Placement

The arguement over what the purpose of art is has been passed back and forth for a long while now.
There are numerous sub arguements which i don't see necessary to get into here (of course we can if it is requested)... but I will simply state now that I am going to categorize music as an art here, and move on.

If i were to give a definition for art, first and formost it would be that art is a form of communication. To me, art is a way of saying things in a manner different from the direct forms which we have developed to make things understandable. On the evolutionary line (again, another point of argument between the believers and non-believers), humans were the first to develop something close to artistic expression (even another point of argument... were the goats and the cows drawn at the end of the caves really art or not? I have personally come to terms that they were). If we make that an initial point for the existence of art, i would say it is clear that its coming was in order to communicate. It was done either to portray the things that were essential to that group of people's lifestyle, such as the cows, bisons, or other cattle that were usually depicted, or to tell history--biased or not--like that of the egyptions. I would say then, that art was created to serve the function of communication. It still has that connotation to me, yet in much more complex ways. I would say that art has the capacity to communicate things in much deeper ways. It has the capacity to communicate concepts intangible through other forms, and it can not only involve numerous senses at the same time, but it can also engage higher levels of processing.
Some believe in art as merely for itself and nothing more... it should not be polluted with any other purpose... it is what it is and no more.
I can not and have no intention to oppose any theory or say one is better or the other, since i sometimes come to think we talk more than we actually do, therefore i see myself in no position to say what is good and what is bad; i can only say what i sence when i play music, paint, draw,take a picture, or create something. I see a purpose in art. I see an intention. I see a goal, a target, however, what is important to me is to know that the purpose is not necessarily to speak the words of a society or to serve a certain group of people or to say something political. These are certainly possible goals and are important and great goals. They should indeed be included as some of the purposes. Alongside these, there are numerous other things that can be targeted... things that one wants to say but has a better way of saying through his/her artistic tools... as i said: a way to engage numerous senses and higher levels of processing to grasp. A concept such as "a lethargic state of being with a desparate call for being pulled back into happiness" might take years of therapy, wheras it can be perfectly portrayed in a single moment of understanding... it is a great form of understanding when you can feel that feeling within yourself; when you cry because in that single moment you become the creator... you sense the feeling within your own being; you become just as lethargic as the person who was trying to reach out to you. On the other end of the spectrum, the same is true about ultimate happiness.
So i would say that art is a form of communication, and it can be used by people, organizations, groups, and governments with different purposes, such as when a government creates music of propoganda or allows only music with a certain message to be played in the society. I would say that to me, art has a purpose; it can, therefore, be manipulated in different ways. I would not say that all these purposes serve a good intention... such as steering the mind of a society in a certain way, however, its nature as a medium is simply difficult to deny. Who uses it for what purpose is like wanting to control speech... who knows which one of us ends up as a bad mouth and which one a saint?