Articles RSSArts Devastated?
Leah Broad comments on the new arts cuts
Justifying one’s university subject can, at first, seem entirely baffling. To anyone who has chosen to study a subject to a degree level, there will be so many reasons to consider that answers will not come easily. But when the question is asked at a national level and the funding of an entire sector of the university system is at stake, the question one always dreads at Oxbridge interview - “Why study your subject? What is the point in it?” - suddenly takes on a great deal of importance.
The arts and humanities have been subjected to cuts that will pose serious problems for publicly funded programs with potentially devastating consequences; over 200 organisations have been affected, more than originally predicted by the Arts Council. Alistair Spalding (director of Sadlers Wells) warned last year that if the severe cuts go ahead, “very many arts organisations will simply disappear”. Few, it seems, are immune. Even companies such as the Northern Ballet, Manchester’s Green Room Theatre, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts are undergoing massive drops in funding, some by as much as 37%.
Of course, articles like those by Alain de Botton, writing for the BBC, claiming that “academics in the humanities have failed to explain why what they do should matter so much”, do not help. As an arts student myself, I had assumed it obvious why the arts are as crucial to our society as a mathematics or science degree. De Botton himself did History at undergraduate level at Cambridge with a Masters in Philosophy at Kings. A beneficiary of the very system that he is criticising, he claims that the arts and humanities have not been justified “to the government, but this really only means "us" - the public at large.”
To live in a society which could not give opportunities to writers, musicians, film directors, actors, artists, dancers, politicians, philosophers, historians, geographers and any number of other people seems a rather bleak prospect indeed.
I cannot believe that this is the case. But if any further proof was needed, the figures speak for themselves: for every £1 spent on the arts, £2 is returned. In 2007 the creative industries contributed £59.9bn to national GDP, and the sector is still growing. The arts are a massive lure for tourists coming to Britain, which contributed £16.3bn to the economy in 2008; in 2009 it was announced that British museums and art galleries took £1bn every year from tourism. Quite rightly, Sandie Dawe, chief executive of VisitBritain, said that this statistic “showcases the international appeal of Britain’s culture and heritage”, even if Mr de Botton fails to acknowledge this. The major theatres regularly play to 90+% capacity, with musicals such as ‘Les Miserables’ still running after 25 years. Clearly the arts are still popular. Not only this, but the arts budget is comparatively minuscule - only 17p per person per week. For their money, taxpayers see huge benefits in regenerating local economies as well as the creation of millions of jobs; when funding is cut then ultimately this contribution to the economy will decline and jobs are bound to be lost, truly counterproductive to what the government is trying to achieve. The arts and humanities can and do encourage us to think creatively. They provide new perspectives. Graphic designers, advertisers and those employed in the media all benefit from the type of thinking championed by arts and humanities degrees. Nobody denies that cuts need to be made in all sectors, but cutting arts and humanities funding on the basis that they are more a creative indulgence than an economic necessity seems absurd.
Slicing the Budget
Furthermore, if these cuts spread into arts funding at universities, the consequences are just as bleak. Ironically, one of the people that de Botton claims provides more valuable artistic knowledge than an arts degree is Oprah Winfrey, who herself studied Speech and Drama, albeit in America. If cuts go ahead for the arts in universities, it is very likely that not only will people be discouraged from studying the arts and humanities but the standard of teaching will be likely to decline, given the reduced funding available. This will perpetuate a cycle where the few people who do apply will not have the same high standards of teaching that we have now, and the general standard of the arts will slowly start to spiral downwards. Perhaps we would never have people like Oprah if the arts had not received public funding. For a sector of university degrees that need justification, there are an awful lot of successful people who have taken arts or humanities degrees; Michael Morpurgo (Children’s Laureate), Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Ross, Steven Spielberg, Richard Curtis, Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Grant to name just a few. And whether you love them or hate them, they contribute an awful lot to our economy: ‘Notting Hill’ alone grossed $363,889,678 worldwide - written, acted, and musically arranged by people who all took arts degrees. This is disregarding that most people who go on to run the country will have gained a humanities degree at university; ironic that those who are proposing these cuts have already benefitted from public expenditure in these areas. David Cameron and our Minister for Culture, Jeremy Hunt (and, indeed, a vast number of our current cabinet), gained PPE degrees from Oxford, which as a BA degree, would face similar cuts at a university level as other arts degrees.
Historically, our rich cultural history could be greatly diminished if those historical figures who took arts degrees had been unable to. The people that have had a huge influence on our history and culture, whose ideas have changed the way we look, listen, and, to some extent, think, may not have had a chance to develop these if they had not been given the opportunity to pursue their ideas at university. At Oxford alone, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Oscar Wilde, C. S. Lewis, Tolkien and Hubert Parry all studied arts or humanities degrees and have made significant contributions to our cultural history. Einstein himself said in 1952 that “a society’s competitive advantage will come not from how well our schools teach multiplication and the periodic table, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity” and that he saw his life in terms of music rather than simple numbers or science.
‘‘Notting Hill’ alone grossed $363,889,678 worldwide - written, acted, and musically arranged by people who all took arts degrees.
