Public Health and the Arts
My planned and partially executed foray into the heart of Kansas to visit small towns has been put on hold by the returning surge of Covid cases. I’ve been hoping to go out the past couple of weeks to make pictures, but many of my fellow citizens didn’t get their shots when they had the opportunity, and, well, here we are. The pandemic has been especially cruel to small towns, where many believe they’re safe, the public health resources are limited or nonexistent, and, let’s face it, they’re more vulnerable to the rapid spread of disinformation.
I’m fortunate to have had a physician for a mom, whose influence included a healthy respect for evidence-based medicine and a no-nonsense attitude about getting treatment when needed. There’s a lot we don’t know about the human body, but we’re learning more all the time. Fifty years ago, it was unclear what RNA did in the cells, but now we know that DNA is a storehouse that RNA uses to perform tasks for growth and maintenance. The new vaccines, many of them, make revolutionary use of this information.
Another thing my parents did was to expose us to the arts. We regularly attended plays, orchestras, and dance performances. We visited museums and art galleries. I’m grateful that they nurtured my interest in these things as well as sports and science and commerce. Being conversant with the arts has made me a better citizen, husband, father and friend. It didn’t just ‘broaden’ my thinking — it sharpened it. I was taught to think critically and to articulate my opinions with civility. It made me unafraid of new ideas. It helped me reject prejudice and bigotry. It nurtured humility and compassion.
I feel terrible for the tens of thousands of performing artists who remain unable to work regularly, and the gallery owners whose businesses have suffered immensely. One of the great casualties of this pandemic has been the arts, which help us understand our culture and our lives. The economy of the arts has been misunderstood for quite a while. There’s a pervasive ignorance in the past few decades about why and how artistic expression works with commerce to make the world more livable. Many Americans seem to think that Netflix is a complete artistic diet with all the necessary nutrients for your mind and soul, but at best, it’s a snack. I firmly believe that people with little interest in the arts have merely been underexposed to them. Ballet, for example, draws upon athletic ability that rivals that of Olympic athletes, and combines it with a delicacy and precision that surgeons strive to achieve. We tend to think of it as precious and sissified, but it can be heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Americans, by and large, have slowly been starved of the fruits of their own culture by cutbacks in state and federal budgets. I want to make it clear that the money’s still there, but it’s not circulating properly due to inequitable tax laws and enforcement failures that benefit the very wealthy. Our inability to collect taxes from billionaires and big corporations means that we’re subsidizing them, and sacrificing public education that would include greater exposure to the arts, libraries, etc. It would also bring medical clinics and personnel.
Americans have also been lied to about the arts in general, taught that they’re unimportant, that they’re a gateway to political liberalism, that they’re for elitists. None of this is true. Arts are an expression of public awareness as well as personal expression. But they require thought and interpretation as well as presence. There are forces out there that don’t like competition for our attention and that’s who spreads ideas about the arts and about public health that are…unhealthy.
Ecstatic Disintegration