Changing the world and other things I need to think about

A couple of things that cropped up today... 


Can art change the world? More specifically can art aimed at raising awareness around issues of climate change have any real effect? This was the question raised by one of the sociology papers in todays seminar... My problem is immediately one of politics, an misunderstanding the point of art. If art is a political activity, if art is concerned with questioning our understanding of the world, with questioning known truths... then it is concerned with changing the world. This is how art changes the world, it is not a useful tool for effecting immediate policy change. Anyone seeking to do this would do better to either become a politician, a protester or  work in the appropriate field, (in this case environmental science perhaps?) An artist is concerned with making art and joins in artistic discourses, these are not separate from the world and therefore effect it, but in ways that are relevant to art practice. All subjects are fair game for artists but the context within which they are presented and examined should always be considered and understood. Does having a 'real effect' make the artwork any more or less interesting?...


I don't know whether that made sense....


Another brain teaser I was considering today... Politics requires form to exist, i.e. aesthetics of politics. Language, written or spoken, has form. Does a political thought have to have an aesthetic in order to exist? before it is communicated does it have an aesthetic form? is an internal monologue an aesthetic form even though it is imagined. Are imagined aesthetics still aesthetics if they are not communicated?... help...


n.b.
(perhaps, according to Ranciere it's not political as the thing that makes us political is our ability to communicate... Susie suggested reading more Kant & Derrida as well... I suggested some things are better left alone...)