings”
If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived
by the
men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thou
ghts,
men would be like wild beasts, or like Kaspar Houser.

Houser was a
child raised with
limited human
contact
And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, p
eople
might be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separate
d from,
and more hostile to, one another.
And therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as imp
ortant as
the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.
Tolstoy
speculates what
will happen to a
society without art
We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear an
d see in
theaters, concerts, and exhibitions, together with buildings, stat
ues,
poems, novels. . . . But all this is but the smallest part of the art
by which
we communicate with each other in life. All human life is filled
with
works of art of every kind —
from cradlesong, jest, mimicry, the
ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church servi
ces,
buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all artist
ic

activity. So that by art, in the limited sense of the word, we do
not mean
all human activity transmitting feelings, but only that part whic
h we for
some reason select from it and to which we attach special impor
tance.
Notice these
examples
However, our
definitions do not
aim to cover all art
This special importance has always been given by all men to tha
t part of
this activity which transmits feelings flowing from their religio
us
perception, and this small part of art they have specifically calle
d art,
attaching to it the full meaning of the word.
Tolstoy adds one
more criterion to
his definition

That was how men of old — Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle —
looked on
art. Thus did the Hebrew prophets and the ancient Christians reg
ard art;
thus it was, and still is, understood by the Mohammedans, and t
hus it
still is understood by religious folk among our own peasantry.
“Mohammedans”
are Muslims
Some teachers of mankind —
as Plato in his Republic and people such as
the primitive Christians, the strict Mohammedans, and the Budd
hists —
have gone so far as to repudiate all art.
What does he
mean by
“repudiate”?
People viewing art in this way (in contradiction to the prevalent
view of
today which regards any art as good if only it affords pleasure)
considered, and consider, that art (as contrasted with speech, wh
ich need
not be listened to) is so highly dangerous in its power to infect
people
against their wills that mankind will lose far less by banishing a
ll art than
by tolerating each and every art.

Can art’s
audience control
how it makes
them feel? If not,
is art dangerous?
Evidently such people were wrong in repudiating all art, for the
y denied
that which cannot be denied —
one of the indispensable means of
communication, without which mankind could not exist. But not
less
wrong are the people of civilized European society of our class
and day in
favoring any art if it but serves beauty, i.e., gives people pleasu
re.
Despite its
dangers, Tolstoy
rejects the total
removal of art
from society
Formerly people feared lest among the works of art there might
chance to
be some causing corruption, and they prohibited art altogether.
Now they
only fear lest they should be deprived of any enjoyment art can
afford,
and patronize any art. And I think the last error is much grosser
than the
first and that its consequences are far more harmful. …

What does
Tolstoy identify as
the greater
danger?
CHAPTER EIGHT (excerpts)
… To the remark that if our art is the true art everyone should h
ave the
benefit of it, the usual reply is that if not everybody at present
makes use
of existing art the fault lies not in the art but in the false organi
zation of
society; that one can imagine to oneself, in the future, a state of
things in
which physical labor will be partly superseded by machinery, pa
rtly
lightened by its just distribution, and that labor for the producti
on of art
will be taken in turns; that there is no need for some people alw
ays to sit
below the stage moving the decorations, winding up the machin
ery,
working at the piano or French horn, and setting type and printi
ng books,
but that the people who do all this work might be engaged only
a few
hours per day, and in their leisure time might enjoy all the bless
ings of
art. …

Tolstoy considers
an objection
Do people who
have more leisure
time spend more
time with art?
But even were we to admit the inadmissible and say that means
may be
found by which art (that art which among us is considered to be
art) may
be accessible to the whole people, another consideration present
s itself
showing that fashionable art cannot be the whole of art, viz., the
fact that
“fashionable art”
is fine art
it is completely unintelligible to the people. Formerly men wrot
e poems
in Latin, but now their artistic productions are as unintelligible

