Education and appreciation of the arts vital in today’s Internet society

Tweet

Column by Richard Becker

With all of the problems in the economy these days, perhaps it is out of place to discuss the future of the publishing industry, books and their creators and writers, but I would argue otherwise. During the last depression our country endured—and believe me, I neither hope nor think there is convincing evidence yet that this recession will turn into a full-on depression—President Roosevelt chose not only to spend massive amounts of federal funds on public works programs and investment in reinvigorating the private sector; he also spent a significant portion of money on cultivating the arts.

While some of his initiatives have been controversial (for instance, paying journalists to take photographs and write stories with public funds), they were, on the whole, worthwhile. The fruits of Roosevelt’s investments in the arts can still be seen today in subway stations, office buildings, on bridges, in hotels and on college campuses—including UK—all across America, in the panoramic paintings commissioned to celebrate the spirit of America.

Obviously, when money is tight and thousands of Americans are losing their jobs each month, the things most likely to be chopped from most family’s budgets are luxury items. Among these luxury items are such things as online subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, newsstand purchases of magazines and newspapers, and, unfortunately, books.

The arts are the spiritual and creative life force of our nation. Yet most of the exposure college students get to literature, arts, good music, film and theater comes in the form of required media in a class. This is unfortunate, for the future of the arts in America is inextricably linked to a taste for the arts among the palettes of our generation. But if current trends are any indication, things aren’t looking terribly good for the arts.

A few snippets of the present debate on the future of books and authorship should suffice to make the point that this situation is dire. On the online magazine “Slate” (“online magazine” itself, as a concept, is an embodiment of the market moving toward online media and away from older, dead-tree media), financial columnist Jill Priluck recently wrote with self-assured finality that “no one disputes that the long-suffering [publishing] industry is slogging through one of its worst periods ever,” and that booksellers are “teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.”

The late John Updike, in a 2006 New York Times column, wrote, “[i]n imagining a huge, virtually infinite wordstream accessed by search engines and populated by teeming, promiscuous word snippets stripped of credited authorship, are we not depriving the written word of its old-fashioned function of, through such inventions as the written alphabet and the printing press, communication from one person to another — of, in short, accountability and intimacy?”

Bloggers all over the Internet, including Atlantic Magazine writer Andrew Sullivan, confess to a handicapping of their ability to read long-form pieces, a result, they say, of the rise of the Internet. Our attention spans are decreasing even as our appetites for more television, more movies, and, if we are so inclined to the news, shorter snippets of news and thought, are skyrocketing in popularity.

There is no easy way to get beyond this crossroad, for it will require a reckoning in the hearts and minds of the American people, a consideration of whether the timeless power of narrative and words, drama and history, poetry and philosophy, biography and literature, newspapers and journals, are on an equal footing with the latest hot YouTube video or the newest episode of one’s favorite show. Only time will tell what choice we will make.

Richard Becker is a history senior. E-mail opinions@kykernel.com.