The Word for World Is Forest

by Ursula K. Le Guin

That oppression corrupts the oppressors is well enough known. That resistance to oppression can profoundly change those resisting, and for the worse, is less widely recognised – particularly among those who give that resistance their sympathy and solidarity.

The pursuit of art, then, by artist or audience, is the pursuit of liberty. If you accept that, you see at once why truly serious people reject and mistrust the arts, labelling them as “escapism”.

You can’t save a people by selling your friend.