to the
common folk as if they were written in Sanscrit. The usual reply
to this is
that if the people do not now understand this art of ours it only
proves
that they are undeveloped, and that this has been so at each fres
h step
forward made by art. First it was not understood, but afterward
people
got accustomed to it.
ʺIt will be the same with our present art; it will be understood w
hen
everybody is as well educated as we are—
the people of the upper
classes—
who produce this art,ʺ say the defenders of our art. But this
assertion is evidently even more unjust than the former, for we
know that
the majority of the productions of the art of the upper classes, s
uch as
various odes, poems, dramas, cantatas, pastorals, pictures, etc.,
which
delighted the people of the upper classes when they were produc
ed,
never were afterward either understood or valued by the great m
asses of
mankind, but have remained what they were at first —
a mere pastime
for rich people of their time, for whom alone they ever were of
any
importance. It is also often urged, in proof of the assertion that t
he people
will some day understand our art, that some productions of so‐c
alled
ʺclassicalʺ poetry, music, or painting, which formerly did not pl

ease the
masses, do—
now that they have been offered to them from all sides—
begin to please these same masses; but this only shows that the
crowd,
especially the half‐spoiled town crowd, can easily (its taste havi
ng been
perverted) be accustomed to any sort of art. Moreover, this art i
s not
produced by these masses, nor even chosen by them, but is ener
getically
thrust upon them in those public places in which art is accessibl
e to the
people. For the great majority of working‐people, our art, besid
es being
inaccessible on account of its costliness, is strange in its very n
ature,
transmitting as it does the feelings of people far removed from t
hose
conditions of laborious life which are natural to the great body
of
humanity. That which is enjoyment to a man of the rich classes i
s
incomprehensible as a pleasure to a workingman, and evokes in
him
either no feeling at all or only a feeling quite contrary to that w
hich it
evokes in an idle and satiated man. Such feelings as form the ch
ief
subjects of present‐day art—
say, for instance, honor, patriotism, and
amorousness—
evoke in a workingman only bewilderment and contempt,
or indignation. So that even if a possibility were given to the la
boring
classes in their free time to see, to read, and to hear all that for

ms the
flower of contemporary art (as is done to some extent in towns
by means
of picture galleries, popular concerts, and libraries), the workin
gman (to
the extent to which he is a laborer and has not begun to pass int
o the
ranks of those perverted by idleness) would be able to make not
hing of
our fine art, and if he did understand it, that which he understoo
d would
not elevate his soul but would certainly, in most cases, pervert i
t. To
thoughtful and sincere people there can, therefore, be no doubt t
hat the
art of our upper classes never can be the art of the whole people
. But if art
is an important matter, a spiritual blessing, essential for all men
(ʺlike
Who is the
audience for fine
art?

What is meant by
“taste” here? Is
taste subject to
manipulation?
Why DON’T truck
drivers and
construction
workers spend
more time at the
art museum and
symphony?
Tolstoy presents a
dilemma
religion,ʺ as the devotees of art are fond of saying), then it shou
ld be

accessible to everyone. And if, as in our day, it is not accessible
to all men,
then one of two things: either art is not the vital matter it is repr
esented to
be or that art which we call art is not the real thing.
The dilemma is inevitable and therefore clever and immoral peo
ple avoid
it by denying one side of it, viz., denying that the common peop
le have a
right to art. These people simply and boldly speak out (what lies
at the
heart of the matter), and say that the participators in and utilizer
s of
what, in their esteem, is highly beautiful art, i.e., art furnishing
the
greatest enjoyment, can only be ʺschöne Geisterʺ [beautiful soul
s] ʺthe
elect,ʺ as the romanticists called them, the ʺÜbermenschenʺ [sup
erior
men] as they are called by the followers of Nietzsche; the remai
ning
vulgar herd, incapable of experiencing these pleasures, must ser
ve the
exalted pleasures of this superior breed of people. The people w
ho
express these views at least do not pretend and do not try to co
mbine the
incombinable, but frankly admit what is the case—
that our art is an art of
the upper classes only. So essentially art has been, and is, under
stood by
everyone engaged in it in our society. …

