Carrying The Light In Humanity’s Darkest Hours: Why We Must Re-Think The Value Of Music & The Arts
“Nothing can survive the holocaust but poetry and songs,” wrote legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrison in the initial pages of his poetry…
“Nothing can survive the holocaust but poetry and songs,” wrote legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrison in the initial pages of his poetry book ‘Wilderness’.
Music and the arts have their own beautiful and pervading way of touching people’s lives in a way no other man-made conception can. This is ever more prevalent in times of deep crises. In times of dire despair, in our darkest moments, the presence of art gives us a new breath of life, meaning, solace, strength, hope and that spark to help us carry on.
In his book Man’s Search For Meaning (1946), Viktor E. Frankl, a former holocaust survivor, described the improvised ‘cabaret’ that took place at the concentration camp he found himself in as follows:
A hut was cleared temporarily, a few wooden benches were pushed or nailed together and a programme was drawn up. In the evening those who had fairly good positions in the camp — the Capos and the workers who did not have to leave camp on distant marches — assembled there. They came to have …
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