The Role of the Arts in the 2st Century

The Role of the Arts in the 21st Century

by Michael Greene

ART is not a luxury or an adornment. Rather, it is a powerful and necessary toolset for human growth and development that challenges us to seek and discover possibilities.

Art teaches us to share what we have learned and provides us the vehicle for that transaction. From the time human beings first banded together to ensure their survival in a hostile world, art has been a vital mechanism for transmitting knowledge and creating a sense of

shared experience and common purpose, without which there is no community. Artistic endeavor is a form of exercise that produces resilient spirits and strong minds. Creative minds are capable of engaging in and solving the most complex problems facing our cultures and communities today. Nurturing and educating the creative spirit inherent in all people is key to the successful evolution of our social and economic systems.

The weight of evidence demonstrating that art serves to create a more complete and facile intellect is overwhelming. And, if we believe that education is the genesis of growth and progress, we must make art in all its forms welcome and celebrated in our societies. Arts is about betterment- socially and economically. It is about understanding our world, ourselves and those who share the world with us. It is about tolerance and appreciation of other views and cultures. It is about problem solving for whom among us will argue that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity does not represent an artistic act of creation? Art is tangible, an industry in its own right, attracting talent and investment while sustaining a variety of other economic activities. It is about bringing all of these properties to fruition. It is about life.

Art, creativity, education, social and economic progress are inseparably linked to one another. As organizations in the service of the artistic community, the National Academy of Recording Arts Sciences, Inc., the National Coalition for Music Education and America’s art and humanities endowments are committed to demonstrating that embracing and promoting the arts is a vital and necessary activity for business and government, elevating the condition of all people and their habitats.

The Arts, Creativity and Education

IN A WORLD as diverse as ours, the arts provide an invaluable environment for communication and collaboration. The arts enable us to connect time and space, experience and event, body and spirit, intellect and emotion, transforming a predictable monochromatic view of cultures into a glorious palette reflecting society’s diverse textures, colors and forms. The arts lift our spirits, raise our consciousness and deepen our understanding of ourselves and each other, connecting all of us to the creative powers we possess.

Creativity is the connective tissue between art and science. Experts believe that tomorrow’s scientists and engineers will require a foundation in the arts to stimulate their curiosity and creativity, providing them with an innovative world view. The goal of fashioning minds without borders must be a preoccupation of the architects of 21st-Century habitats. Such a goal demands experimentation, creativity and a longer view of our role in the world. According to biochemist Robert Root-Bernstein, some skills taught only in the arts are as important to science as they are to art. Among these tools are abstracting, building models and recognizing patterns. Non-verbal skills allow people to imagine and visualize new realities before they can be substantiated by logic or scientific experiment.

Participation in the arts fosters achievements such as language acquisition, cognitive development, critical thinking, flexible thought, disciplined effort and interpersonal skills. United States Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich has observed that roads, airports, computers and fiber-optic cables, connected by educated brainpower, determine a nation’s standard of living. He states, “in the emerging economy of the 21st Century, only one asset is growing more valuable as it is used: the problem-solving, problem-identifying and strategic-brokering skills of a nation’s citizens.”

Text Box: “The arts possess a unique ability to transcend all other forms of communication. In a world as diverse, politically divided and increasingly interdependent as ours, that capability is vital.” Further, researchers have shown statistically significant relationships between music instruction and improved performance in everything from spelling and reading comprehension to mathematics, motor skills and learning ability. An important key to the extraordinary connection between music, math and science is contained in the groundbreaking new research being done at the University of California at Irvine by psychologist Frances Rauscher and neuroscientist Gordon Shaw. Their study has found that weekly music lessons strengthen the links between brain neurons, resulting in dramatic improvements in children’s spatial intelligence. It is this spatial intelligence that is required to reach their full potential. One of their most recent eight-month studies found that children who were given just 15 minutes a week of private keyboard instruction complemented by group singing at preschool - showed a 40 percent increase in spatial IQ compared to students who received no music training. Developmental, cognitive and collaborative skills relevant to success in today’s competitive global economy, are all enhanced by the arts. Recent research substantiates that the arts impact individual and societal growth in ways never before imagined. The arts:

Integrate neurological functions, thereby improving performance in other subject areas
Enhance the educational environment and provide lifelong learning skills
Develop a positive emotional response to learning
Help low-achieving students academically
Encourage youth to stay in school
Foster the use of higher order thinking skills
Provide discipline and sense of commitment
Foster cultural understanding and tolerance
Increase parental community involvement
Encourage new partnerships between arts organizations and businesses.

The Arts as an Instrument for Economic Development

The artistic community develops, nurtures and sustains the creativity necessary for the economic progress of the corporate community. Many corporate leaders now recognize this positive relationship between a thriving artistic community and a company’s capacity for innovation. That insight and ability are fundamental to the future economic growth and development of a community.