Here, “our art” is
fine art
CHAPTER TEN (excerpts)
… Moreover, it cannot be said that the majority of people lack t
he taste to
esteem the highest works of art. The majority always has unders
tood, and
still understands, what we also recognize as being the very best
art: the
epic of Genesis, the gospel parables, folk legends, fairy tales, a
nd folk
songs are understood by all. How can it be that the majority has
suddenly
lost its capacity to understand what is high in our art?
Tolstoy offers a

list of “the very
best art”
Of a speech it may be said that it is admirable, but incomprehen
sible to
those who do not know the language in which it is delivered. A
speech
delivered in Chinese may be excellent and may yet remain
incomprehensible to me if I do not know Chinese; but what disti
nguishes
a work of art from all other mental activity is just the fact that i
ts language
is understood by all, and that it infects all without distinction. T
he tears
and laughter of a Chinese infect me just as the laughter and tear
s of a
Russian; and it is the same with painting and music and poetry
when it is
translated into a language I understand. The songs of a Kirghiz
or of a
Japanese touch me, though in a lesser degree than they touch a
Kirghiz or
a Japanese. I am also touched by Japanese painting, Indian archi
tecture,
and Arabian stories. If I am but little touched by a Japanese son
g and a
Chinese novel, it is not that I do not understand these productio
ns but
that I know and am accustomed to higher works of art. It is not
because
their art is above me. Great works of art are only great because t
hey are
accessible and comprehensible to everyone. The story of Joseph,
translated into the Chinese language, touches a Chinese. The sto
ry of

Sakya Muni touches us. And there are, and must be, buildings, p
ictures,
statues, and music of similar power. So that, if art fails to move
men, it
Tolstoy clarifies
his criterion of
universal
accessibility
For Joseph, see
Genesis 39;
Sakya Muni is
Siddhārtha
Gautama, the
founder of
Buddhism
cannot be said that this is due to the spectatorsʹ or hearersʹ lack
of
understanding; but the conclusion to be drawn may and should b
e that
such art is either bad art or is not art at all.

Art is differentiated from activity of the understanding, which d
emands
preparation and a certain sequence of knowledge (so that one ca
nnot
learn trigonometry before knowing geometry), by the fact that it
acts on
people independently of their state of development and educatio
n, that
the charm of a picture, sounds, or of forms, infects any man wha
tever his
plane of development.
The business of art lies just in this—
to make that understood and felt
which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible a
nd
inaccessible. Usually it seems to the recipient of a truly artistic
impression
that he knew the thing before but had been unable to express it.
Tolstoy looks
ahead to Chapter
Fifteen
And such has always been the nature of good, supreme art; the I
liad, the
Odyssey, the stories of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, the Hebrew pr
ophets, the
psalms, the gospel parables, the story of Sakya Muni, and the hy
mns of
the Vedas: all transmit very elevated feelings and are neverthele

ss quite
comprehensible now to us, educated or uneducated, as they were
comprehensible to the men of those times, long ago, who were e
ven less
educated than our laborers. People talk about incomprehensibilit
y; but if
art is the transmission of feelings flowing from manʹs religious
perception, how can a feeling be incomprehensible which is fou
nded on
religion, i.e., on manʹs relation to God? Such art should be, and
has
actually always been, comprehensible to everybody because eve
ry manʹs
relation to God is one and the same. And therefore the churches
and the
images in them are always comprehensible to everyone. The hin
drance to
understanding the best and highest feelings (as is said in the gos
pel) does
not at all lie in deficiency of development or learning, but, on th
e
contrary, in false development and false learning. A good and lo
fty work
of art may be incomprehensible, but not to simple, unperverted
peasant
laborers (all that is highest is understood by them)—
it may be, and often
is, unintelligible to erudite, perverted people destitute of religio
n. And
this continually occurs in our society in which the highest feelin
gs are
simply not understood. For instance, I know people who conside
r
themselves most refined and who say that they do not understan
d the

poetry of love to oneʹs neighbor, of self‐sacrifice, or of chastity.
Notice these
examples
The Vedas are
the four ancient
sacred texts of
Hindu teachings
Does all “religious
perception”
recognize the
same divinity? In
another book,
Tolstoy defines
religious
perception as “a
relation to the
whole immense
Infinite in time and
space conceived
as one whole.”
So good, great, universal, religious art may be incomprehensible
to a
small circle of spoiled people but certainly not to any large num
ber of
plain men. …

