THE CONTRIBUTION OF ARTS EDUCATION TO NATIONAL INCOME (page 4)

Invention and Innovation

It is increasingly recognized that the psychology of the creative process is an area of commonalty between the arts and sciences (Meyer, 1984).  In both, creativity occurs when an individual steps beyond traditional ways of knowing and doing and making. We have come to recognize that the process which brings about creative advances in science is identical to that involved in artistic creation (Jantsch, 1975, p. 81).

It is also recognized that creativity has an empirical basis in neurophysiology. Recent research in brain physiology suggests that the creative process is rooted in the lateralization of brain function.

The left hemisphere is generally thought to be primarily responsible for traditional cognitive activities relying on verbal information, symbolic representation, sequential analysis, and on the ability to be conscious and report what is going on. The right brain, on the other hand, functions without the individual being able to report verbally, and is more concerned with pictorial, geometric, timeless, and nonverbal information (Hansen, 1981, p. 23).

In a sense, the arts can be considered the most developed right-lobe sector of contemporary society. Education through art should serve to enhance creativity in other sectors, and balance the over-development of left-lobe nature of Western society. In this regard, the noted economist Geoffrey Vickers has said:

I welcome the recent findings of brain science to support the common experience that we have two "styles of cognition," the one sensitive to causal, the other to contextual significance. I have no doubt that the cultural phase - which is now closing - restricted our concept of human reason by identifying it with the rational, and ignoring the intuitive function, and thus failing to develop an epistemology which we badly need, and which is within our reach - if we can overcome our cultural inhibitions. (Vickers, 1977)

Education through the arts fosters and promotes a creative psychological and social climate in which invention, innovation, and diffusion of new technologies can more readily occur. It can sensitize entrepreneurs, managers and employees to the context of change, and enhance their ability to respond to change in a positive and constructive manner. In this regard, the need to increase the innovative capacity of the Canadian economy has been recognized by the Economic Council of Canada as critical to future economic growth and development (Economic Council, 1983).

The Narrowcast Marketplace

The emergence of the narrowcast market is the most significant marketing development of the 1970s and 1980s. The growth of numerically small, but economically viable markets has resulted from an unprecedented average level of education, an unparalleled division and specialization of labor, and an unrivalled degree of urbanization. If the industrial revolution produced standardization throughout society, then what Alvin Toffler has called the Third Wave is reversing the process. There is a rising level of diversity, a demassification of the marketplace with more sizes, models and styles, a demassification of tastes, political views and values (Toffler, 1979).

Fragmentation of the mass market has had significant implications for producers, implications driven home by two recent recessions with their stranglehold on consumer spending. This forced producers to try to understand what made the domestic market tick. They soon discovered demographic and lifestyle changes had delivered a death blow to mass marketing and brand loyalty. A North American economy that once shared homogeneous buying tastes had splintered into many different consumer groups - each with special and differing needs and interests (Business Week, November 21, 1983).

Among First World nations, the emergence of the narrowcast marketplace can also be identified with two developments: one technologic; the other demographic. First, there is the introduction of cable and pay television services which has fragmented the traditional, lowest common denominator broadcasting systems of North America during the last decade, and which promises to do the same to European broadcasting in this decade. It is from this development that the term narrowcasting has been derived. The most developed form of narrowcasting, however, takes the form of direct mail services.

Second, there has been the emergence of a new class of consumer, the Yuppies: young, urban, upwardly mobile professionals. This group is attracting the attention of both producers and politicians (Business Week, July 2, 1984, pp. 52-62). In essence, the Yuppie is a consumer with a high level of education and income who demands high quality and sophisticated, often unique or specialized goods and services. It is also the Yuppie with whom we can identify the rapid increase in arts participation during the last generation.

And it is also the arts which serve as the historical leitmotif for the general market trend towards differentiation in consumer taste. Examples of highly differentiated taste in the fine arts can be seen in alternative styles of painting such as impressionist vs. expressionist vs. realist vs. abstract vs. conceptual vs. minimalist painting. What is a prize to one collector is valueless to another.

Manufacturers and other producers are learning from the experience of the fine arts to succeed in the narrowcast marketplace. As noted by former CBS president, Frank Stanton:

The essential values of the public are most clearly evident, and in some instances only, in the arts - in music, the drama and the dance, in architecture and design and in the literature of the times. It is through knowledge of peoples' values that corporate marketers know what goods and services to provide and how to motivate consumers to buy their products. (Sellner, 1982)

New Production Skills

Since the introduction of universal compulsory education in North America during the last century, production-skills training has progressively crowded out education in the arts and humanities, the traditional sources of "consumption skills." This crowding out partially reflected the puritan and republican traditions of North America in contrast to the catholic and aristocratic traditions of Europe (Scitovsky, 1976). It also reflected an initial need, in the 19th to mid 20th centuries, to develop repetitive industrial skills among a relatively uneducated, rural work force.

