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The Cafe
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In good times we want
the arts. In bad times
we need them
Richard Wilson
At a time when we’re having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.
So says David Cameron. There’s certainly little that you can argue with in that quote – it would be a falsehood to say that deciding where to cut back is an enviable task. By their very nature, cuts will enrage, divide and cause tension. Far from being a difficult option, however, the notion of cutting funding to the arts is often seen as an easy way to save money. The arts don’t really matter, do they, when the country is faced with eye-watering debt?
So why are the arts so consistently seen as an easy target, especially when one considers the importance of the arts and the creative industries to the economy as a whole?
Britain’s creative economy is a world-beater. According to UNESCO, Britain is the world’s biggest exporter of cultural goods, and indeed George Osborne himself stated: ‘I still don’t think policymakers have genuinely woken up to the economic importance of the cultural industries’. Britain’s free museums and art galleries are the envy of the world, attracting tourists whose spend far outstrips what could be saved in cutting arts funding.
The reason that the arts are seen as an easy target is because their contribution to society is somewhat unquantifiable compared with the more readily measurable output produced by some other sectors. Yet
if we compare arts funding as a percentage of GDP – 0.07% – to the creative industries’ contribution to GDP – 7% – funding the arts looks like a fantastic investment.
However, the arts’ contribution to society cannot be summed up on a balance sheet. My defence of them is threefold.
First, escapism. As I posited earlier, the arts don’t really matter when the country is in such dire financial straits. Wrong. It is in such straitened times that the arts become even more crucial. Even at their most simplistic, the arts can amuse and distract; at their most magnificent they can stop you in your tracks and make you question yourself and the world around you. It is this ability to make you stop and think that makes the arts unique in what they offer to society. It may seem rather trite to state that the escapism offered by the arts is even more important in this age of austerity, but the truth of that statement cannot be denied. The arts are the perfect tonic to the never-ending debt and despair we are constantly subjected to – an escape route from the vicious circle.
Second, inclusiveness. Many of those who advocate blanket cuts to arts funding view the arts as a fringe pursuit enjoyed by the middle classes. The frankly maddening argument that art is elitist is as tiresome as it is untrue. The arts are open to all and do not discriminate. What is at stake here is not the social elite’s yearly trip to the theatre – that will survive any amount of cuts. Instead, what is threatened is the provision of music therapy to the disabled, the availability of after-school classes for at-risk children and the ability of local theatre groups to put on shows that unite communities. Artists engage with some of society’s most excluded groups: those within the criminal justice system, refugees and asylum seekers, and older people who no longer have friends or family. Cutting their access to the arts would be a further step in disenfranchising them from society completely.
Finally, the power of art. As individuals, we have fairly clear boundaries of ‘acceptable behaviour’. The arts, on the other hand, remain a relatively free space in which to create, participate in and view more complicated and radical forms of public interaction. This free space is a hotbed of creativity from which people can both draw inspiration and feed contributions. It is in allowing us to challenge accepted wisdom that the arts encourage debate – and debate changes society. To stifle the arts, which cutting funding inevitably does, is to stifle one of the main catalysts of change in our society.
The arts are all things to all people. They cut across ethnic, religious, educational and moral sensibilities and are truly universal. Cutting the arts affects society as a whole and leaves us all impoverished in a way that could never be measured.
In good times, people want the arts. In bad times, they need them.
Richard Wilson, a solicitor, delivered this paper at the recent
Young Scotland Programme.
