"What Good Are The Arts?" Chapter 4

Do the arts make us better?

“ With the Enlightenment, and the invention of aesthetics in the 18th century, the idea that works of art improve their recipients morally, emotionally and spiritually became part of Western intellectual orthodoxy.” P. 97

“ In the 19th century it became a widespread cultural assumption that the mission of the arts was to improve people and that public access to art galleries would affect this. […] if the poor could be persuaded to take an interest in high art it would help them to transcend their material limitations, reconciling them to their lot and rendering them less likely to covet or purloin or agitate for a share in the possessions of their superiors. Social tranquillity would thus be ensured.” p. 97


"Kenneth Clark, who took Civilization as the title for his famous television series, made no secret of his belief that 'popular taste is bad taste, as any honest man with experience will agree'. For him art, like civilization, was generically connected with wealth and large country houses. [...] John Berger's Ways of Seen was, in effect, a retort to Clark and far from regarding the history of Western art as a monument to civilization Berger denounced it as a monument to privilege, inequality and social injustice. Further, since art in our culture is enveloped in an atmosphere of bogus religiosity, it is used, Berger pointed out, to give a spurious spiritual dimension to the structures of political power. The whole concept of national cultural heritage, enshrined in national galleries, opera houses and so forth, exploits the authority of art to glorify the present social system and its priorities. “ p106

“ Half the world, nearly 3 bn people, live on less than $2 a day, and more than a billion live in what the UN classifies as absolute poverty. 1.3 bn have no access to clean water; 2 bn no access to electricity; 3bn no access to sanitation. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read or write. Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are chronically undernourished, and each year more than the entire population of Sweden, between 13 and 18 million, mostly children, die of starvation or the side effects of malnutrition. Meanwhile the Western nations live in unprecedented luxury. The richest 20% of the population of the developed countries consumes 86% of the world’s goods. […] Annual expenditure on alcoholic drinks in Europe is $105bn, whereas global expenditure on providing basic health and nutrition for the world’s poorest is $13bn. An analysis of long term trends shows that the distance between the richest and the poorest countries was 3 to 1 in 1820, 35 to 1 in 1950, and 72 to 1 in 1992.”

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