Can Art Unite the World? - Creating and Perceiving Art from Different Perspectives

Our world is home to a sheer endless number of different cultures with
a vastly different understanding of moral values and aesthetics.

I often come across cliché phrases like: "That event united people from all over the world by their love for music/books/whatever." This is a nice image. The world united by art. But is it really possible?

Let's remember that we are all limited in our perception which is shaped by our surroundings. These surroundings also determine how we react to different pieces of art and they influence our own artworks. Let's ponder on this.

Relevance of Background

Art is often used for political statements. And just as often it merely reflects what people think. A few years ago I've read a novel about the everyday life of German teenagers in the 90's. It was an interesting read for the sake of studying German culture and I got an idea of what teenage life was like back then (very pampered and silly compared to that of Russian teens of that time), but there was one particular line that struck me: There was a moment in an inner monologue when the protagonist mentioned something like even Russians having Bubble Gum and Coca Cola nowadays. I was well aware that it was only natural for a West German teenager to believe that, but having experienced part of Russia's 90's myself, I actually felt like strangulating someone. Because no, back then we did not have Bubble Gum and Coca Cola, all we had was spaghetti and vegetables from my grandparents' garden, sometimes we even had nothing to eat but potatoes every day, and the ones who did have Bubble Gum and Coca Cola (or rather: people who could afford wasting their money on them) were the nouveau riche ******** who stopped at nothing for the sake of making money. (Even the Italian mafia was shocked about the unscrupulousness of their Russian "colleagues" who had taken over once the Soviet Union went down like the Titanic with 293,047,571 people on board drowning in despair.)

Random Reasons Why Translating Is Unrewarding

As a translator, your main objective is to pretend you don't exist.

There's an art form vastly underestimated by those who don't have experience with it: translation, the most unrewarding art form out there. Translating a text into another language usually takes more time than to write it, much knowledge, work and experience, and yet, as a translator, your main objective is to pretend you don't exist.

If the translated text doesn't feel like it's the original you've failed. If the translated text doesn't express what the original text does you've failed. If the words or idioms used in the original don't exist in the target language - deal with it. If you think the style of the original badly needs to be improved you still have to stick to it. If you think the original text is just sh*t you can either stop translating or accept its sh*ttiness. If you think the original text is brilliant you will hate your translation, no matter how good it is.