The Arts in the 21st Century

(From 2013)

Composer Gustav Holst once observed about amateur music-making, “If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly.” His notion possibly leads us to some of the challenges facing the arts in the 21^st Century. Rather than causing music to become the province of the few, as some had thought when the phonograph was invented, developments in technology have made it possible for more people than ever to make music and experience the music-making of others. In one sense this is good for the art of music. Music educators have dreamed of a world in which more people could participate in making music, and this dream is coming true. Over the past few decades we have seen an explosion of styles, genres, and ways of creating music. Along with technology making music more of a ubiquitous commodity than a “high art,” as it was sometimes regarded in earlier eras, patterns of music consumption are also changing rapidly. The traditional music business models – print, records, tapes, compact discs, and even acoustic instruments – have been supplanted by digital means of creation, storage, and transfer. Composer Francis McBeth pointed out over twenty-five years ago that traditional band and orchestra instruments might one day be considered “original instruments,” much like the cornetto, sackbut, shawm, harpsichord, and viola da gamba. He thought most acoustic instruments would continue to have a place in recreating certain types of music, but bands and orchestras as we have known them for centuries would eventually represent only a small part of the world of music.

In recent years, there have been signs of Dr. McBeth’s prediction coming true. Major symphony orchestras and opera companies have been struggling financially and some are now closed. Attendance at traditional classical concerts and even musical theatre is down. Electronic instruments play an increasingly major role in popular music, film scores, and video games. Schools of music in the US are finding it more difficult to maintain enrollment, and some admit the only reason they have survived so far is the significant number of Asian students who have chosen to pursue degrees in the US. The quality and availability of music instruction has arguably never been higher, yet the level of monetary commitment to the traditional arts has been eroding, especially as the core audience increases in age. It has been suggested that the chance of a given high school arts student making a career in a major symphony orchestra, opera, or ballet company is much less than getting struck by lightning. Add to these observations the escalating demand of the public, and especially parents, that a college degree ought to “lead” to a career of some kind, and it becomes clear why the arts are in trouble on many college campuses. If students can pursue the arts on their own time, and this option is now facilitated by copious internet resources, what is the role of college study? More importantly, what does the future hold for college study in the arts?

Art, music, and drama programs have already been reduced in size or eliminated at many colleges and universities, often as a reaction to the fact that programs such as these are no longer able to attract a sufficient number of majors. The need for STEM programs has been asserted by both industry and government, and the arts seem to be losing to the sciences in the competition for scarce resources in many college budgets. It would be easy to catalog the challenges to the arts, and to include the rest of the liberal arts in that catalog. Whenever there is an appeal to utility, the liberal arts tend to come up short in the public mind, and sadly even in the minds of many college administrators. It is sometimes difficult to see how art, music, literature, drama, dance, language, history, philosophy, religion, and so on have any practical use in “real life,” except for the few who are lucky enough to find a way to make a living in these areas or those who can use their liberal arts knowledge to support the world of business in some way. After all, many people think if you can’t sell a thing, it isn’t valuable. Yet, the full implications of this notion are perhaps even more frightening: What if the only measure of value is a sales curve? Where does this thought leave the “impractical” arts? Do we really need the arts in order to survive? In many ways the arts are like friends. To quote C.S. Lewis, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

Sometimes the value of a thing cannot be measured in terms of money.

“The Theory of Relativity…occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.” – Albert Einstein

How arrogant of some to conclude that because there appears to be no immediate utility in the study of the arts, they are therefore not worth supporting or are not worth serious study! Very often, we do not know what has truly been worth our time and commitment until many years have passed or until, like Professor Einstein, we have acquired the perspective necessary to understand the role the arts have played in our discoveries.

Arts advocacy is necessary, to be sure, as well as the ability to confront the many threats to the arts which have merely been outlined above. Perhaps the most insidious threat to the arts is not declining support, attendance, or enrollment, or even the activities and areas of study now competing with the arts for the hearts and minds of young people. It may be the principal threat to the arts is our traditional attitude towards them. The arts have often been regarded as “extras,” superfluous in the education of children and even in the minds of arts educators the arts are perceived as being “at war” with the sciences, business, and sports. While we wait for a better time or enough financial security to pursue the arts, we fail to understand there is no “better time,” no “better place,” no magical world of “adequate resources” for the arts and everything else. C.S. Lewis had this to say about the importance of learning in wartime.

“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life.” Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. Periclean Athens leaves us not only the Parthenon but, significantly, the Funeral Oration. The insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on the scaffold, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.”