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Art, in our society, has been so perverted that not only has bad
art come
to be considered good, but even the very perception of what art
really is
has been lost. In order to be able to speak about the art of our so
ciety, it is,
therefore, first of all necessary to distinguish art from counterfe
it art.
How does
“exclusive” art
relate to
counterfeit art?
There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from i
ts
counterfeit, namely, the infectiousness of art. If a man, without
exercising
effort and without altering his standpoint on reading, hearing, o
r seeing
another manʹs work, experiences a mental condition which unite
s him
with that man and with other people who also partake of that wo
rk of art,
then the object evoking that condition is a work of art. And how
ever

poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting a work may be, it is n
ot a work
of art if it does not evoke that feeling (quite distinct from all ot
her
feelings) of joy and of spiritual union with another (the author)
and with
others (those who are also infected by it).
Infection is
accompanied by a
second feeling,
that of a union
that gives us joy
when we
experience it.
It is true that this indication is an internal one, and that there ar
e people
who have forgotten what the action of real art is, who expect so
mething
else form art (in our society the great majority are in this state),
and that
therefore such people may mistake for this aesthetic feeling the
feeling of
diversion and a certain excitement which they receive from cou
nterfeits
of art. But though it is impossible to undeceive these people, jus
t as it is
impossible to convince a man suffering from ʺDaltonismʺ that g
reen is not
red, yet, for all that, this indication remains perfectly definite to

those
whose feeling for art is neither perverted nor atrophied, and it cl
early
distinguishes the feeling produced by art from all other feelings.
Art “in the limited
sense” is now
identified as “real
art”
Daltonism is a
type of color
blindness
The chief peculiarity of this feeling is that the receiver of a true
artistic
impression is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work
were his
own and not someone elseʹs —
as if what it expresses were just what he
had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys, i
n the
consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself an
d the
artist —
not that alone, but also between himself and all whose minds
receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from i
ts
separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies th
e chief
characteristic and the great attractive force of art.

An important
paragraph:
Tolstoy says more
about his idea of a
feeling of union
with artist and the
rest of the
audience
Art creates a
community
If a man is infected by the authorʹs condition of soul, if he feels
this
emotion and this union with others, then the object which has ef
fected
this is art; but if there be no such infection, if there be not this
union with
the author and with others who are moved by the same work —
then it is
not art. And not only is infection a sure sign of art, but the degr
ee of
infectiousness is also the sole measure of excellence in art.
Tolstoy again
insists that TWO
feelings occur in
real art (infection
of emotion PLUS
a feeling of union)
The stronger the infection, the better is the art as art, speaking n
ow apart
from its subject matter, i.e., not considering the quality of the fe

elings it
He sets “subject
matter” aside
transmits.
And the degree of the infectiousness of art depends on three con
ditions:
1. On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling transmit
ted;
2. on the greater or lesser clearness with which the feeling is
transmitted;
3. on the sincerity of the artist, i.e., on the greater or lesser fo
rce with
which the artist himself feels the emotion he transmits.
The more individual the feeling transmitted the more strongly d
oes it act
on the receiver; the more individual the state of soul into which
he is
transferred, the more pleasure does the receiver obtain, and ther
efore the
more readily and strongly does he join in it.
“real” art provides
pleasure (even if
that’s not its

purpose)
The clearness of expression assists infection because the receive
r, who
mingles in consciousness with the author, is the better satisfied
the more
clearly the feeling is transmitted, which, as it seems to him, he
has long
known and felt, and for which he has only now found expression
.
How could an
emotion be
unclear?
But most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased b
y the
degree of sincerity in the artist. As soon as the spectator, hearer
, or reader
feels that the artist is infected by his own production, and writes
, sings, or
plays for himself, and not merely to act on others, this mental c
ondition of
the artist infects the receiver; and contrariwise, as soon as the s
pectator,
reader, or hearer feels that the author is not writing, singing, or
playing
for his own satisfaction —
does not himself feel what he wishes to express
—
but is doing it for him, the receiver, a resistance immediately s
prings
up, and the most individual and the newest feelings and the clev
erest
technique not only fail to produce any infection but actually rep

el.
Can you think of
an example of
insincere art?
I have mentioned three conditions of contagiousness in art, but t
hey may
be all summed up into one, the last, sincerity, i.e., that the artist
should be
impelled by an inner need to express his feeling. That condition
includes
the first; for if the artist is sincere he will express the feeling as
he
experienced it. And as each man is different from everyone else,
his
feeling will be individual for everyone else; and the more indivi
dual it is
—
the more the artist has drawn it from the depths of his nature —
the
more sympathetic and sincere will it be. And this same sincerity
will
impel the artist to find a clear expression of the feeling which h
e wishes to
transmit.

