Canadian Argument for Public Funding of the Arts

Following the news that the Canadian government is going to cut funding to five arts and culture programs (up to $20 million in funding), there’s an interesting piece in CBC News listing some of the arguments for why arts deserve public funding:

It used to be, in the 1960s and ’70s, that the arts were considered good for national unity, for our sense of collective purpose and identity. We were seen then as a youngish, emerging country with an identity that needed forging.

Then, in the 1980s and ’90s, the message changed. We began hearing that the creative arts were good for the economy. [. . .]

That argument continues today but with a bit of a twist: On the Globe’s op-ed page, we read: “Want a culture of innovation? Fund our artists.”

Innovation is the new buzzword for the so-called value-added economy: Wealth is now created primarily through intellectual capital, not natural resources. Japan and Microsoft taught us that we don’t need coal and wood and mounds of potash: We need smarts.

What might be even more interesting than this slight shift from economics to innovation (leading back to economics, of course) is the new “arts are good for you” push:

I quote from the Toronto Star, Aug 10: “Read Novels, be Smarter:”

“For the first time in history there is now scientific evidence that reading fiction has psychological benefits” says Keith Oatley, University of Toronto psychologist and an award winning novelist (The Case of Emily V.)

In a series of experiments using people who liked and disliked fiction, professor Oatley apparently discovered that fiction readers demonstrated “substantially greater empathy” than their counterparts.