How to make the grassroots grow

September 20, 2005

The arts could learn from sport how to encourage broader involvement, writes Hugh Mackay.

It's a good thing for taxpayers' money to be used to stimulate creative work in the arts, right? You might even say it's one mark of a civilised society - rather like the provision of public health, education, transport and communication services, leisure and recreation facilities, libraries and museums. Right again?

The channelling of public money into the arts is now so widely accepted as a worthwhile thing to do, it would seem churlish to question it. Who could ever wish to return to the dark ages - pre-Australia Council, pre-state and regional arts councils - when creative artists struggled for recognition and support?

But there are a couple of questions that should be raised from time to time, if only to assure ourselves that our money is being spent wisely. Who is supposed to benefit from arts funding? And what is the nature of the benefit?

Since it's public money we're talking about, the logical answer to the first question must be: the public. The assumption underlying public funding of the arts is that we all benefit from a thriving arts industry, because our lives are enriched by being lived in a context of creativity, even if we are not ourselves directly engaged with it or even aware of it.

Convincing? Maybe, but what kind of creativity enriches us? Ian Chappell recently told Margaret Throsby on ABC Classic FM that he was grateful for having grown up in a musical household, where Oklahoma! was frequently played. Did I hear a sharp intake of breath? Was Oklahoma! "good" enough, or would the young Chappells have been better off if Don Giovanni had been the soundtrack of their domestic life?

Is Oklahoma! a stepping stone to Mozart, Puccini or Wagner? Should it be? Why? Is Mills and Boon supposed to be a stepping stone to James Joyce? Is pulp fiction morally worse than "literature"? Does one bring us closer than the other to penetrating life's big mysteries? (And which of life's mysteries is bigger than the chemistry of personal relationships?)

Pop songs, romantic comedies, political cartoons and disaster movies are all part of the creative context, but we don't need to fund their creation with public money: they are sustained by the commercial industries that have sprung from their very popularity.

So is arts funding about exposing the community to music, art, literature or theatre that is more "serious" (and perhaps less accessible) than the material that seems more immediately engaging? Is there some compelling evidence that suggests people are improved, morally or otherwise, by exposure to "high art"?

Twenty-five years ago, the British writer Marghanita Laski published a remarkable book, Everyday Ecstasy, that took up such questions. Laski questioned whether the ecstatic response to art would normally - or ever - be translated into enthusiasm for, say, charitable works designed to alleviate the suffering of those who may never experience such ecstasy. In other words, does art make us more sensitive, compassionate or thoughtful? Is that how it benefits society? Her reluctant answer was "no" (and she didn't even quote the example of the 20th century's most notorious art lover, Adolf Hitler).

In his new book, What Good are the Arts?, the Oxford scholar and critic John Carey muses upon the strangeness of the fact that "this farrago of superstition and unsubstantiated assertion [about the value of the arts] should have achieved a position of dominance in Western thought". Carey contends that the arts do not "improve" us any more than other forms of entertainment or recreation that give us pleasure. He is particularly savage on the pointlessness of publicly funded art galleries as contributors to the common good, though he is open to the possibility that literature can change people's lives.

In Australia, we support state funding of serious artists doing groundbreaking work, or serious performers maintaining or enhancing the canon of music and theatre. But in our funding policies, we seem to be in danger of overlooking the intensely therapeutic personal and cultural benefits that flow from participation in the creative and performing arts. Shouldn't we be seeking imaginative ways of extending those benefits more widely? As well as obsessively monitoring audience numbers, shouldn't we be concerned about the level of participation?

Perhaps there are lessons to be learned from sport. The way to build a sporting culture is not only to pay top players a fortune and give promising youngsters special attention, but also to foster grassroots participation across the nation.

The more you look at the ills of modern society - alienation, fragmentation, isolation, depression - the more attractive the prospect of community arts development seems. What better way of fostering the sense of community, promoting health and wellbeing, and reducing the pressures of a competitive society than by devoting public money to the encouragement of widespread local engagement with the creative and performing arts?

We have a Prime Minister who would like to see a nation of shareholders, enriched by participation in the adventure of capitalism. A parallel goal could be a nation of individuals and communities enriched through participation in the arts adventure - painting, dancing, singing, writing, acting, sculpture, photography.

Perhaps it's time to dust off all those abandoned schools of arts and put them to the use for which they were originally intended.

Hugh Mackay is a social researcher and author, and a former deputy chairman of the Australia Council.