Is sincerity really
enough to allow
clear
communication of
an emotion?
Therefore this third condition — sincerity —
is the most important of the
three. It is always complied with in peasant art, and this explain
s why
such art always acts so powerfully; but it is a condition almost e
ntirely
absent from our upper‐class art, which is continually produced b
y artists
actuated by personal aims of covetousness or vanity.
“Peasant art”
would be a type of
folk art
For whom is most
art created?
Such are the three conditions which divide art from its counterf
eits, and
which also decide the quality of every work of art apart from its
subject
matter.

A summary of
Chapter Fifteen’s
central point
The absence of any one of these conditions excludes a work for
m the
category of art and relegates it to that of artʹs counterfeits. If th
e work
does not transmit the artistʹs peculiarity of feeling and is therefo
re not
individual, if it is unintelligibly expressed, or if it has not proce
eded from
the authorʹs inner need for expression —
it is not a work of art. If all these
conditions are present, even in the smallest degree, then the wor
k, even if
a weak one, is yet a work of art.
Is sincere art
ALWAYS better
than insincere
(and therefore
counterfeit) art?
The presence in various degrees of these three conditions —
individuality, clearness, and sincerity —
decides the merit of a work of art
as art, apart from subject matter. All works of art take rank of m
erit
according to the degree in which they fulfill the first, the secon
d, and the
third of these conditions. In one the individuality of the feeling
transmitted may predominate; in another, clearness of expressio

n; in a
third, sincerity; while a fourth may have sincerity and individua
lity but
be deficient in clearness; a fifth, individuality and clearness but
less
sincerity; and so forth, in all possible degrees and combinations
.
Thus is art divided from that which is not art, and thus is the qu
ality of
art as art decided, independently of its subject matter, i.e., apart
from
whether the feelings it transmits are good or bad.
But how are we to define good and bad art with reference to its
subject
matter?
How can we
determine the
DEGREE of
sincerity in a work
of art?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (excerpts)
… It must be the art, not of some one group of people, nor of on
e class,
nor of one nationality, nor of one religious cult; that is, it must
not
transmit feelings which are accessible only to a man educated in
a certain

way, or only to an aristocrat, or a merchant, or only to a Russia
n, or a
native of Japan, or a Roman Catholic, or a Buddhist, etc., but it
must
transmit feelings accessible to everyone. Only art of this kind ca
n be
acknowledged in our time to be good art, worthy of being chose
n out
from all the rest of art and encouraged.
Subject matter is
independently
discussed
because it affects
accessibility
The most
accessible art is
the best
Christian art, i.e., the art of our time, should be catholic in the o
riginal
meaning of the word, i.e., universal, and therefore it should unit
e all men.
And only two kinds of feeling do unite all men: first, feelings fl
owing
from the perception of our sonship to God and of the brotherhoo
d of
man; and next, the simple feelings of common life, accessible to
every one
without exception—
such as the feeling of merriment, of pity, of
cheerfulness, of tranquility, etc. Only these two kinds of feeling

s can now
supply material for art good in its subject matter.
In the past, art
only needed to
unify small
groups. Today, it
is imperative that
it “unite all men”
There are two
ways to do this
And the action of these two kinds of art, apparently so dissimila
r, is one
and the same. The feelings flowing from perception of our sons
hip to God
and of the brotherhood of man —
such as a feeling of sureness in truth,
devotion to the will of God, self‐sacrifice, respect for and love
of man—
evoked by Christian religious perception; and the simplest feeli
ngs—such
as a softened or a merry mood caused by a song or an amusing j
est
intelligible to everyone, or by a touching story, or a drawing, or
a little
doll: both alike produce one and the same effect, the loving uni
on of man
with man. Sometimes people who are together are, if not hostile
to one