Perhaps it is not made clear just how much, and who, we stand to lose by cutting the arts funding to such an extent. Perhaps we would not have half the literature, films, music, architecture and entertainment that we do if our stars of the future are not given the chance to learn and express themselves, be it at university or at a younger age in public workshops such as those run by the National Arts Council. Whenever you go to a classical concert, the performers will have been through rigorous training at music conservatoires which face devastation if public funding is cut. Most of our actors come from RADA - Alan Rickman, Richard Attenborough, Harold Pinter, Peter O’Toole, John Hurt, Ralph Fiennes and Sean Bean are all alumni. Both Danny Boyle and Stephen Daldry started out in Arts Council funded organisations. Take away the funding for these organisations and a huge part of our culture is lost; to live in a society which could not give opportunities to writers, musicians, film directors, actors, artists, dancers, politicians, philosophers, historians, geographers and any number of other people seems a rather bleak prospect indeed.
If a thorough defence of the arts system is all that is needed to prevent the funding cuts laid out by the government, then I hope that all those who study the arts, have a career in them or have ever been to a play, musical, concert, gone to the cinema or bought a CD or DVD, will start to speak out and justify the arts before the funding for our culture is lost.
Comments in chronological order
Total: 4
Wed 6 Apr 2011 5:46pm
Looking at the list you wrote above ("writers, musicians, film directors, actors, artists, dancers, politicians, philosophers, historians, geographers,...") makes you feel like you are looking at a question in some sort of quiz. What do these people all have in common?
Perhaps that's the problem. People are trying to justify the arts and justify the humanities, at the same time, all in the same argument. But the sheer differences between the two suffice to compromise the cogency of such arguments.
I find it annoying that "arts and humanities" are continually banded together under that heading. The connection just seems so arbitrary (that's why it's slightly annoying), but it has stuck.
The arts involve creativity - inherently. It seems like the humanities are happy with the above moniker "arts and humanities", because they can then lay claim to that exalted thing, "creativity". Never mind if you are actually creating something, it's more important to be "creative". The word has become more important than its denotation.
On the whole, historians are rather like other non-artists. They read novels, enjoy music, and point out historical inaccuracies in films. They may own a few paintings, which they might look at from time to time. They probably don't dance. The skill in history and other essay-based subjects is much better characterised as the analysis, debating and exchange of opinions. [Specifically in history it is also to narrate, and examine, what happened in the past.] That doesn't necessarily involve creating anything new. And that's what creativity is. I would say creativity is creating something new, with the addenda that it must be original, that it must occupy some pre-existing void (however small), and that the creator(s) must have had some choice in the form which that something ended up taking.
These three addenda might be summed up as: originality, void-occupation, and idiosyncracy.
If we proceed with this, creativity certainly isn't confined to the arts. Architecture is absolutely creative, for example. Mathematics, also. Engineering, too.
I just get the vibe that people sense that "creative", is a positive, complimentary term to describe a subject, and so they want to use it to describe themselves. Is there so much regard for it's actual meaning... no, I don't think so.
Sure there are connections between the arts and humanities. But so are there between STEM and arts, STEM and humanities. Without the mathematical investigations of people like Vincenzo Galilei (Galileo's father) we wouldn't have "MMMBop". In this light, simply "not being science" is not a strong enough link to group arts and humanities together, in my opinion.
As such I think the most clarity would be gained in this whole debate by treating arts and humanities separately.
And if you can't maintain funding for both, which are you gonna choose? When it comes to cuts, that's the sort of question you have to ask.
Wed 6 Apr 2011 7:11pm
Looking at the list you wrote above ("writers, musicians, film directors, actors, artists, dancers, politicians, philosophers, historians, geographers,...") makes you feel like you are looking at a question in some sort of quiz. What do these people all have in common?
Perhaps that's the problem. People are trying to justify the arts and justify the humanities, at the same time, all in the same argument. But the sheer differences between the two suffice to compromise the cogency of such arguments.
I find it annoying that "arts and humanities" are continually banded together under that heading. The connection just seems so arbitrary (that's why it's slightly annoying), but it has stuck.
The arts involve creativity - inherently. It seems like the humanities are happy with the above moniker "arts and humanities", because they can then lay claim to that exalted thing, "creativity". Never mind if you are actually creating something, it's more important to be "creative". The word has become more important than its denotation.
On the whole, historians are rather like other non-artists. They read novels, enjoy music, and point out historical inaccuracies in films. They may own a few paintings, which they might look at from time to time. They probably don't dance. The skill in history and other essay-based subjects is much better characterised as the analysis, debating and exchange of opinions. [Specifically in history it is also to narrate, and examine, what happened in the past.] That doesn't necessarily involve creating anything new. And that's what creativity is. I would say creativity is creating something new, with the addenda that it must be original, that it must occupy some pre-existing void (however small), and that the creator(s) must have had some choice in the form which that something ended up taking.
These three addenda might be summed up as: originality, void-occupation, and idiosyncracy.
If we proceed with this, creativity certainly isn't confined to the arts. Architecture is absolutely creative, for example. Mathematics, also. Engineering, too.
