{"id":2311,"date":"2018-03-11T09:29:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-11T16:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=2311"},"modified":"2018-03-12T07:16:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T14:16:59","slug":"decorative-but-not-useful-the-instrumental-benefits-of-the-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2018\/03\/decorative-but-not-useful-the-instrumental-benefits-of-the-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"Decorative but not useful: the instrumental benefits of the arts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"you'll<\/a>What good are the arts beyond the personal aesthetic pleasure we gain from them?<\/p>\n

There is quite a list out there, of these so-called instrumental benefits of the arts: they make us more empathetic people, or so a grant to the Minneapolis Institute of Art<\/a> hopes (in a recent review essay<\/a> I claim that we still don’t really know much as to whether this is true, or even whether it would be a good thing if it were<\/em> true)*, they help doctors<\/a> be better at their job, and suffer less burnout, and Americans for the Arts has a long list<\/a>, some of which might be true (the arts can improve health, and academic performance) and some of which is simply blether (all those percentage-of-GDP figures). Duncan Watt provides advice<\/a> on calculating the “return on investment” in arts spending.<\/p>\n

What’s all this information for<\/em>? Some of it is simply interesting for our understanding of how we are influenced by art – I don’t know whether exposure to the arts actually does increase our levels of empathy towards certain people, but it’s an interesting question to be sure. But you don’t have to work in the art world long to know that these instrumental benefits are not seen as a purely intellectual enquiry, but are a tool for advocacy – the Americans for the Arts list is explicit about this, it’s why they made the list!<\/p>\n

But what’s interesting about the “advocacy” case is the step not taken: does anybody in the arts world think that the National Endowment for the Arts, and state and local funding agencies, and foundations and personal philanthropy in the arts, ought to direct their funding of arts organizations, in an effective altruism<\/a> sort of way, towards those specific kinds of art presentation and audience where the instrumental benefits would be greatest? If “economic impact” is actually a thing (I’m saying this purely for the sake of argument, obviously), and it is found to have larger impact than other sorts of instrumental benefit, should funding be directed at those arts activities found to have the greatest economic impact? After all, that’s how we use return-on-investment estimates in other<\/em> sectors. If, per dollar of funding support, the wealth generated through increased tourism is greater than the wealth generated through community development, should arts spending target the former at the expense of the latter? Should peer review panels award museums and artists according to the estimated degree to which the competing proposals will increase empathy?<\/p>\n

I’m not sure anybody thinks we should take these steps, and neither do I. Instrumental benefits are used in advocacy – give more to “the arts”! – but we would be, rightly, very wary of actually using<\/em> the findings of instrumental benefits to shift funding allocations away from this<\/em> and towards that<\/em>, in accordance with the findings of research studies. Actual arts funding will always come back to the twin, generic goals of “excellence” and “access”, as it has been since arm’s length arts councils began. It’s vague, to be sure, and people will never fully agree at any one time on the best balance between the two. But it does come back to helping in the production of great art, with the chance for lots of people to experience it, for its own sake. Not such a bad system, if a bit “unscientific”.<\/p>\n

So all these instrumental benefits? The “arts advocacy” system, so far as I can understand it, wants us to take the results as a very good thing to be looked upon in wonder. But please don’t take them off the shelf and try to use them.<\/p>\n

* Shoot me an email if you are interested in my paper on empathy in the arts but don’t have library access…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What good are the arts beyond the personal aesthetic pleasure we gain from them? There is quite a list out there, of these so-called instrumental benefits of the arts: they make us more empathetic people, or so a grant to the Minneapolis Institute of Art hopes (in a recent review essay I claim that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/do-not-touch.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-Bh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2160,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/12\/what-do-we-actually-mean-by-intrinsic-benefits\/","url_meta":{"origin":2311,"position":0},"title":"What do we actually mean by intrinsic benefits?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"At Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ian David Moss has a thoughtful\u00a0blog post on whether there is coherence in the notion of separating intrinsic and instrumental benefits from the arts. He writes: One problem with the intrinsic vs. instrumental distinction is that it\u2019s something of a false dichotomy: Interrogate a dedicated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"No. 1 Durum","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/silos.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3005,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2024\/04\/why-public-funding-for-the-arts-a-personal-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":2311,"position":1},"title":"Why Public Funding for the Arts: A Personal View","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 18, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u00a0wrote a book\u00a0looking at how different ways of moral and political theorizing drew different conclusions regarding whether the state should, or should not, subsidize the arts. At the very end of the book I give something of a personal view. There is a review circulating that is terribly confused about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2208,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2017\/05\/can-we-should-we-brand-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":2311,"position":2},"title":"Can we, should we, brand “The Arts”?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"May 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Barry's Blog has thoughts on this. He points out, correctly I think, that while individual airline companies - Delta, Virgin, Qantas - try to create a brand image of their own, there is also in the public mind an idea of the airline sector as a whole. When one airline\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"branded","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/coke-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1032,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/02\/rich-man-poor-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":2311,"position":3},"title":"Rich man, poor man","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"My last post criticizing a recent study on the distribution of the benefits of NEA funding generated a lot of commentary. I thank everyone for contributing, and will try to respond to at least some of the points raised. First, I was not staking any claim on whether public funding\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"we get letters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/postbox.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/postbox.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/postbox.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/postbox.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/postbox.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/postbox.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2148,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/12\/childrens-books\/","url_meta":{"origin":2311,"position":4},"title":"Children’s books","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"It's an evergreen story: great books are removed from a school's library because a few parents have complained about their being unsuitable for children. Today it's two American classics: To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. From Reason: Marie Rothstein-Williams, a white parent of a biracial high\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"you know who else wanted to control what children read?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Plato-raphael.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Plato-raphael.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Plato-raphael.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3818,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2025\/07\/should-we-subsidize-arts-consumers-art-producers-or-neither\/","url_meta":{"origin":2311,"position":5},"title":"Should we subsidize arts consumers, art producers, or neither?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 2, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"My friends Joanna Woronkowicz and Doug Noonan have started a new venture, Arts Analytics, where they hope to bring more extensive, and shared, use of data into arts policy thinking, and also to spur discussion. A recent post of theirs asked what is actually an old question in the arts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2319,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions\/2319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}