The arts as an instrument? Notes on the controversy surrounding the value of art

Abstract

In the last decade of the twentieth century a shift occurred in the way western governments defended their cultural policies. New, instrumental arguments were put forward. This collided with the way the arts had learned to see themselves in the twentieth century: autonomous, with a value of their own. This article elaborates this confrontation of the arts and policy in two ways. First, it is shown that the distinction between an instrumental and an intrinsic value of the arts originates in a misperception of recent history. It was the political constellation of the Cold War that made governments in the second half of the twentieth century support the arts to be free and independent. Next, an attempt is made to anchor the value of art in a unique kind of instrumentality. With the help of philosophers and historians of culture, it is argued that the arts should be considered instruments of experience.

Keywords:

• cultural policy
• instrumental value
• intrinsic value

Notes

1. The same happened in Eastern Europe, and mainly for the same reasons. However, I will not go into that here (see, e.g., Ratiu 2008).

2. A good insight into this controversy is a review that has been carried out by the American Rand Corporation (www.rand.org): McCarthy et al. (2002).

3. Quoted in Guibault (1983). Guibault indicated very early the connection between the rise of the American avant‐garde and the politics of the Cold War.

4. In the Netherlands, for example, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and the Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP) survey the arts public on a regular basis.

5. This is the main theme of the work of Boris Groys, an excellent observer of the contemporary arts scene (see, e.g., Groys 1999).