another, at least estranged in mood and feeling till perchance a s
tory, a
performance, a picture, or even a building, but most often of all
music,
unites them all as by an electric flash, and in place of their form
er
isolation or even enmity they are all conscious of union and mut
ual love.
Each is glad that another feels what he feels; glad of the commu
nion
established, not only between him and all present, but also with
all now
living who will yet share the same impression; and more than th
at, he
feels the mysterious gladness of a communion which, reaching b
eyond
the grave, unites us with all men of the past who have been mov
ed by the
same feelings, and with all men of the future who will yet be to
uched by
them. And this effect is produced both by the religious art whic
h
transmits feelings of love to God and oneʹs neighbor and by uni
versal art
transmitting the very simplest feelings common to all men.
While “religious
perception” is our
awareness of our
relationship to the
universe as a
whole, the
Christian religious

perception
involves
recognition of our
absolute equality
as human beings
How art gives us
joy
The art of our time should be appraised differently from former
art
chiefly in this, that the art of our time, i.e., Christian art (basing
itself on a
religious perception which demands the union of man), excludes
from the
domain of art good in subject matter everything transmitting exc
lusive
feelings which do not unite, but divide, men. It relegates such w
ork to the
category of art bad in its subject matter, while, on the other han
d, it
includes in the category of art good in subject matter a section n
ot
formerly admitted to deserve to be chosen out and respected, na
mely,
universal art, transmitting even the most trifling and simple feel
ings if
only they are accessible to all men without exception and theref
ore unite
them. Such art cannot in our time but be esteemed good, for it at
tains the
end which the religious perception of our time, i.e., Christianity
, sets
before humanity.

Christian art either evokes in men those feelings which, through
love of
God and of oneʹs neighbor, draw them to greater and ever greate
r union
and make them ready for and capable of such union, or evokes i
n them
those feelings which show them that they are already united in t
he joys
and sorrows of life. And therefore the Christian art of our time c
an be and
is of two kinds: (1) art transmitting feelings flowing from a reli
gious
perception of manʹs position in the world in relation to God and
to his
neighbor—
religious art in the limited meaning of the term; and (2) art
transmitting the simplest feelings of common life, but such, alw
ays, as are
accessible to all men in the whole world … —universal art
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (excerpts)
… The religious perception of our time—which consists in
acknowledging that the aim of life (both collective and individu
al) is the
union of mankind—

is already so sufficiently distinct that people have
now only to reject the false theory of beauty according to which
enjoyment is considered to be the purpose of art, and religious p
erception
will naturally take its place as the guide of the art of our time.
Tolstoy returns to
the religious
perception “of our
time” (implying
that it has
changed over
time)
And as soon as the religious perception, which already unconsci
ously
directs the life of man, is consciously acknowledged, then imme
diately
and naturally the division of art into art for the lower and art for
the
upper classes will disappear. There will be one common, brother
ly,
universal art, and first that art will naturally be rejected which t
ransmits
feelings incompatible with the religious perception of our time,
feelings
which do not unite, but divide men, and then that insignificant,
exclusive
art will be rejected to which an importance is now attached to w
hich it
has no right.

Is Tolstoy too
optimistic?
And as soon as this occurs, art will immediately cease to be wha
t it has
been in recent times, a means of making people coarser and mor
e vicious,
and it will become what it always used to be and should be, a m
eans by
which humanity progresses toward unity and blessedness. …
The art of our time and of our circle has become a prostitute. A
nd this
comparison holds good even in minute details. Like her it is not
limited to
certain times, like her it is always adorned, like her it is always
salable,
and like her it is enticing and ruinous.
A real work of art can only arise in the soul of an artist occasio
nally as the
fruit of the life he has lived, just as a child is conceived by its
mother. But
counterfeit art is produced by artisans and handicraftsmen conti
nually, if
only consumers can be found.
What does this

imply about highly
productive artists,
such as Picasso?
Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no orna
ments.
But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out.
The cause of the production of real art is the artistʹs inner need t
o express
a feeling that has accumulated, just as for a mother the cause of
sexual
conception is love. The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitutio
n, is gain.
Do commercial
motives ruin art?
The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling
into the
intercourse of life, as the consequence of a wifeʹs love is the bir
th of a new
man into life.
The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, p
leasure
which never satisfies, and the weakening of manʹs spiritual stre
ngth.

