10 August 2012 Last updated at 12:42 ET
Culture thrives on conflict and antagonism, not social harmony - a point made rather memorably by a certain Harry Lime, says philosopher John Gray.
"In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
When Orson Welles spoke these lines as Harry Lime, the charismatic villain at the heart of the film The Third Man, released in
Friday, 10 August 2012
Are tyrants good for art?
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