Are the arts - namely music, dance, visual arts - so vitally important to a student's education as to receive as much emphasis as mathematics, science, reading, and other mainstream subjects? The speaker gives an affirmative answer to this question. However, although I agree that the arts play a very important role in society, I think the speaker's claim that they are as important as the mainstream subjects has carried it to an extreme which I can hardly agree.
             First of all, the fact that mathematics, science, and reading have been established as the mainstream subjects is not accidental; instead, it is determined by the structural nature of our society, which is determined by the most basic needs of its constitutional units -- individual human beings. As classical sociology has shown, human needs can be classified into two main categories: the basic needs for survival and the more sublime needs of the spiritual. The former consists of our need to feed, to be clothed so as to keep warm, to have a residence that protects us from unrelenting weather and other potential dangers. This category of needs characterized the dominant amount of human activities in a society – agriculture, industry and commercial activities, etc – in short, the economic activities. And we know it is the mainstream subjects, reading, science and engineering, etc. that are most important for these kinds of activities that directly satisfies our basic needs in society; therefore, it justifies the importance these main subjects currently receive.
            
             On the contrary, the arts activity belongs to the second category of human activities: the pursuit of spiritual needs or the superstructure of a society. And sociology has told us that one can only pursue need in this category only if he has satisfied his basic needs belonging to the first category. Therefore, it is not surprise that there are substantially less art activities in our society, and this inherently determ...