How Do Tradition, Social Trends, Religion and Morality Influence a Person’s Perception of Artistic Merit?

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How do tradition, social trends, religion and morality influence a person’s perception of artistic merit? A person’s perception of artistic merit is influenced by tradition in that a person will be more intrigued to the things that are part of his tradition. This is very real because things that are a tradition to someone tend to make more sense to that person than other things. The idea of tradition influencing the perception of a person is furthermore supported by the fact that tradition is a thing which we get attached to from birth; it also grows with us because we are expected to be responsible in maintaining it and passing it on to our descendents. Therefore this tends to channel the way we look at artistic things thus making us enjoy the traditional ones more than others. For instance, a typical Mosotho boy living in Mokhotlong under real Basotho tradition is not expected to enjoy a hip-hop “cypher”. Thereof he will most probably perceive it as a demerit artistic event; in fact to him it will not even be regarded as piece of art. This case implies that it is unlikely to enjoy an art that was never in our tradition because our minds have already grew hostage to the type of art that is done in our tradition, which is why we shall see it as the best. On the contrary, tradition can also be ineffective on one’s perception of an artistic merit in that even though a very traditional man finds his traditional arts more enjoyable than other arts he might like some art from another tradition, for example; Basotho always enjoyed watching Kung-fu movies. This is where the person’s individual and liking for other things is portrayed clearly. However, all in all tradition does influence a person’s perception of artistic merit. Social trends too highly influence a person’s perception of artistic merit since social trends are a person’s general tendencies. People tend to

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