When Science and Art Meet--and also When they Collide

Science. Art. Those two words used to seldom go together. However, in recent years the words "science" and "art" are becoming more and more frequently blended. Take a look at science fiction. What is that? It is an art--writing, cinematography, etc--filled with science! And an amazing one at that. Just look at how all the little scientific details make science fiction what it is--"science" fiction. Without the science and the art we have no science fiction. This is an example of when art and science blend to make an amazing piece of work.
Then we have modern art. Many forms of modern day artwork, indeed, even some artwork dating far back into our past, uses science in it's creation. Perfectly symmetrical drawings, buildings crafted to look like octagons and hectagons, a face made entirely out of triangles--science and art put together to make something both fascinating and beautiful.
Only two small examples of science and art blended beautifully together, but there are many more. But then we come to when science and art collide.

When do science and art collide? When people attempt to make a science out of art.

Diagramming, grammar, be verbs, all these things fill the average English class... Punctuation. Capitalization. Sentence fragments (which I am purposefully using). These things are necessary to know in order to be a good writer. But are they occasionally taken too far?
Diagramming--learning how to dissect a sentence. I have never understood the reason that we diagram. Will it help us to become better writers? I have yet to find someone who can answer that question--and I have asked it numerous times. I do not believe that diagramming helps us become better writers. On the contrary, I believe that diagramming is a method of shredding apart a sentence in order to "study" the way in which it was constructed. But this actually ruins the sentence. Let me show you a little example. Take this sentence "The day dawned with a clear blue sky." Look at that sentence. There is beauty in that sentence. But then let us diagram it, stick each labeled word on little squiggling lines. Then what do you see when you look at that sentence? Do you see a bright sun, a clear blue sky, a fresh morning? Or do you see words, parts of speech, something that was constructed? How is this a good thing? Diagramming, to my knowledge, does not help a writer become a better one in any way. It only takes words and sentences--once soft and malleable in a writer's fingertips--and turns them into a thing that can be constructed. Words no longer flow. They are built. And I ask you again, how is this a good thing?
Of course a writer needs to know the fundamentals of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, all those things. But is it necessary to learn how to destroy every single "be verb" in an essay? Is passive voice really that bad? It used to not be bad. In fact, it was perfectly acceptable to use be verbs in writing. And the strangest thing? It was not boring. Not one bit. And yet now, today, people--in an attempt to make a science out of the art of writing--say that be verbs make writing "boring", they "slow it down", and "bog it up". This used to not be true. And yet it has become true. Why? Perhaps it is because, in an attempt to give writing a science of itss own, someone, somewhere, and sometime, decided that passive voice was bad. I have yet to figure out why. So what happened then? Words such as "been" and "were" and "was", which were (ha! note the be verb?) once perfectly acceptable, have been banned from many communities. And not only that. Students who have it drilled into them that "be verbs are bad" start picking them out in writing. A sentence, once beautiful, becomes filled with obtrusive words that never would have been noticed had a teacher not pointed them out as bad. Take this sentence: "Over the past few days my life has been filled with pain and sorrow". At one time in my life I would have read the sentence and realized that the writer had felt pain and sorrow--now I realize, instead, that the writer used a be verb. How is this a good thing?

Yes, my friends, in an attempt to make a science out of art, art is being ruined. Alas, that I should live to see such times...

~Manwathiel

p.s. Yes, I have been studying be verbs and diagramming in English. Yes, I needed to rant. Thank you for listening. If you happen to just *love* diagramming then...well, we're all entitled to our own opinions. And what did the first bit about science and art have to do with anything? I'm not sure....