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Abstract
State subsidy for the arts in Britain has been determined by a variety of political and social factors over the last two hundred years. This article examines the recent emergence of a therapeutic ethos that has come to shape arts policy in the United Kingdom. It begins with a survey of existing literature describing a shift in Britain’s arts policy since the 1970s. It examines the limitations of existing explanations and suggests another explanatory factor – the growing valorisation of the arts as a therapeutic tool to address social problems. This can be seen in two historically convergent trends: the challenge to cultural authority through the emergence of a therapeutic understanding of creativity, and the reorientation of political activism around issues of culture and wellbeing. Finally, the article considers how and why these ideas became institutionalised in Britain’s main arts policy body – the Arts Council.
Notes
1. For arguments challenging the national economic value of the arts, see Heartfield (Citation2000) and Pick (Citation2002). Kawashima (Citation1997) and Bianchini and Parkinson (Citation1993, p. 2) admit the arts have not been proven to contribute significantly to tangible measurements of employment or wealth creation at the municipal level.
2. A number of theorists close to New Labour have asserted the centrality of this thinking within New Labour’s “Third Way” programme of policies (see Giddens, Citation1994; Mulgan Citation1994) Also see Fairclough (Citation2000), for an analysis of psychological discourse in New Labour language.
3. Roy Shaw, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, cited Braden’s report unfavourably in his foreword to the Arts Council annual report in 1978, reflecting the importance of the book in opening the debate within institutional and policy spheres. Shaw later referred to Braden in The Arts and the People as part of a wider climate of agitation from community arts to receive more recognition from the authorities: “Attitudes such as those I have discussed are prevalent not only in society at large, but among some egalitarian artists and arts organisations, and even among some members of the Arts Council and its staff” (Shaw Citation1987, p. 88).
4. “The Arts Council” in this article refers to the Arts Council of Great Britain as it existed until 1994 and then to Arts Council England