How might value pluralism strengthen the arts sector?

A recent post on the Improvisation blog, following the death of Maurizio Pollini, notes that classical music, and the richness of culture more generally, appear currently to be threatened, in the UK at least. 

There is indeed a good deal of debate in the arts community at the moment. However, I think much of this is generated by tensions emerging from shifts in the allocation of resources. This, perfectly understandably, manifests as disagreements about what art and culture actually is and what it might rightly be for, if indeed it is for anything. 

For some, artistic practice is concerned with more or less subjective judgments of excellence (attainment of challenging and worthwhile goals that cannot be measured econometrically), so funding should be allocated on this basis. This calls for the nuanced sensibilities of experts whose opinions should be valued most highly in the decision-making processes. However, after years of strategic maneuvering, and sub-disciplinary development in the academy, claims to musical expertise are now unarguably distributed beyond those who advocate this position, neutralising its logic somewhat.

For others, public funding should be made available on the basis of social impact – much of which might be possible to measure in terms that are familiar to the treasury, making this position attractive to policymakers and funders alike. Some within this group might be particularly sensitive to the political significance of attracting money away from forms of music that have historically benefitted from public support. 

Another broad group isn’t particularly interested in anything but commercial music and tends to think of music as part of the global entertainment industry. Some in this group are opportunistically lobbying for public support, nonetheless.

I think mitigating the negative consequences of this tension involves properly differentiating ends from means. Economic value is a means. Money must ultimately be spent on something to realise its value. That’s what it’s for, ostensibly at least (it’s also about latent power in its hoarded form). In contrast, cultural value and health are ends. 

To add a bit of complexity, creativity and wellbeing, while often treated like synonyms for culture and health, are actually economic factors (they are measured econometrically and the goals are economic) and therefore contribute to means. In addition, some cultural activities are, or can be, economically productive thereby directly contributing to their own means (i.e. they are to a significant degree self-sustaining). An example of this from round my way (Sheffield) might be metallurgy. 

Perhaps problems emerge (or at least debates!) when we try to argue that ontologically expansive or complex phenomena such as music, education, or research should rightly be perceived as concerned with one form of value only (cultural, social, or economic). Whereas in fact, taken comprehensively, they actually tend to generate multiple forms of value across these broad categories. 

I therefore think we’ll be able to advocate more clearly and effectively if we adopt a pragmatic, pluralist stance. 

A market fundamentalist perspective commits two errors. Firstly it confuses ends and means and secondly, by limiting complex phenomena to one category of operation, acts to negate forms of value necessary for human society to sustain itself.

If we push back against this by pointing out the first error, the confusion of ends and means, but commit the second error ourselves by arguing that cultural activity is and should be about the creation of only one form of value – e.g. aesthetic value – then we are less wrong than the market fundamentalist but we are still wrong. This needlessly weakens our position.

In my view, pluralism is the most effective counter-position to fundamentalism. I think this position is sensitive to ambiguity and compatible with contingency and contradiction. I suggest it would therefore accommodate the forms of value that Mark associates with classical music in his article. 

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Incidentally, one way I sometimes try to differentiate art is to point out that the arts don’t only make us feel better. They can also make us feel worse. Sometimes that is what we go to them for. We intuit that difficult and complicated emotions are part of life and that we must spend time with them if we are to withstand all that fate might have in store for us. The arts enable us to do this in a relatively safe way and introduce an important social dimension to the experience.

Art forms such as music enable us to commune with fear, anger, frustration, boredom, and sadness (amongst other affective responses) in a purposeful way without a precise notion of why we might want or need to do so and without any clear, measurable outcomes. This also validates and normalises less instrumentalising approaches to other reflexive and social relations, thus laying the foundations for forms of pleasure, fulfilment, and connection that might otherwise remain elusive. 

Institutional settings, in say, health, education, or the justice system, often employ creative activities to meet institutional objectives (and wider social agendas to which they are expected to contribute). This might include considerations of wellbeing, employability, creativity, and so on. 

In these contexts, explicit measurable outcomes are necessary to evaluate these interventions against other apparently similar alternatives to ensure that resources are being used efficiently. These measurable outcomes and underlying objectives are likely to influence in important ways the motives we have for engaging with art as compared with apparently similar practices in an extra-institutional setting. 

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So it follows that we should preserve the extra-institutional infrastructure we have that is dedicated to supporting arts and artists. This infrastructure comprises smaller risk-taking intermediaries – e.g. independent record labels, management companies, and venues – as well as non-profit social enterprises and larger cultural organisations that tend to rely on some degree of grant-in-aid subsidy. The logics that drive these organisations are different but, I think, ultimately, mutually supporting. 

For instance, I have a question about the extent to which funded and institutionalised settings are sufficient in providing the conditions for trust to be established between contributing parties. In my view, trust is an important foundational resource on which the production of cultural value ultimately rests. I think trust is promoted where there is an equitable balance of risk. I think this is one way that smaller risk-taking organisations have a unique role as they are more likely to be able to enter into risk-based relationships with other contributors such as artists on terms that are well-balanced.

Anyway, all types of organisation are necessary, in my view, for the healthy functioning of grassroots, community-led, independently-organised cultural activity. We cannot let smaller risk-taking organisations disappear – either acquired by larger conglomerates or forced to switch en masse to not-for-profit models to survive. We need to make the most of the existing infrastructure that is available to us. We need to see our collective resources – energy, time, space, materials – as variables over which we have some agency.

If we are to create the conditions for fruitful collaboration between various contributors in the cultural sector, I think value pluralism can help.

“Wealth is our organized capability to cope effectively with the environment in sustaining our healthy regeneration and decreasing both the physical and metaphysical restrictions of the forward days of our lives.” Buckminster Fuller

_{Written without the use of generative AI tools}