The cultural industry is on life support. Without money from Big Business, journalism, the arts, and academia are not sustainable. We are witnessing the triumph of economic logic over the world of insight and contemplation.
We're great. No, we're fantastic! Journalism has an important social and political purpose, our magazines and newspapers are necessary household accessories. Yes, we are truly great.
We are smart, too. Our universities are among the world's best. For centuries, German was a prerequisite for scholarly inquiry. One had to speak the language to be able to penetrate the depths of philosophy, theology, or literature. Yes, we are truly smart.
Wrong! We used to be great, maybe. But any private or public body that is connected to the humanities now finds itself on the brink of collapse. Newspapers, magazines, universities, theaters, and even cities and communities require big corporate money to evade bankruptcy: Ad money, sponsorship deals, partnerships with global enterprises. That's not intrinsically bad, but the (fortunate) fact that we can still finance the fruits of our labor through ad sales must not blind us to dire future prospects: We are not able to raise enough money from readers (or theater patrons) to satisfy one of the fundamental rules of sustainable business models: The ability to grow from within. Journalists or artists or scientists rarely generate enough revenue from the sale of their products to finance the growth of their operations. We lack a proper foundation for our business model.
You might respond that culture has always been dependent on subsidies and charitable inclinations. Universities are public bodies because education is considered a societal good and the responsibility of the state. By contrast, newspapers and magazines are private enterprises, and you might say that it is their private nature that somehow sets them apart. But universities, theaters and publishing houses are linked together as one oikos, one habitat. The ideas of the humanities have brought it into existence while media, culture, and science are the vehicles through which we search for answers, provide analyses, offer interpretational models and yield concrete applications for politics or in the economy. The different cogs of the cultural eco-system are inextricably linked, and all of them face the problem of insufficient financial resources.
So let's talk a bit about outside funding
This is not only the case for media companies like "The European" or big newspapers, but also for global brands and cultural institutions. In Berlin, the lack of financial sustainability of the cultural industry has now led to the "BMW Guggenheim Lab": a partnership between a car manufacturer and a cultural think-tank. At a university, such external funding is highly sought after, and professors regularly whisper about those colleagues who are able to attract outside money for their departments.
So let's talk a bit about outside funding. The money comes from a different habitat that is populated by large industrial companies. Our cultural industry would become unsustainable without their sponsorship money -- money that might come from a car manufacturer, or from a big technology company. All the talk about a "service economy" ignores the fact that our economy continues to be driven by those who build cars or washing machines. In contrast to us, they have succeeded in conveying to their customers why their products matter, and why they should pay for them. They are able to generate money from within their own product portfolio and they don't rely on outside funding to prosper and grow. They, in other words, have a real business model.
It's relatively easy to say how much work went into producing a hair dryer. It's much harder to say what it takes to write a good article. How do we measure the costs and value of thirteen years of school, a university degree, study abroad programs, or even a PhD? The difference in measurement parameters is one of the reasons why the typical CV of an engineer looks different from the CV of a journalist.
If you study economics and choose to accept a job offer from a consulting firm upon graduation, you might make 60k or 80k at age 25. Take a job in journalism, and you'll have to settle for 35k -- at most. As a consultant, you can expect regular pay raises as well. In journalism, things look different: You start with moderate pay, but at least your boss tells you that it's possible to freelance on the side, or maybe you can make a bit of money off a speaking engagement. She might even refer you to someone. Talk to them, and you will probably hear that speaking fees have been canceled, but at least a public lecture will look good on your resumé. After a number of lectures and panel discussions (all dutifully entered into the CV), a university might offer a position as a guest lecturer. The dean will tell you: Budgets have been cut, but the institution's name will look good on your resumé, especially if you plan to give public lectures or write books. Yes, a book! That might solve the financial dilemma. You imagine heaps of money -- until the publishing house calls to say that the book proposal sounds terrific, but fees are way down. Fortunately, they say, a book credit helps with the resumé and should eventually lead to a position as a guest lecturer.
What stupidity!
See, it's all connected: Public bodies like universities cannot be fully separated from private companies like publishing houses. Both are linked through the nexus and the logic of the cultural industry. A newly graduated economics student can expect a 100k salary while the humanities major will take home less than half as much.
As a result, we are witnessing a large-scale exodus from one oikos into the other. We are living in a time when the proverbial best and brightest no longer opt to pursue careers in journalism or academia or politics. And we can already foresee a future when the exodus into economics will cease simply because the sphere of culture will have been reduced to insignificance. Apocalyptic rhetoric is fitting here: A cosmic battle is raging between the world of letters and the world of numbers.
In modern Western societies, we have long observed a tendency away from the pursuit of wisdom and contemplation towards those forms of knowledge that can be tackled by natural science. The fight against religious dogma has paradoxically led to the belief that those things that can be described in numerical terms are somehow closer to the ultimate truth than words.
What stupidity! Of course, words can express truth. Those who argue that only the universalistic appeal of numbers can convey truths fail to see that it has been precisely the cultural context and uniqueness of words -- their embeddedness in the history and fabric of a particular civilization -- which has enabled us to seek answers and raise issues that demand to be named and discussed through speech. As it says in the bible, "in the beginning there was the word." Speech is closer to our humanness than mathematics.
But during the heyday of modernity, atheism and rationality entered into an unfortunate alliance -- hence the complete absence of any idea of "atheist spiritualism." To modern science, a whole range of aspects of human existence, from man's inclination towards spiritual beliefs to his temporary indulgence in irrational behavior, appeared as marginal and unimportant. St. Thomas Aquinas still devoted himself to the study of man and metaethics. Today, our existence is forced through the grid of Excel spreadsheets and expressed as a series of numbers, cleansed of all individuality. I am not surprised that ethical questions usually elicit tired shrugs from computer programmers or consultants or even doctors: Many of us have lost the ability to put our thoughts into words and have responded with apathy.
