I have worked in and around the arts for most of my adult life, primarily music, theatre, and film. I know art is important, not jut for me but for most of us — and for a healthy, functioning society. At the same time, art is not instrumental. It does not provide easily quantifiable benefits, where a «return on investment» can be calculated and presented in a spreadsheet. The benefits we — both individually and as a society — accrue from art is valuable precisely because it’s not quantifiable. It is intangible, but at the same time foundational.
One of the most damaging effects of neoliberal new public management has been the increasing emphasis on the measurable and the quantifiable. In our eagerness to ensure the taxpayers money is spent «wisely», we have become unable to judge value, choosing instead to focus exclusively on costs. And in so doing, we forget what makes us human, we forget what makes us grow and reach for the unknown.
As Alva Noë points out in The Entanglement, humans have been making art for as long as we have existed. Cave art dated to over 50,000 years ago, musical instruments created by Neanderthals from around the same time demonstrate that the need to express ourselves is part of who we are. One cannot separate art from humanity and still retain that which makes us human.
Artistic expression is not just the domain of artists — it is integral to our daily lives, and we all demonstrate this through the myriad of choices we make each day as we decide how to present ourselves to the word. Brian Eno and Bette A. show this clearly in What Art Does.
Recent cognitive science also shows that art is not just an isolated aspect of our humanity, but has profound impacts on all aspects of our existence.[^1] That the practice of creating art is profoundly important to the artist is obvious. Perhaps less obvious is that the act of viewing art and participating in cultural activities is also profoundly important to every member of society. Here we come back to Noë, and can see that since (one of) the function(s) of art is to both make us aware of social and cultural norms and to challenge them, art is crucially important for both personal and societal development. Without it, we would be trapped in another essential aspect of our nature, the desire for continuity and predictability, and would stagnate.
In higher education in Norway, there is also a paradox at the moment: like many countries, the Norwegian government wants to support education that “meets the need of the future workforce” and at the same time encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. They do this using the logic of the spreadsheet and the quantifiable, and thus believe that funding programmes tied to jobs there is demand for today will somehow ensure we are also preparing ourselves for meeting the challenges of tomorrow. And in this worldview, there is no reason to emphasize education in the arts, and so funding for arts programmes can be cut drastically.
The problem, of course, is that newer research shows[^2] that the benefits of the arts extend far beyond the cultural and creative industries — in fact, the research shows that having a vibrant and active artistic and cultural sector feeds innovation and growth in many, if not all, sectors of society. And thus, cutting public funding for the arts and culture, reducing investment in fine arts education will, over time, reduce the innovative and growth potential of all sectors of society.
Footnotes
[^1]: See, Anderson, Miranda. “4E Cognition and the Mind-Expanding Arts.” European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education 7, no. 02 (March 22, 2024): 7–64. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7451462.
[^2]: Sacco, Pier Luigi, Piotr Bialowolski, and Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska. “Culture and Creativity, Skills Building, and Growth: What Have We Missed?” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12, no. 1 (February 21, 2025): 236. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-04200-0.
