How did Friedrich Schiller believe art could improve society?

Friedrich Schiller believed that art serves as a vital instrument for moral and political progress. In his work On the Aesthetic Education of Man, he argued that aesthetic experience is characterized by a "disinterested" quality—a state where individuals appreciate beauty for its own sake rather than for utilitarian ends.1

Schiller posited that this engagement with beauty acts as a necessary "aesthetic education" for the individual citizen. By tempering the "savagery of life" and fostering inner harmony, art helps individuals move beyond self-seeking impulses and fragmented judgment. He believed that this process provides human beings with the self-identity required for fulfillment and helps establish the institutions necessary for a more humane, free, and stable social order. Ultimately, through the cultivation of the individual's soul, Schiller envisioned the development of a society that transcends political oppression and material pressures.21