The current financial crisis certainly will lead us to carve extra expenses out of our budgets. But if that means eliminating the arts, we’ll truly be poorer for it.
With the absence of wealth and inhibited spending on travel and personal luxuries, “we’re going to have to find ways for our communities to find meaning,” said Maestro Leon Botstein, conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, during a visit to Milwaukee last week.
“It’s more important than ever in hard financial times. Being a consumer … is not the best nor adequate way to find meaning,” Botstein said during a luncheon at the Helen Bader Foundation on Wednesday, Nov. 12. He spoke on the topic, “The Importance of Connecting Arts and Education.”
“We Americans are a very practical people. But it’s precisely the most useless things in life that are the most important,” Botstein said.
Botstein was in Milwaukee for a JSO performance at the Milwaukee Theatre. He is also artistic director of the American Symphony Orchestra and president of Bard College.
The arts are important not only for the people who see and hear them but also for those who help to create them, particularly for children in schools.
“The arts break the standard of how we measure intelligence” and “create a sense of accomplishment,” he said.
It’s easy to see evidence of that in our personal lives. How often has art shown us a different standard of beauty? When have paintings or poetry been used to stir political and social dissent? I identify it in my life and see it in my children, whose growth is almost palpable after they’ve finished reading a great book or seeing exciting theater.
I think of my own 9-year-old and her love for pop culture. Radio Disney music is catchy and fun, but it lacks complexity, depth and a spirit of independence. (I’ll save my analysis about its messages for girls and sexuality.)
Similarly, television has some good content, but I always feel thrilled about the school field trips to First Stage Children’s Theater and the Milwaukee Art Museum. For me, the message seemed to be: The world is big and interesting. There are lots of ways to be.
Botstein takes it one step higher (and is more erudite): “Art forms that trade in complexity and duration are a tremendous achievement in human imagination.” Compare Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3, which the JSO performed here, to Hannah Montana’s “Pop Princess.”
That achievement, its remarkable use of creativity and invention, provides an important lesson — and inspiration — for all of us.
So who’s to pay for the arts? Therein lies the problem.
In some autocratic societies, the leader determined the society’s appreciation of art and aristocratic patronage expanded accessibility. But in a democracy, there is no agreed criterion of truth.
Each of us can decide what is art and what is good art. And that leaves us with … "reality TV."
Majority rule may mean that our society chooses television over theater, computer games over drawing, music from headphones rather than live acoustic performances.
And that would leave us — and our children — poorer, even if we have a few extra bucks in the bank.
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