And this is what people of our day and of our circle should unde
rstand in
order to avoid the filthy torrent of depraved and prostituted art
with
which we are deluged….
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Housing
Housing
• Sources
– US Census
• American Housing Survey
– Compiles data on housing size and quality, neighborhood
characteristics, home financing, and
recently moved households.
– Conducted biennially in odd-numbered years.

• Building Permits Survey
– Provides data on housing permits, starts, and completions.
– Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Shelter Index
• Consumer Price Index (CPI) subcategory of shelter costs.
• Conducted monthly
– National Association of Realtors
• Provides data on existing pending home sales, actual sales,
price data to the
county level, and housing affordability indexes.
• Conducted monthly
http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs/data/2013/ahs-
2013-summary-tables.html
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/index.html
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_09172013.htm
http://www.realtor.org/research-and-statistics/housing-statistics
• The Housing Bubble
– Shiller Index revealed high price volatility
• 240% ↑ from 1997-2006 and 120% ↓ from 2006-2009
• Federal Housing Finance Administration was much less
volatile
• Explanation: Shiller was a more comprehensive measurement
and included
sub-prime financed units.
– Housing data often too broad in scope
• Most data is at the metropolitan area or larger.

• Limited neighborhood, city, and county analysis.
• California and San Diego Association of Realtors provide
more geographically
specific prices.
– Predicting the housing bubble was challenging
• Housing prices change due to fundamental and speculative
factors
– Fundamentals (less volatile): income, rental value, inflation,
vacancies,
demographics, etc.
– Speculative (highly volatile): buy low and sell high for a
quick profit.
• Some researchers confused fundamental and speculative forces
and failed to
accurately predict the bubble.
Housing
http://us.spindices.com/index-family/real-estate/sp-corelogic-
case-shiller
https://www.fhfa.gov/DataTools/Tools/Pages/Motion-Chart.aspx
https://www.car.org/marketdata/data/countysalesactivity
https://www.sdar.com/fast-stats.html
• Homeownership Rates
– Rates increased to an all time high of 69% in 2004 and racial
gaps had
shrunk significantly.
– Formula: (owner-occupied households) ÷ (owner & renter

occupied households)
– Rates can increase due to:
• Renters becoming owners
• Renters consolidate (move back home, take in roommates,
etc.).
– Important: When the numerator and denominator are
simultaneously
changing, quick conclusions should not be made.
• Mortgage Interest Deduction
– Largest federal subsidy for owner-occupied housing
– Touted as a “middle class tax break”
• Contention: middle class may be more likely to buy homes,
itemize taxes, and in a
higher tax bracket receiving a greater benefit (up to $750,000
debt cap)
• Data: suggests otherwise, benefit may go primarily to higher
income households.
– See data in text.
Housing
http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/index.html
• Quality of Housing
– Changes in housing prices may reflect quality changes.
– Shiller and FHFA control for many price influential variables
by looking at the same home over
time (lot size, square footage, neighborhood, schools, etc.)
making adjustments upon each new

sale.
– Downward skew in prices during housing bust due to greater
short-sales and foreclosures.
• Units failed to represent the typical home (Sample Bias)
• Geographical Units
– Important for detailed geographic issues and data consistency
across time.
– “City”, “County”, “Rural Area” are often subjective and
arbitrary.
– Census defines
• “Urban” as any incorporated place with more that 50,000
residents and “Built Up” characteristics.
• Census Blocks (11.5 million in U.S)
• Census Tracts (65,000 in U.S.)
– Metropolitan Statistical Area:
• Determined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
based on economically and socially linked
geographies.
• 389 in the U.S as of 2018.
Housing
https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/maps/statecbsa.html
• Best Places to Live
– Different studies use different variables (climate, crime,
housing, culture,
education, income, wealth, public transportation, etc.)

