ABSTRACT
Of all the areas of cultural activity, the arts have had a dependent status during most of the history of Western civilization. Indeed, the claim of the arts to equal merit with other social institutions is of comparatively recent occurrence and even today is rarely accepted. More commonly, the arts have been tolerated as a means of enhancing the dominant social and political beliefs and values and of gracing their institutional expressions. So thoroughly has the belief in the subordinate role of the arts pervaded Western thought, moreover, that during recent times, when they have largely emancipated themselves from subservience to the church, the state, and social interests, concepts under which much aesthetic discussion is conducted betray the extent to which aesthetic theory still remains bound to biases deriving from the inferior origins of the arts.
