Investigating How a Cultural Policy Document Makes Statements about the Value of the Arts - Assignment Example

 Report Investigating How a Cultural Policy Document Makes Statements About the Value of the Arts Purpose Arts have already ceased to be a purely instrument of self-expression; rather, they represent a whole range of instrumental values and serve a successful tool of achieving various societal goals. The purpose of this assignment is to explore the issue of arts values in detail. Not only is it important to look into what values arts usually carry and offer to the society but, more importantly, how these values are cultivated and represented by the most important cultural policy documents, which can be regarded as the sources of the basic cultural knowledge today. Because policy documents have far-reaching implications for the state of arts in society, the ways in which these documents perceive and represent art values are increasingly important. That is why the results of these research will provide recommendations for the policymakers to follow, to make sure that arts meet their goals and objectives and does not contradict the goals which society seeks to achieve through arts. Executive summary The current arguments in favor of supporting arts through public policies and initiatives emphasize the role, which arts play and can potentially play in promoting a broad set of societal values. Arts have already ceased to be a mere tool of individual or collective self-expression and exemplify a tool which society extensively uses to pursue its economic, political, social, and cultural goals. It would be fair to say that postmodern art is a unique combination of intrinsic and extrinsic values, and for any cultural policy document to be successful and effective, it should recognize and support this dualism of values in arts. Creative Nation: Commonwealth Cultural Policy is one of the few documents that succeeded in balancing the two different value sides of one cultural and arts representation, although one step ahead should be made to have a clearer understanding of what intrinsic values are and in what ways policymakers in culture can promote the role of individual self-expression for its own sake. Method This paper analyzes the four different documents, of which Creative Nation: Commonwealth Cultural Policy and the RAND’s report Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate serve the basis for the analysis of values in ways they are presented in cultural policies. Atlas’s ‘Cultural Policy, What Is It, Who Makes It, Why Does It Matter?” and ‘More than bums on seats’ report by Australian government will add to the understanding of arts values and their place in cultural policies and create a complete picture of what policymakers should do to preserve and maintain the balance of intrinsic and extrinsic values in arts. What Gifts of the Muse says about cultural values That arts are no longer a tool of self-expression is not a secret; rather, arts have come to signify the major shift in societal consciousness which successfully uses arts to achieve its purposes and to meet its goals. Extrinsic values, according to McCarthy et al (2004), are actually instrumental benefits, defined so to emphasize that society uses arts as the instrument in achieving its goals. In their turn, intrinsic benefits are those which take place in the personal artistic discourse and position art as a personal communicated experience or a subjective response to objective realities which does not pursue any goals other than self-expression. The report refers to a whole set of instrumental benefits which arts can offer to its consumers (we intentionally use the word ‘consumers’ here to once again emphasize the instrumental meaning of these values in cultural policies). Instrumental benefits include cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral, health, social, and economic benefits (McCarthy et al 2004). Cognitive benefits focus on the development of skills and knowledge and on the promotion of better academic performance, while attitudinal and behavioral benefits result of better attitudes, behaviors, prosocial visions, and better self-image among youth (McCarthy et al 2004). Health benefits reflect through the therapeutic which arts produce on society, including improved mental and physical health and improved health in population groups with specific problems (McCarthy et al 2004). Social benefits imply improved social interactions among community members, and arts, as discussed by McCarthy et al (2004), can also serve a reliable source of direct, indirect, and public good economic benefits in society. It should be noted that as postmodern society emphasizes the instrumental value of arts, intrinsic values are either missed or do not receive much attention. However, arts, as always, remain an effective source of intrinsic values. For the most part, not instrumental but intrinsic values drive people to artistic pleasures. Intrinsic values which arts promote include captivation and pleasure, “capacity for empathy and cognitive growth, creation of social bonds and expression of communal meanings” (McCarthy et al 2004). Yet, only through sustained involvement can individuals gain access to and successfully utilize the benefits