I enjoy the arts as much as anyone else, but the narrative that art by default is a transformative force for social good is just that, a nice marketing sleight of hands. Most art is entertainment, with a rather minuscule slice having something interesting to say. Not to say that entertainment isn't valuable and pleasurable, but there's a big gap between that and it advancing humanity.
And we're talking all realms of unrestrained creative effort here. Science, technology and stories about dragons. Opensource software as well as basement watercolorists. This is where the shiny new legos of our society come from.
This seems a little motte-and-baileyish. You start with "arts make the world a better place" and when presented with a critique you retreat towards "arts are the same as technology and science, let's treat them as one single group", which I don't buy.
It arises from the same free unpressured space in your life. It's the same step up to creation and experimentation and play. Just different mediums. Watercolor, thought, machinery... So let's not draw any unnecessary differentiations.
> Because investment in the arts (I mean serious investment. Not like USA) has worked pretty well for some countries.
I think that's just misunderstanding cause and effect. It's more that nations "invest" more in art as they get wealthier. It's not that they pay a bunch of people to do whatever they want and tada, the country becomes industrialized.
> Because investment in the arts (I mean serious investment. Not like USA) has worked pretty well for some countries.
Perhaps we should invest infrastructure, systems and institutions that give people more free time, flexibility, freedom, and inspiration so they can create good art rather than "investing in the arts"--whatever that means
Not starving or dying from dysentery or hypothermia is infinitely more important and valuable than any art will ever be. Art has zero value for survival, and in some sense even huge negative value possibly.
Because it's an excellent investment, socially speaking.
Because investment in the arts (I mean serious investment. Not like USA) has worked pretty well for some countries.