Luke is right that the arts still matter in The Walking Dead world

Even in the world of The Walking Dead art still matters and Luke tried to explain why when it was revealed Magna’s group was carting around a collection of musical instruments.

When surviving from day-to-day is something that requires a constant effort like in The Walking Dead world art can seem like a trivial thing or even a luxury that the survivors can’t afford to indulge in.

But every culture, even the most primitive, found a way to work for survival and still produce their own unique art. Art and music were used to enrich the society, explain their cultural beliefs, and to create a blueprint for future societies of how a culture lived, worked, worshipped, and survived. What they believed in, what they fought for, and what their lives were like were all expressed in their art.

So it makes sense that in The Walking Dead world preserving the art from the past and making new art for the future is important to create a record of how survivors rebuilt communities and civilizations. And it’s important to preserve the history, art, and culture of thousands of years of civilization so that it doesn’t get forgotten and vanish in the post-apocalypse world.

Art is also a way to remember those who have been lost, like the portraits that Jadis did of Glenn, Hershel, and other beloved members of the community who died. On Fear The Walking Dead Althea’s tapes provide a memorial to those that are gone as well as snapshots of the society that used to be before the apocalypse and how people tried to adapt after the apocalypse.

The role of the arts in the rebuilding of society is just as vital as the role of engineering, science, and other pursuits that the survivors will need to draw on in order to keep their communities thriving. Luke may not be a great fighter, but he can teach the survivors music on those instruments he’s been collecting and that will enhance their creativity, problem-solving, and health.

Art As Therapy

Creating art and playing music are highly effective ways for people to process trauma and can be very helpful when dealing with PTSD. And certainly, all the survivors in The Walking Dead world have been traumatized.

Studies that have been that look at the impact of music therapy that involves both listening to music and playing music on traumatized populations like combat veterans and refugees show that music can help traumatized people process their emotions, lower rates of insomnia and hypervigilance, and help them manage the symptoms of depression.  Visual arts and journaling also can be helpful for managing PTSD.

Art And Humanity

As Luke tried to explain to Michonne and the others art is an expression of the humanity that binds people together and creates civilization. Art, no matter simplistic, is what people use to express faith, love, hope, sadness, all the qualities that define humanity. Those emotional connections expressed through art and music are what will remain of civilization long after the people who created the art are gone.

Today archeologists and sociologists are still discovering new things about the ancient Romans, the ancient Egyptians, and other civilizations that have been gone for thousands of years because of the art that they left behind.

While it seems crazy to some that Magna, Yumiko, Luke, Connie, and Kelly were risking their lives by carting around salvaged musical instruments what those instruments represent and the role they play in creating the art that will define civilizations in The Walking Dead world are worth fighting for.