I just get the vibe that people sense that "creative", is a positive, complimentary term to describe a subject, and so they want to use it to describe themselves. Is there so much regard for it's actual meaning... no, I don't think so.
Sure there are connections between the arts and humanities. But so are there between STEM and arts, STEM and humanities. Without the mathematical investigations of people like Vincenzo Galilei (Galileo's father) we wouldn't have "MMMBop". In this light, simply "not being science" is not a strong enough link to group arts and humanities together, in my opinion.
As such I think the most clarity would be gained in this whole debate by treating arts and humanities separately.
And if you can't maintain funding for both, which are you gonna choose? When it comes to cuts, that's the sort of question you have to ask.
Wed 6 Apr 2011 7:24pm
A couple more things. I agree that the cuts to the arts and humanities are bad. They are definitely too much. I don't, however, agree with the argument itself, in large areas.
Naming famous people is not especially useful. There are many more much more famous celebrity arts graduates and humanities graduates than there are science and STEM graduates, particularly in the last half-century. And actually that's the problem. If you use the quantity of famous names you can drop as a measure of importance, then science is much less important than the arts or the humanities. We therefore have to either reject the "quantity of famous names dropped" as a measure, or reject the notion that science is anywhere near the arts or the humanities in terms of importance. Since the latter would be ridiculous, we end up having to reject the use of "quantities of famous names dropped" as a measure.
As a general principle, if you are trying to argue for the importance of the arts and/or humanities, and your methods of inference allow one to conclude that not only are these areas are extremely important, but that science and technology is in fact worthless by comparison, then you know that your argument is misguided or faulty in some way.
I'm not sure about the quote from Einstein. Einstein excelled in mathematics and physics in school, the arts (comprising of drawing and painting) were his worst areas, where he was an average student. He was talking about the importance of imagination and creativity in all areas, not just the arts.
Perhaps the most important point of all is one that could cut both ways. No pun intended btw. When it comes to the extreme popularity of the arts (not so much the humanities) with the public, this on the one hand makes it an area of great significance both in terms of revenue and in terms of society, but on the other hand it supports the view that it can sustain cuts to its government funding, because the massive public interest itself will supply the cash. The latter of these plays into conservative ideology, surely. I'm not a conservative but if I was, I imagine that's what I'd be thinking. The popularity of the arts with the middle classes doesn't help either, in fighting off such an argument.
I don't agree with the extent of the cuts. I do not. But the hypothetical conservative reason is valid. The bombastic popularity of the arts (and the humanities), amongst the public and amongst students, and the withering unpopularity of science, maths and STEM is the actual main problem, I think.
Also it's worth pointing out that the same short-minded, commercially oriented and utilitarian approach to funding that lies behind these kind of measures also threatens STEM research. The kind of STEM research that is either blue-sky, or maybe rich in potential practical applications, but not in immediate, commercially viable ones, may also be threatened.
Huh, I've written loads. Stopping now.
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Raiden
Wed 6 Apr 2011 4:37pm
Looking at the list you wrote above ("writers, musicians, film directors, actors, artists, dancers, politicians, philosophers, historians, geographers,...") makes you feel like you are looking at a question in some sort of quiz. What do these people all have in common?
Perhaps that's the problem. People are trying to justify the arts and justify the humanities, at the same time, all in the same argument. But the sheer differences between the two suffice to compromise the cogency of such arguments.
I find it annoying that "arts and humanities" are continually banded together under that heading. The connection just seems so arbitrary (that's why it's slightly annoying), but it has stuck.
The arts involve creativity - inherently. It seems like the humanities are happy with the above moniker "arts and humanities", because they can then lay claim to that exalted thing, "creativity". Never mind if you are actually creating something, it's more important to be "creative". The word has become more important than its denotation.
On the whole, historians are rather like other non-artists. They read novels, enjoy music, and point out historical inaccuracies in films. They may own a few paintings, which they might look at from time to time. They probably don't dance. The skill in history and other essay-based subjects is much better characterised as the analysis, debating and exchange of opinions. [Specifically in history it is also to narrate, and examine, what happened in the past.] That doesn't necessarily involve creating anything new. And that's what creativity is. I would say creativity is creating something new, with the addenda that it must be original, that it must occupy some pre-existing void (however small), and that the creator(s) must have had some choice in the form which that something ended up taking.
These three addenda might be summed up as: originality, void-occupation, and idiosyncracy.
If we proceed with this, creativity certainly isn't confined to the arts. Architecture is absolutely creative, for example. Mathematics, also. Engineering, too.
I just get the vibe that people sense that "creative", is a positive, complimentary term to describe a subject, and so they want to use it to describe themselves. Is there so much regard for it's actual meaning... no, I don't think so.
Sure there are connections between the arts and humanities. But so are there between STEM and arts, STEM and humanities. Without the mathematical investigations of people like Vincenzo Galilei (Galileo's father) we wouldn't have "MMMBop". In this light, simply "not being science" is not a strong enough link to group arts and humanities together, in my opinion.
As such I think the most clarity would be gained in this whole debate by treating arts and humanities separately.
And if you can't maintain funding for both, which are you gonna choose? When it comes to cuts, that's the sort of question you have to ask.