Above the central entrance to Berlin's Humboldt University, we can find a Latin motto: Nutrimentum Spiritus, "nourishment for the mind." A few kilometers away, the newspaper "Der Tagesspiegel" has given itself the credo Rerum Cognoscere Causas, "to know the causes of things." And when the last humanities scholar has died, only then will we realize that you cannot eat spreadsheets.
I'm REALLY sick of "artists" who are privileged by their connections to money, who either know or should know that those with more talent are being screwed because of *crimninal* conduct (piracy), just pretend that the world is a fairytale, because THEIR wold happens to be one...for now.
I have chosen to put my audience first at all costs, even if it means having to endure millions of copies of my work being pirated. I'm hoping that someday the public wises up and allows laws to pass that would reward work like mine, but I'm not holding my breath, either.
Modern Culture seems to ignore Knowledge and History now.
Business Values are subordinate to Socialism and Monetary Expansion only.
Result is Poverty and Monetary Collapse upon us. Future is lost for a decade or more.
However, there are two points I would like to make. The first one would be what the academia has done to isolate itself from the world, unable to justify or even to articulate why its presence is needed. Because as the world grew and changed, the humanities retreated into an ivory tower, in which academic arrogance and, sadly, academic inanity are far more prevalent than we would like to admit. This has literally sucked the life out of those academic subjects. And I should know, I studied at a German university.
The second point: Science is based on wonder, on awe in front of the immense mechanisms of our world and of the universe. For me science is equally spiritual. And it should work together with the humanities, they are not separate, they are parts of the whole, their natural state is to work together (one has only to think about eg Aristotle, equally active in philosophy as wel as in science), the one inspiring and also regulating each other. Which brings me to the deepest issue, the complete lack of balance in our culture. This is the fundamental problem. And the retreat of academia into an ivory tower has contributed to that.
Do you remember when the scientist's cliche was a small person having very strange interests ?
Those were the days when people studied science/art/religion in order to UNDERSTAND.
Later, when people found out that science can make you lots of MONEY, the students population changed drastically; Today, most science/engineering students look like models: tall, rich and with very main-stream interests. I don't resent that but we need to understand that everything comes at the expense of other things (until we develope a philosophy of life not based on zero checksum).
The WORLD needs bright persons who are prepare to give their service to us in exchange of our gratitude (not money or priviledges). The problem is we are not even prepare to give them some kind of aknowledgement.
The second group is more numerous than the first. And policy makers and politicians are much less likely to be members of the first, rational actors. We see the impact of these limitations in the politics and economics of both the US and Europe.
When I was younger I had more hope for the social improving powers of education. So as an older person, I now have an improved understanding of why people keep making such bad decisions (and why education doesn't help as much as I expected) - and this insight is coming out of experimental psychology, anthropology, and sociology.
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
Kipling
.......some of them are bad.......
Some decisions are based on previous, feedbacked, cases (=experience)
.......sometimes experience is irrelevant.......
Sometimes decisions are made emotionally
.......in some cases it is the right approach....
Was Kipling an alien ?
I agree that we see, with capitalism such a strong motivation in the U.S, especially with a weak economy, far more motivation to get rich than to get smarter these days. This is not a good thing. The changes in media delivery have shortened all our attention spans. We're reading fewer books, I suspect. The blog/Twitter/Facebook/e-sphere encourages an immediate emotional response rather than a reasoned intellectual one. There's less civility and tolerance for differing opinions, too. All this worries me tremendously because it has the same implications for divisiveness that are feeding the chasm between the 1% and the 99%ers. I worry that in another decade or two, true higher learning will belong only to the children of privilege, while other bright children--the very children who could most benefit from advanced education--languish in menial jobs and mediocre community colleges. This ought to concern us all, but it naturally only seems to concern progressives right now (and not enough of us).
The reward for genius ought to be the exercise of it. These days the reward is the same as for anything else -- money. You're either rich or dead in this world. What happened to good work being enough?
As the proud parent of a daughter who graduated Phi Beta Kappa/Suma Cum Laude from one of the nation's top universities (while being principle flute for their orchestra) and who is now months away from her PhD in Classics...I can say with some authority...for those who judge life soley by the total column of an Excel spreadsheet, you have missed the meaning of your time on earth.
The soul of who we are as humans suffers when we deny education and the arts.
androids will inherit academia?
"we are truly smart"
when and if we learn how little we do know. Smarter still, when we acquire an appreciation of why that is.
"We lack a proper foundation for our business model."
Humanity Inc.
"our economy continues to be driven by those who build cars or washing machines."
Who are themselves reliant on customers to purchase them. Who in turn depend on some means to obtain the necessary funds. And so on, and so on. Thus a flat in any part of the wheel brings the entire vehicle to a halt.
"A cosmic battle is raging between the world of letters and the world of numbers."
Never fear. Relax after a hard day in accounts, and settle down with a good ledger.
"Those who argue that only the universalistic appeal of numbers can convey truths"
should ponder how Newton would have summed up dark matter.
"in the beginning there was the word."
And presumably, it was “dark”. Or some incarnation thereof.
"the complete absence of any idea of "atheist spiritualism."
Given that belief requires no substantive component. Belief in absolutely anything, or even nothing, is an entirely practical proposition.
"St. Thomas Aquinas still devoted himself to the study of man and metaethics."
Had he studied his navel, more enlightenment might have ensued.
"you cannot eat spreadsheets."
Though you can, metaphorically speaking, eat your words.
If you want a solution, help reinvent leftist ideology.
Better, I think, that you team up with science against commerce than blame it.