Culture of Decline [Editorial]

Is High Culture A Burden On The Economy?

The growing effects of the recession are being shared across the globe. Rising unemployment, the collapse of long standing institutions, poverty and hardship are widespread. Could there have been a single driving force behind these crises? Some blame under-regulated derivatives trading or the sub-prime lending spree, but perhaps the cracks run deeper in the crumbling foundations of this house of cards built on sand.

The symptoms of our crisis are felt throughout the world, but they are best illustrated in the land of their birth, the United States of America. Not only due to their heritage, but also because nowhere else is everything quite so well documented.

I stumbled across the image above while researching the effects of the economic crisis to be able to make an informed book recommendation to a friend. It is an illustration of unemployment trends after the the effects of the economic crisis were beginning to bite in the US. The first thing I noticed was that worst hit areas were those that are more known to be centres of culture generation, the east and west coasts. This made me wonder what role high culture plays in this observation. Could there be a correlation between high culture and economic decline?

First, to prove that, beyond the stereotype, the east and west coasts are genuinely cultural hubs. This image, mapping the sales of Classical music (red) against Country music (blue), isn't as detailed as the map of unemployment, but if you look at the red areas as those more likely to have higher unemployment, there are the beginnings of a correlation.

Record sales alone are no basis for condemning high culture. If that were so America would have followed George Orwell's advise and scrapped art and the dictionary after Mariah Carey sold her 200 millionth album. So I introduce the work of Peter J. Rentfrow, Samuel D. Gosling, and Jeff Potter looking at the geographical variation of personality traits.
This map charts the trait of 'Openness', which the researchers describe as reflecting "curiosity, intellect, and creativity at the individual level." They suggest that people demonstrating Openness would hold liberal values, and have an above average chance of being in the "artistic and investigative professions." It appears that when 'Openness' is paired with above average sales of classical music (red) or below average sales of country music (white) - sure signs of a propensity towards high culture - unemployment is sure to follow.

So, is culture a medium for spreading fear in a system tenuously built on faith? Is a cultured populous therefore more prone to fear of the future, leading cultured consumers to rein in spending and cultured business people to cut back on employment? Could there be a religious element to contribute to fear of the future? Is there more hope if the Good News tells of an eternity of happiness, while the News at Noon tells of unending suffering and woe?
When we add together the evidence so far, a compound of classical music, 'Openness' and a lack of religious adherence seems to be a deadly concoction to employability.

We are fed stories of innovation and creativity being the driving force behind economic recovery, but they seem to be the cause here, rather than the cure. In the past the only things to have pulled us out of crippling recessions has been good old fashioned ideologically charged politics and an energizing war to stimulate manufacture and bolster the military-industrial complex. Wait, that was before the recession...

On an individual level at least, it looks like the best way out of circling the economic drain is to abandon any hopes of a creative life, listen to country music and buy a bible.