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Investing in arts and culture
Jared Diamond’s fabulous book Collapse, looks at why some societies collapsed in the past because of injudicious use of their resources. He talks about the Nordic Greenlanders who spent most of their export income on fancy imported European materials for their churches, and much of their local resources on raising beef, rather than learning to eat local foods like the Inuit. This is what finally did it for them, when their connections by boat with Europe were disrupted, although in the meantime it probably kept them going as a community for about 500 years.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers says that what makes a “genius” like Bill Gates or the Beatles is not superior DNA or raw talent, but the right opportunity to clock in 10,000 hours of experience, prior to their world debut. He speaks of communities based on rice agriculture, like China, where there is a culturally-driven imperative even now in urban environments to put in the slog work regularly over the year, so kids reach their 10,000 hours early.
That made me think, how do the choices in a society to invest in arts and culture activities pay off (or not pay off) over time? Clearly, it helped the Nordic Greenlanders survive for 500 years, although not longer, as other conditions changed. How does a society direct people into spending that first 10,000 hours on one thing rather than another? What effect has this had on our ability to guarantee food sustainability in the face of climate change? How can arts and culture investments (of time and money) help to mitigate social collapse?
Comments
You raise some interesting questions, though I’m not quite sure I understand the 10,000 hours thing? This is 167 days - how does this apply to Bill Gates, the Beatles, Chinese kids, etc?
In response to Tara, 10,000 hours is 416 days if you are working at your task 24 hours a day, and 1250 days or about three and a half years if you are doing the task 8 hours a day, 365 days a year which is pretty unusual - perhaps even impossible. Puppeteers in Bunraku theatre in Japan take ten years to learn the repertoire; probably what it takes most professional artists or archive / heritage professionals to become proficient. Gladwell’s point is that investing that time early is what makes Gates stand out from others. I’m wondering whether societies should look at where their citizens are investing their 10,000 hours in the same way that they look at where they are investing their money because it may have effects on social survival, social cohesion and so on.