– Different studies use different weights despite using same
variables.
– Hedonic Pricing: analyzing price differences to impute a value
for a
qualitative variable.
• How much more would the same house sell for in San Diego
vs. El Centro.
• Challenge is to determine which factors are causing the price
differences (climate, crime,
etc..)
• Affordability
– Qualifying Income
– Proportion able to afford a median priced home.
Housing
https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/housing-
statistics
https://www.car.org/en/marketdata/data/haitraditional
• Homeless
– Estimates suggest anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million
homeless in the U.S.
– Lower estimates: point-in-time head counts.
• Records people in shelters, transitional housing, and on the
street.
• HUD reports 553,742 (0.17% of population) homeless people
on one night in Jan. 2017

• Fails to consider length of homelessness.
– Overestimates chronic homelessness since some individuals
are only temporarily homeless.
– Underestimates the number of people that have been homeless
at some time in their life.
– Larger estimates: one year estimates.
• HUD reports 1.56 million people spent at least one night in a
shelter from
2009-2010
– Underestimate; does not include those on the streets.
– Highest estimates: extrapolation
• Point-in-time estimates ÷ population in poverty
• National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the
Urban Institute generate a
range of 2.5-3.5 million based on their January 2015 report.
• Fails to consider that the proportion of those in poverty that
are homeless may change
over time.
Housing
https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2017-
AHAR-Part-1.pdf
• Racial Discrimination
– 1975 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) required banks

disclose lending practices in census tracts.
– Early data suggested “Redlining” but did not control for other
pertinent characteristics (e.g. wealth, income, FICO).
– In 1990 the Boston FED controlled for other factors and found
race remained a factor.
– FED Report has been contested:
• Omitted variables; however, they controlled for over 60.
• Similar default rates in minority and non-minority
neighborhoods.
– If standard is higher for minorities than default rates should
be lower those
neighborhoods.
– More recent studies have demonstrated that applicants
identical in all respects except race receive less information
and are quoted higher rates if Hispanic or Black.
• Discrimination may not carry through to application denial.
Housing
• Segregation
– Typically measured by census track demographic data,
obscuring neighborhood
segregation.
– Dissimilarity Index
• The proportion of a group that would need to move in order to

achieve
perfect integration.
• 1970 to 2010 index suggests decreased dissimilarity (less
segregation).
• May be due to movements of Asians and Hispanics rather that
Blacks.
Housing
http://www.censusscope.org/us/s6/p66000/chart_dissimilarity.ht
ml
Data Analysis Project 1
For this project each student will learn and demonstrate
competency in researching economics; that is, creatively
designing a research question, locating pertinent and credible
data to support an answer, and presenting results in a
professional and articulate manner. The skill set practiced in
this project is highly valued in business and government
occupations. Follow these steps to complete the project:
1. Using the data covered in the Demography and Housing
slides, generate five research questions to study (e.g. “Have
home prices in the U.S. increased since 2010?”, “What is the
racial composition of U.S. males?”). You are to create two
research questions from Demography, two from Housing, and
one from either category. You are to use at least 3 different data
sources (e.g. census, CDC, NAR, etc.) in the overall project.
2. Excel File: For each research question create an Excel sheet
with your data set and one graph. You are to use each of the
following graphs once in the overall project:
· Bar chart(horizontal or vertical)
· Pie chart

· Histogram
· Frequency table,
· Scatterplot (lined or unlined).
3. PowerPoint Presentation: For each question, create a
PowerPoint slide containing one graph, up to three bullet points
(optional), and hyperlinks to your data source website (make
sure the links work and ). The PowerPoint should also contain
an introduction slide (e.g. name, project #, and class).
4. Submission: Upload the Excel and PowerPoint file into the
link provided in Blackboard by the due date (no e-mailed
copies).
5. Grading: Project grade is weighted 50/50 for
Excel/PowerPoint; however, both must be submitted to receive a
score. Excel graphs must be derived from the data input in
Excel. The PowerPoint is graded subjectively as a presentation
to your fellow classmates so cosmetics, spelling, character size,
color, creativity all matter.
6. Academic Integrity: Do not copy graphs from websites nor
replicate another student’s work.

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