AFTER an underwhelming and disorganised period with Oliver Dowden as our “secretary for culture and sport” we have awoken to a new day with ostrich anus-munching Nadine Dorries as our new MP responsible for the arts, sport and culture within Britain.

Beyond the numerous jokes about her opinions of gastronomy and avant-garde cuisine, the overall feeling about the appointment is a mixture of annoyance, exasperation at her tedium and bemoaning that Brexit Britain is collapsing.

Why can’t we be like the cultured folks in Germany and France, and not devolve further into a plebeian nation.

With the make-up of our democracy, we sadly have little to no say in who gets appointed as cabinet ministers, as it is ultimately left to the prime minister to just make the choices.

However, the question always arises why we don’t have ministers with at least an admiration of the arts. This is often in turn accompanied with idealistic dreams of “if only we had an arts scholar as our minister, we wouldn’t be such a plebeian society.”

Admittedly, competency does not come naturally to Johnson and his stooges, however the “competent” Tory ministers we have had in the past were not much of a tonic to cure what ails us. It is also worth highlighting, much like the rest of Johnson’s Brexit “plan,” addressing issues at home is not a priority for him, so it is no surprise we are still stuck with chronic problems for the arts.

So, what is the solution?

Alan Bush in 1936 highlighted that music is not useful to capitalism – ultimately concluding that the capitalist class will do everything it can to avoid investing in the arts, letting it drift further and further into obscurity and becoming a hobby for a select few keen wealthy hobbyists who need something to ameliorate the boredom they face as they are not out earning a living daily like the rest of us.

This insight, though nearly a century old, is particularly important, as it demonstrates a lot of the way the battles in the arts have been fought – cuts to education in secondary school and universities, while fighting viciously as soon as someone dares tweak such a massive spectacle like the Last Night of the Proms.

The arts as a whole, as I have mentioned numerous times in my other articles for the Star, are eager to be more egalitarian, but they have restricted themselves most notably through “charitable status” or “art for art’s sake.”

Now, I do not bemoan the arts for relying on charitable status: so much funding and stability comes from the funding which is siphoned solely for charitable organisations. However, the nature of charitable organisations forces them to be politically neutral – meaning the only time they can really kick up a stink is when something directly affects their field.

Second, when I critique “art for art’s sake” this is not to say “all art is political and must serve a political purpose.” This is naive and idealistic, where is the politics in a twee tune?

However, the criticism is pointed directly at the assertion “good art will make it to the top of the pile.” This is idealistic fallacy, simply because if you do not have the support around you to make your art, to promote your art, to value your art – who will actually get to appreciate it?

History is full of individuals who were not appreciated in their time or died in poverty. This ties deeply with my concerns about artists bemoaning Brexit – if we were still in the EU the problems the arts face would not disappear. As a simple example – has a composer from Wrexham, Coatbridge, or Blythe ever been heard at the Proms?
 
Alongside this, despite what we in the Morning Star think of the right wing, one thing we should be impressed by is their shaping of the current culture war. We on the left are spending too much time complaining about “problematic” things in the arts. This is not to say we should just ignore these problems, but as Zizek has highlighted quite clearly – too much of the left is complaint while the right is heroic.

What we on the left, and the arts need, is a vision of a clear egalitarian society which has a clear role for culture and its history and legacy.

Currently, visions of egalitarian art are surmised thusly: “If the arts were better in this country, we’d appreciate Nicki Minaj less and Beethoven more,” or  “If the arts were better in this country, we’d appreciate dead cishet men less and appreciate the art of oppressed communities more.”

Both of these visions are ultimately doomed, as the former assumes we’ll never reach a pinnacle achieved during the years of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, and the latter ultimately assumes we cannot learn anything from our past.

They also make the distinct failure that a culturally thriving nation solely means important figures are appreciated more, and not that we would be in a position to create art and culture which not only builds on the past but also manages to advance humanity along.

The arts are such an important humanistic achievement. Only global heat death could in theory stop the arts from being produced. While humanity lives, art will live with us. The problem is we are insular and forget to think simply we need our neighbours, the workers in the NHS, the Gammons down the Wetherspoons, the trade unionists, the refugees and every form of human in between.

As the Front Populaire which ruled France from 1936-38 was able to demonstrate, arts that are fighting with humanity, and for the broadest amount of humanity, are able to not only gain recognition and appreciation from a wide selection of humanity, but they are also able to demonstrate we as humans have more in common with each other.

That is the great humanism of art. We don’t need smug economic arguments about how every £1 invested in the arts produces £8, or the equally smug discussions of how children who learn a musical instrument are just so much better at school.

Though these facts are true, what we need to be fighting for is an understanding that art is for all and comes from all. If we instead opt to fight for our little corner and complain why our little corner is not the most appreciated art form, we’ll keep seeing art just drift away, and with a culture secretary like ours, this process will only continue to deepen.