“Culture is a social language that we would be dumb without.”

Submitted by GIA News on July 13, 2010

(7-13-10) Robert Hewison in The Art Newspaper:

To convince the public, and not just the government, an argument has to be made that shows that the arts are worth funding, in and for themselves. That calls for a more sophisticated form of cultural economics than is currently recognised at the Treasury. There is a market for culture, but culture does not depend on the market for its existence. The experiences the arts offer—pleasure, terror, insight, knowledge, release—are individual and hard to quantify, and these intrinsic aspects come before any attempt to translate them into economic terms.

To use the language of the 18th-century economist Adam Smith, the value of the arts “in use” precedes their value “in exchange”. Once something is deemed desirable, the market can indeed establish its commercial price. But although the market can trade in the products of culture, it cannot express the value of culture as a process, or what it does.

A cultural economics that captures the value of the arts has to understand value in use, and that involves broader ways of understanding ourselves and our world, for instance, anthropology and environmentalism. The value in use of the arts is that they help a society make sense of itself. They generate the symbols and rituals that create a common identity—that is why art and religion are so closely linked. Like religion, the arts give access to the spiritual. Art is a link to previous generations, and anchors us to history. Culture is a social language that we would be dumb without.