of arts to achieve their goals and to drive their intrinsic motivations. Creative Nation: Commonwealth Cultural Policy, October 1994 Obviously, the goal of every cultural policy is to successfully balance intrinsic and extrinsic art values, however not every policy document is eager to recognize the importance and significance of both types of artistic benefits. Creative Nation is one of the central cultural policy documents ever adopted in Australia and one of the few that initially recognize the existence and relevance of both intrinsic and extrinsic values in arts: “Because culture reflects and serves both the collective and the individual need, because it at once assures us of who we are and inspires us with intimations of the heights we might reach, this cultural policy pursues the twin goals of democracy and excellence. It will make the arts and our intellectual and cultural life and heritage more accessible to all. And it will help to create the conditions under which the finest expressions of our creativity can be reached and enjoyed” (NLA 2004). It should be noted, that the document, in distinction from McCarthy et al (2004) does not directly list the intrinsic and extrinsic values which its policy seeks to promote, but every element of its policy implies the need to promote, pursue, and preserve both types of values. For example, where film television and radio are positioned as the sources of effective artistic knowledge for children, the policy implies that the development of child television and drama will result in better mental and emotional well-being of children; simultaneously, that the policy promotes the value of its cultural heritage and aboriginal arts once more underlines the value of art for the sake of art itself. Commonalities and differences That both the report and the policy refer to both types of values in arts can be fairly regarded as their major commonality. However, where McCarthy (2004) list several different values, Creative Nation implies that its readers already have the basic knowledge of arts and art values. It would be fair to assume that understanding the cultural policy is impossible without familiarizing oneself with the report. More importantly, the cultural policy document seems to make the mistake which the authors of the RAND’s report try to address: despite the fact that the document does recognize the value of intrinsic benefits in arts it nevertheless emphasizes that arts are primarily used to pursue some societal and policy goals. These attitudes toward art are further supported by Australia Council Report Bums on Seats, according to which, most Australians believe that arts are needed to make their lives richer and more meaningful and that is should serve an effective instrument of education (Australian Government 2010). Significance and relevance The Bums on Seats report is relevant in the sense that it, on the one hand, reflects the controversies in the current understanding of arts and its values and, on the other hands, signifies the need to act and to improve the state of cultural understanding in society. Because “cultural policy is both a product and process, a framework for making rules and decisions that is informed by social relationships and values” (Atlas 2005), it is important that policies are designed around both intrinsic and extrinsic values. Obviously, policies reflect the meaning of various social shifts, and as more and more population groups come to see arts as instruments, so do cultural policies. Yet, not all social shifts are positive in themselves and thus it is a task of any cultural policy to promote positive changes in public attitudes toward arts, which will help them use art as the instruments in achieving their goals and will, simultaneously, preserve the value of art for the sake of art. In this context, policymakers need better understanding of what intrinsic values are and in what ways they can be successfully promoted. Conclusion Arts are the source of a whole range of intrinsic and extrinsic values; unfortunately, cultural policies rarely or never at all emphasize the relevance of intrinsic motivations in art. On the one hand, such instrumental attitudes toward art reflect the instrumental belief of society. On the other hand, cultural policies make a serious mistake when they neglect the significance of intrinsic benefits in arts. Policymakers need better understanding of what intrinsic values are and how these can be expressed, practiced, and promoted by means of cultural policies. References Atlas, C 2005, ‘Cultural policy: What is it, who makes I, why does it matter?’, accessed online, http://www.nyfa.org/files_uploaded/Pages_65-68.pdf Australian government 2010, ‘More than bums on seats: Australian participation in the arts’, accessed online, http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/71257/Full_report_More_than_bums_on_seats_Australian_participation_in_the_arts.pdf McCarthy, KF, Ondaatje, EH, Zakaras, L & Brooks, A 2004, Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the debate about the benefits of the arts, The RAND Corporation. NLA 2004, ‘Creative nation: Commonwealth cultural policy, October 1994’, National Library of Australia, accessed online http://www.nla.gov.au/creative.nation/creative.html Read More