Aren’t you being a bit Golden Ageist here? There are many ways of judging culture appreciation in a society and I think that by making the overall appreciation part of a continuum with formal education and government support you’re not really looking forward (that’s the ‘who needs the NEA when you’ve got dA’ argument).

I was arguing against music/movie piracy in a group of people once, when someone told me quite simply that history will look back on the 20th century as a dark time for art.

This person meant it more in the way that the stranglehold by large companies over artists was not beneficial. And while I do not agree with that particular argument, I was floored by the comment, if for no other reason than it’s a concept so profound, yet something most of us don’t think about on a daily basis. How will our time be viewed upon for the arts?

I think we’re bypassed the time where our public education provides the basis for our life experience. Public school teaches us math, science, english; the academic stuff, but no longer the “life experience” stuff. Art isn’t the only thing missing — schools no longer teach you about balancing your finances, about building social skills or relationships, certainly not about technology.

I believe art clearly falls into this category. The category of things deeply important in living life as a human being, but are not logical or objective enough to teach in a public classroom.

And honestly, I think technology is the cure.

There are many doctors who think (and I agree with this) that kids are being diagnosed with ADD and ADHD like crazy not because they actually have trouble paying attention, but they’re just too far ahead of the public school system and are bored. They’re learning tons about art using their iPods, MySpace, Facebook, Pandora, YouTube, Netflix, whatever… and our public school system is banning those devices and blocking those websites.

Also, I’d like to point out that when I was a senior in high school, I created our school’s filmmaking program, and it later went on to be the #1 filmmaking class in the nation as rated by the NEA. ( http://svhsvp.org/about ) I would also like to point out that my high school was in a conservative part of the Silicon Valley, and was almost totally devoid of art until this time. This class changed the whole landscape of our school, and many of the kids went into the industry — certainly a first for our little 800 student school.

But similarly, they put in a FIlm Studies course at the school — somewhat of an art appreciation course — and it failed miserably.

The point I’m trying to make with that story is that art in schools these days is tricky. I think in the age of technology, you can’t just throw down some textbooks and show some movies and expect kids to learn art. You need to do something revolutionary, truly think outside the box (something almost shunned upon my most schools these days) and teach in a whole different way. Because trying to teach an art the same way you teach the English or science classes just won’t work.

If schools can’t pull it off, the private sector will. They’ve already been doing that for some time.

Haha, I did not realize the length of that last comment… my apologies in advance.

Well I agree with you on the education system. My daughter goes to a private coop that emphasizes art. She is continually bringing that creativity and mindset back to the house, even inspiring me.

But while the education system is in serious trouble, I look around and see a world exploding with creativity in visual and written media. Cheap digital cameras and sites like YouTube and Flickr are full of creativity. We all know people who have blogs and are writing more often and more creatively than they were before Wordpress and Blogger.

Hardly any of these people are making a living from it, but they have audiences, are influencing/inspiring people and evolving their creativity.

So I see lot’s of value there.

You seem to begging the question here: “How do we value cultural artifacts when there is little to no value of culture itself in the educational systems, public sector and society at large?”

My personal sense is that the public school system would do better to act as a first-pass filter for separating ‘consumers’ vs. ‘producers’ of art. Those who have a talent and/or aptitude for a particular art-form can then be offered specialized programs to help make them happy, active creators.

Part of that education should be to learn how best to reach potential ‘consumers’ of that art (and I’m not talking about ‘commercial’ consumers).

Those others who don’t have any interest in producing could be separated into pure consumers or ‘re-amplifiers’ — i.e. those who seek out and discover new works and tell others about what they’ve found. Each of these groups can then be taught separately — one could go on to become ’super-fans’ and the others can casually enjoy the works of others (or not).

No need to force everyone into a single role. Yes, it’s simplistic, but it helps keep incoming vs. outgoing lanes open and focus scarce resources on where it’ll do the most good.

I’m not sure how this is going to play out. Like one of the other commenters suggested, we have seen an unbeleivable explosion in the quanity of expression since broadband Internet became widespread. iMovie, GarageBand, digital cameras, etc.

Clearly, as the barriers to communication get lower, there will be a premium will be on talent. Like Fred Wilson said in a post recently about entrepreneurs, certain kinds of people posses that unique mix of irrationality, perceptivity, introspection, extroversion, analytical skill, and taste to create truly meangingful art.

(and of course serendipity plays a hugely increasing role here as more random people make singular, amazing art through circumstance and technological availability)

I think that there is a strong need for some new form of art criticism to come to the fore that is extremely accepting but also strives for objectivity.

Check out Paul Graham’s essay “How Art Can Be Good” for some more on that. REALLY good.

As far as education, I think we’ve absolutely hit the nadir as far as societal/educational focus on art. I think it will reemerge under some “media/technology/communication” umbrella very powerfully.

And I think that the enormous amount of creativity required by the tech/global economy will force many for-profit enterprises to look deeper into the lessons taught by people like your wife and boundary-pushing artists like Duchamp, Picasso, John Zorn, etc.

fwiw