Music:
Music is another excellent source of wisdom and basic thought. I read a particularly insightful sentence some years ago in Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. It went something like: “Oppressed people always write the most powerful music.” It’s true. Within the history of the recorded music industry, punk, rap, hip-hop, soul, blues, jazz, gospel, folk, country/western, metal, grunge, angry-women-with-guitars, and even rock ‘n’ roll itself, to name a few, were all invented by groups of people who were oppressed in some way— even if only in an abstract sense of being poor, disillusioned, or heartbroken.
The reason is fairly obvious: Oppressed people have the most to sing about. With the exceptions of a few things like disco and surfer rock, the great majority of memorable songs of even the cheesiest pop music always seem to be about protesting something, complaining about something, or overcoming something, including a lot of heartbreak or other relationship troubles, problems with authority, or just plain bad luck.
Oppressed groups of people can write the most powerful music about those things because they have the most of those things to deal with, and they can become very successful musicians as a result because everyone everywhere can identify with those things. Or, as I have heard it said elsewhere: “When you’re poor, you have to sing loud.” Consequently (although I had already discovered this point on my own) music is a great source for discovering basic evolutionary thought for the same reasons movies are—the most successful songs are ones that everyone can relate to, even if only some people like the song itself.