It seems to me Mr. Lewis was correct. What difference does it make if we are at war or not, if we need STEM programs or not, if we have adequate resources or not? The point remains that human nature has always “wanted knowledge and beauty now and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes.” We tend to get trapped in the attitude that the liberal arts are for the few, the wealthy, the leisure class, or those who have time left to enjoy them after dealing with more practical matters. We tend to cut arts funding first, rather than seek ways to make the arts a priority, with the understanding that while they may not “pay off” immediately, in the long run the rewards will be great. Liberal learning is always important, not just when it is convenient. This truth is part of what it means to be human, and without it we are no more than insects, seeking “first the material welfare and security of the hive.” We need to choose to be human – and find the courage to be true to our nature even when it feels impossible.

How can the arts survive the massive paradigm shifts we are currently experiencing? Let’s return to the question of the role of the arts in education. The traditional approach to the arts has had many facets. Some of these involve structuring arts programs to please some accrediting agency or the rules of the college curriculum. Others involve more mundane patterns, such as the fall or spring concert, the annual senior exhibition, or the campus theatre production. In many cases, the arts are not very well integrated into the overall curriculum or into community or campus life. There has been an attitude of serving majors and minors first, then the rest of the campus, and then the public. Several turnabouts are needed. Why not offer more and shorter events at a wider range of venues, both on and off campus?

If the arts are for everyone, it would make sense to create more opportunities for everyone to benefit from them, rather than just produce a few major events on campus each year or continue to make participation convenient only to those who are already involved in the program. Some colleges are trying to make their arts programs more entrepreneurial, since in the future it will be necessary for graduates to create their own opportunities rather than rely on their professors or their schools to do this for them. Schools need to pursue donors more aggressively; particularly those who have enjoyed success in part because of the role the arts have played in their lives. For example, Steve Jobs may not have created Apple Computers without a calligraphy course he took in his salad days. Further, schools need to develop programs of interdisciplinary study not necessarily dependent on outside accreditation, whenever such programs would better serve their students or allow the institution to better integrate the arts into the education of students who choose to pursue other disciplines. Above all, we need to ask why we have always made certain assumptions and structured our programs in certain ways. The existing models are breaking down and we need to ask why. We must consider how to replace the old models with concepts that might work for the next generation of students. And we need to get rid of old attitudes, turf protection, and patterns of behavior that prevent us from asking these kinds of questions in the first place.

Getting back to Holst, “If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly.” This thought does not mean a college or university is justified in offering a second-rate program in the arts, or in continuing to offer the same old courses. It means the student of the arts is to be encouraged to participate through high-quality opportunities. If a student wants to achieve more than simply doing a thing badly, the college has a role to play in enlarging his awareness and ability. If a student has a talent for mathematics or computer science that could potentially pay his bills and has a high level of interest in one or more arts, it is up to the college to make it possible for that student to have a good experience in the arts. Sometimes “making it possible” means arranging the schedule so course conflicts with the student’s major are minimized. Other times “making it possible” means developing innovative or integrative courses that tie the liberal arts to the major discipline in interesting or creative ways. The PBS television program, “The Woodwright’s Shop,” comes to mind. The program was about much more than wood working; Roy Underhill discussed history, technology, art, music, literature, society, and culture while explaining how practical items were crafted with wood before the advent of power tools. This television program is a good example of someone trying to integrate knowledge of the liberal arts with a practical pursuit. However, most college major programs tend to skip directly to the use of power tools while leaving behind any mention of prior culture or art, or indeed how the field is related to any other field of knowledge. Could a lack of understanding in the liberal arts be related to the fact that so many Wall Street executives are well-schooled in finance but remain ethically challenged?

Our efforts in teaching the liberal arts may fall short, or may not be what accrediting bodies expect, but nevertheless can be extremely valuable to college graduates. The arts provide many opportunities to think about what is good and truthful as well as what is beautiful. While an equation can display these transcendental qualities, it cannot do so in the same way as an experience in the arts. An equation merely indicates what we can do, not what we should do. And this is where the arts can complete our education. Too often in the history of humankind, we have neglected the arts at our own peril. It makes no difference whether we have put the arts aside because they ask the hard questions, or because we believe our time is better spent on other pursuits. Either way, it is time for those in the arts to put aside their own assumptions, become more creative than ever, conceive new ways to become a vital part of our culture. Those of us in the arts must not “go gentle into that good night,” but reclaim the idea that the arts are essential to what it means to be human.