In the late 20th century this is no longer the case. The new production skills required in the emerging postmodern economy are nonrepetitive, adaptive, and judgmental, characteristic of traditional consumption skills developed through training in the arts and humanities. Education through the arts can play a crucial role in the emergence of what Marshall McLuhan called electronic man:

In terms of our education, the entire establishment has been built on the assumptions of the left hemisphere and of visual space. This establishment does little to help in the transition to the electronic phase of simultaneous or acoustic man. Our educational procedures are still oriented towards preparing people to cope with specific industrial products and distribution of same. Electronic man, on the other hand, is in need of training in ... empathy and intuition. Logic is replaced by analogy, and communications are being superseded by pattern recognition. (McLuhan, 1978)

There are three indicators of the changing and growing importance of education through the arts. First, over one fifth of all continuing education courses offered by American universities are in the fine arts, the largest set of courses available in American continuing education (The New York Times, August 30, 1981, p. 6). Data from the latest Canadian survey of continuing education in universities reveal that in 1986, registrations in fine, applied and performing arts noncredit courses (that is, not for credit towards a university degree) were higher than all other courses, representing about one sixth of all university continuing education registrations. In addition, registration in university, continuing education, fine and applied arts courses grew by 70.1% between 1976 and 1986 (McCaughey, 1988). Continuing education in the fine arts is creating a more sophisticated audience which demands rising artistic standards as well as better designed goods and services from manufacturing and other industries.

Second, university recruitment by major corporations is beginning to favor arts and humanities graduates in preference to MBA's. Recruiters are finding that arts and humanities graduates are more rounded in terms of social and communications skills and more flexible in terms of career development than business administration graduates.

Third, there is a negative side to the emerging narrowcast economy. The concept of a cultured person in the European tradition is one who is well rounded. The cultured European is one who is interested in, and knowledgeable about literature, painting, cuisine, dance, and theater, not just about work. The North America tradition, however, is characterized by specialization, particularly with respect to production skills. The result is the one-dimensional person who knows everything about his or her business, and little or nothing about life in general. Even when the North American decides to enhance his or her cultural appreciation it tends to be one dimensional. One tends to specialize in selected activities such as wine-tasting, or specific types of theater or painting. Rounding is not generally the objective. Increasingly, however, major corporations are becoming aware that a rounding of perspective is essential if executives are to become leaders, not just managers. Corporations are spending more and more on liberal arts programs to ensure that their executives can talk to both staff and customers about life, not just about business (Gutis, 1985, F17).

The ReDecade

Another change in consumption behavior has resulted from the introduction of new technologies in combination with demographic change. Through new recording technologies, especially video tape, consumers now have nearly universal visual access to the styles and tastes of all historic periods, at least as presented on television and in motion pictures.

Does one want to watch the gangster movies or musicals of 1930s? Or does one want to witness the French Revolution or Moses on the mountain? Does one want to replay it, time after time, or erase it to capture the images and sounds of another time and place?

This access to the fashions and styles of historic periods has produced what Thomas Shales has called the ReDecade, a decade without a distinctive style of its own, a decade characterized by the pervasive stylistic presence of all previous periods of history. The impact of this phenomenon on consumer behavior is, at least in the short term, confusion and disorientation. Time has now become a significant dimension of consumer behavior. As noted by Shales:

It does seem obvious that here in the ReDecade ... the possibilities for becoming disoriented in time are greater than they have ever been before. And there's another thing that's greater than it has ever been before: accessibility of our former selves, of moving pictures of us and the world as we and it were five, ten, fifteen years ago. No citizens of any other century have ever been provided so many views of themselves as individuals or as a society. (Shales, 1986: 72)

Interestingly, the art critic Robert Hughes (1981), in his book and television program entitled The Shock of the New, has pointed out that since the turn of the century modern abstract painting has been increasingly concerned with the fourth dimension, time, in contrast with the traditional dimension of space. Thus abstract painting can be viewed as a precursor of the increasing disorientation in time so characteristic of the ReDecade.

It is not yet clear what will be the long term impact of the ReDecade on consumer behavior. It is likely, however, that there will be a growing market for historic fashions, period piece furniture and reproductions as well as other consumer cultural durables.

CONCLUSIONS

We live in an age of paradox. On the one hand, science has become the hope and glory of our era. On the other, a significant part of the population, perhaps a majority, live in a world riddled by superstition, irrational beliefs, and ideological fanaticism. Similarly, the arts, generally thought to be intangible and a frill in a bottom-line economy, have become (due to a fundamental demographic revolution involving rising levels of education, the increasing participation of women and the aging of the population) a major force contributing to the competitiveness of national economies.

The evolution of art from a symbol to a source of national wealth parallels the evolution of our concept of national income. Through time, there has been a progressive expansion in the sources of national income. In this century, technological change has become recognized as the most important source of economic growth. However, our understanding of technological change has also evolved and changed. Today, there are three epistemological sources of what is popularly called technological change. Research in the physical sciences leads to improvements in physical technologies, the most obvious form of technological change. Research in the social sciences and the humanities leads to improvements in organizational technology, namely, the ways and means available to organize and motivate capital, labor and physical technology. Research in the arts leads to improvements in advertising, consumer research, marketing and product design. Physical and social science research is centered in the university. Research in the arts is focused in the nonprofit professional fine arts community.

Research, in dollar terms, represents a small amount of resources compared to existing capital stock and labor force. However, its role in economic growth is that of a catalyst stimulating changes and improvements in the quality and efficiency of capital and labor. Research results become embodied in abstract intellectual property rights including copyright, patents, registered industrial design, and trade marks. It is the buying, selling, and licensing of such rights that constitute the quaternary sector of the postmodern or information economy.
In this new economy, art education plays a more and more important role as arts-related skills increasingly pervade and permeate the entire economy. This fact is indicated by signposts such as the changing status of the artist; dramatic growth in arts-related employment; increasing reliance of advertising and consumer research on the arts, the role of the arts in the health care system and in fostering an inventive and innovative economic structure; and the emergence of the narrowcast marketplace in which style and taste are critical competitive factors and in which the arts are playing a basic role in developing the new production skills required in a postmodern economy.

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