The design dimension in products, as it applies both functionally and aesthetically to virtually everything made in the world today, is clearly inspired by the arts. It is this integrated foundation of design that is the principal force behind function, quality and marketability. This marriage of aesthetic design and technological innovation positively affects everything that is printed, published, produced and marketed, regardless of the medium.

Over 30 years ago, the United States government acknowledged the importance of the arts and its contributions to business and communities by creating two key federally-funded agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Through modest expenditure, these two agencies have contributed greatly to enhancing the communities and lives of Americans. The NEA and the NEH have affected the dramatic growth of cultural organizations. Specifically, the number of orchestra companies in the US has increased from 110 to 230; theaters, from 56 to 425; dance companies, from 37 to 450; and opera companies, from 27 to 120.

Studies evidence that government support of the arts does not come at the expense of economic development. In fact, in the United States, for every $1 invested in the arts by the NEA and the NEH, the private sector further matches that $1 with $11 of their own. Additionally, the arts employ 3.2 million individuals, nonprofit arts institutions generate $36.8 billion annually in economic activity within local communities and over $6 billion in tax revenues.

Arts organizations themselves are dynamic businesses, employers and consumers. Cultural institutions and arts events generate jobs and stimulate local business and government revenues. Arts districts attract domestic and foreign business investment, reverse urban decay, revitalize struggling neighborhoods and contribute to the livability of cities, towns and villages.

Arts districts have a powerful impact on a community’s ability to promote cultural tourism, thereby generating significant new income. An effective partnership between the arts and the travel and tourism industry dramatically spurs economic activity. In order to realize these benefits, government has a responsibility to participate not only in these partnerships, but also in the cultural lives of its citizens.

The Arts as the Ultimate Ambassador

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous positive action.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr

The arts possess a unique ability to transcend all other forms of communication. In a world as diverse, politically divided and increasingly interdependent as ours, that capability is vital.

How are we to ensure that those who follow us will inherit a better world? Where do we go to exchange ideas and seek solutions to the problems we face? How do we begin to visualize the world as we hope it will become? How can we guarantee that we celebrate our differences, rather than allow misguided biases to keep us apart? And how will we ensure that future generations will remember that the lives and work of those who came before us provide the keys to our cultural future?

The answer to these questions lies in our ability to avail ourselves of the arts’ distinctive capacity to transform fear to understanding and unclench the fists of anger, despotism and bigotry. We must seek a higher, common ground through the unique diplomacy of the arts. The raw materials of the arts are not limited to the stone and the bronze of the sculptor, the clay of the potter or the palette and brushes of the painter. The true foundational elements of the arts are: strength, which empowers us; honesty, - to confront our differences; integrity, which allows us to trust and be trusted, beauty, which inspires us; curiosity, that expands our perspective; understanding, that gives us tolerance; and kindness, which heals. These universal truths will create solidarity and hope in 21st-Century civilization.

As we build habitats, we must also construct an environment of tolerance and understanding. Through the lens of the arts, we can bring our global community into sharp focus by making the following tasks a real priority:
Confront the division between races and cultures in our communities.
Provide a safe emotional and intellectual haven for our citizens in which they are encouraged to reinvent themselves without fear and prejudice.
Document the heritage of all people through the arts, ensuring an evolving context for multi-cultural understanding.
Open avenues of understanding among nations, enabling ideas and creativity to flow across borders.
Promote a deep commitment to acknowledge the similarities and differences among religions, races and cultural traditions.

Conclusions

Working to bring about cultural diversity and equity will imbue a community with a stronger base of support and increase the number of citizens and organizations served. In the long run, when decisions are made, mindful of the health of the entire community, the cultural environment will become more vital and relevant. By promoting civic responsibility, helping to build a community’s social infrastructure and improving the quality of its citizens’ lives, we strengthen families, prevent crime, and ensure access to cultural heritage.

The arts are the enabling force for the creation of intellectual capital, the benefits of which are as valuable as the corresponding physical capital they attract and sustain. The arts must be considered an integral part of designing global communities of the future. In addition to being an important means of enrichment, the arts serve as an indispensable component of emerging 21st-Century economies.

The arts provide us with the ability to redefine ourselves within the context of a dynamically changing world and are a prerequisite for progress. Certainly, cognitive reasoning skills are imperative to such development, but it is art which leaves the indelible footprints of human experience. The value of the arts as a legitimate tool for social and economic improvement must not be overlooked by the public and private sections, nor dismissed as ”unaffordable.”

The role of the arts in all communities is a matter of no less consequence than the role of science, health care, education or defense. History is being written as we speak and it’s up to all of us to speak out with passion and conviction to help determine the outcome. By refusing to invest in the arts, we are short-changing our communities and are in danger of developing culturally bankrupt societies. We can certainly build cities without including the arts, but there can be no civility and joy in their absence.

Greene is President and CEO, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc.