A Cultural Wasteland?

Winston Churchill was asked whether England's arts budget should be cut to help fund World War II, he replied, "God, no. What the hell are we fighting for?"

Priorities. Among everything that we have to cram into our hectic lives who has time for the arts, for a little beauty? If an amazing day is categorized as one where the children are shuttled off to school on time, gas prices hold steady, and the laundry gets done, what hope is there that we'll take a few stolen moments to appreciate a little inspired creativity that only has a pleasing image, a melody, or a few well placed words to offer?

Has it really been that long since you've been to a live performance of a play or to a concert? How long have you been trying to read that book you bought month's ago? Do your kids go to a museum once or twice a year - and then only because the school takes them? Do they even have an art class at their school anymore?

Children are naturally creative and find both focus and joy in the process of exploring and making things just for the heck of it. Give them a crayon or two, something to draw on and the free time to let their mind wander and its incredible what they create. Often times their visual language gallops far in advance of their spoken vocabulary. They intuitively "know" what they see even if they have trouble expressing it accurately in words. But do we give the free time and the encouragement that we took for granted when we were young?

"Over the past two decades, the degree to which marketers have scaled up efforts to reach children is staggering. In 1983, they spent $100 million on television advertising to kids. Today, they pour roughly 150 times that amount into a variety of mediums that seek to infiltrate every corner of children’s worlds." - Juliet Schor

Adults may not be fairing much better. For many of us our last consistent exposure to any of the arts was whatever "Intro to..." class we were required to take as an undergraduate, and we've pretty much left it all behind from there. Do we have an inkling of what is happening in the arts around us in the time in which we live? It doesn't require historical learning of thousands of years of art history, just an awareness and a willingness to muck around in it from time to time.

It's one thing to compartmentalize and schedule time to read a book, watch a film or listen to music that we know will always be available, but what about something that is beautiful for just a short period of time? Under the control of nature or of an artist, these things have their own responses to the passage of time and are almost completely outside of our control. Do we allow them to be a priority in our lives from time to time?

Perhaps not, because we don't seem to value them enough to care for them. Our national parks are at the brink of collapse because Congress feels funding their upkeep is a nonexistant priority for the American people. With little objection we've gotten to the point where the only way many of them can stay open is by using volunteers as staff and charging user fees to get into them. From the Statue of Liberty to the Washington Monument, our federal government has refused to properly fund the restoration and upkeep of our cultural icons and the only way these two landmarks were restored was through corporate sponsorships that allowed advertising tie-ins.. Your cultural heritage is increasingly for sale to the highest bidder.

As a country we are younger than most, and although our natural resources, our history, and our artistic achievements are spread far and wide geographically and ethnically, they represent a heritage unique from that of any other in the world. More than commerce, more than any political system, it is the arts that open doors across national borders between our country and so many others. They are also the historic link between an upstart country that became America and thousands of years of Western and Native American civilizations.

The Arts are valuable, and they are worth fighting for, both in our daily lives, and as a part of our national priorities.