Madam, – We convey our congratulations to Harry Clifton who, on his appointment as Ireland Professor of Poetry, warned of the detrimental role of the “university ideologue, the modulariser, the smurfitiser, the harvardiser” (Home News, July 1st). An unintended riposte perhaps to Dermot Desmond when at the precipitous Farmleigh Economic Forum last September he asked, “How can we monetise culture?” No one would doubt the sincerity and authority with which these totems would speak for the arts and commerce respectively, yet in their candour might stand accused of language that feels antagonistic to the discipline of the other.
But the arts and commerce are far from incompatible. On the contrary, they are familiar, if sometime belligerent bedfellows, and the symbiotic, questioning relationship stimulates both. Occasionally they resonate to create something remarkable, the novelist and serial entrepreneur James Joyce being one. With 450,000 people unemployed and our economy on its knees, it is imperative that together we move to a deeper understanding of the relationship between the arts, economics and the society within which they play important complementary roles.
Many of us whose day to day work is at the cultural coalface fervently believe that the arts promote better citizenship, a healthy national psyche, manifest a positive image of us on the world stage and are a job creator. We also believe they are a fundamental driver of cultural tourism and a stimulant of the creative economy, none of which necessarily undermines the primacy of art and the people who make it.
Whether these assertions will stand fast is, somewhat like our immediate economic future, unknown, but it is a discussion worth having, and we are ready to have it.
Given our current collective psychology, perhaps it was inevitable that Farmleigh would give rise to unrealistic expectations, the excesses of which you refer to in your Editorial (July 3rd), but we should nonetheless view it as a gift. It asks provocative questions outside the comfort zone in which the artistic and commercial habitually reside. We should cast aside our cultural and business dogma and approach this dialogue in a spirit of opportunity that embraces fresh perspectives, bold ideas and new voices. We may find that the answer is “art for art’s sake”, as you also imply, and if in the end we return to that uncontested truth, we will have learnt plenty about our collective future along the way. – Yours, etc,