“It’s a lifestyle choice,” (so it’s not work) said Simon Birmingham

The catalyst for writing this post was a political video of an unwell President Trump trumpeting his self-image with a voiceover of Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” (Click on link, or you can watch the video at the bottom of this article).

I thought to myself; “What effrontery, what gall, what would Sinatra, a Democrat, have thought of his chutzpa?”

Probably something like this: “I’d like to shove a clarinet down his throat and see what his highest note is.”

Or more Sinatra-like might be; “I’d like to shove a sax up his arse and see how much more shit he can blow.”

So, what brings me to this? Well, during Question Time last week Labor MP, Josh Burns, asked the Arts Minister Paul Fletcher why he had claimed in an ABC interview that money from the government’s Arts industry support package was “already flowing” when senior officials in his department told Senate estimates that in fact “no cash has flowed.” He struggled through an unconvincing answer that would have been no comfort at all to the workers who have been waiting nearly nine months for help.

The Arts in all its forms has never been of particular interest to conservatives. The fact that, as a cohort, it employs so many people doesn’t impress them at all. Fletcher’s answer was typical of a government keen to announce but not act.

If you cast your mind back to earlier this year Scott Morrison, with great fanfare, announced a support package for this industry that supports 600,000 workers and an economy of $112 billion:

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the commercial arts and entertainment sector was one of the first to be affected by COVID-19, through strict social distancing measures that were enforced, and would be one of the last to come out of hibernation.

He said the package, which includes $75 million in grants to provide capital to help production and event businesses and $35 million in direct financial assistance to theatres, dance groups, circuses, musicians and other fields, would help get “their show back on the road, to get their workers back in jobs.”

We are now in November and not a note has been seen nor heard. Another announcement with an enormous crescendo but no climax.

Guy Sebastian was heavily criticised at the time for thanking Scott Morrison.

“Firstly, I would like to thank you guys, especially you Prime Minister, for listening … you really were, and that was evident the other day when we jumped on that Zoom call.”

“You really did hear us out, you heard all the challenges we were facing.”

Workers in the industry were never included in JobKeeper, and Sebastian was conned.

Then in June Arts Minister Paul Fletcher defended the delay in funding:

“We think this comes at the right time to get the sector restarted,” he said.

Labor’s Arts spokesman Tony Burke last Thursday said it had been in March since the opposition had first called on the government to deliver a support package for the Arts and Entertainment sector:

“This totally unnecessary delay has done enormous damage to this industry and its workers,” Mr Burke said.

It is now November and there is still no funding.

Our dance companies, artists, writers and musicians are applauded and recognized throughout the world, but the government doesn’t reach any high notes when it comes to the Arts.

Four years ago the then Education Minister Simon Birmingham described those seeking a career in the creative arts as making a “lifestyle choice” that wouldn’t produce an economic return and therefore shouldn’t be supported by government. In other words, he couldn’t give an octave.

By what criteria Mr. Birmingham makes his fiddling “lifestyle” judgment is anyone’s guess, but it’s fair to assume that he means it’s not real work.

I would suggest that he was making some sort of vague conservative value judgement about the Arts that implies it is both a luxury and a valueless product.

However, many people are not necessarily born with creative attributes. Sometimes it is born from a simple preparedness to just “have a go.” What is that lyric of Morrison’s? … “If you have a go …”

So, if we don’t have music, literature, poetry, art, dance, theatre, performance, film and many other forms of the Arts, what then defines our existence – records our history?

After all, we are by nature creative. Art is but a reflection of society. Throughout history, in all it guises, it has reflected our journey. Design is a graduate of art which gives birth to innovation.

Do you know that more people visit the Melbourne Arts Complex in any given year than the MCG over the road? Birmingham went on to say:

“Currently there are far too many courses that are being subsidised that are used simply to boost enrolments or provide lifestyle choices but don’t lead to work.”

Sure, it’s true that people in the Arts are attracted to socially progressive politics.

There is a mutuality of understanding. Artists of all genres take it for granted that there is some suffering in their undertaking.

Of course, it’s the country that also suffers if the Arts are not encouraged. Our culture is lessened, and diversity threatened.

Conservatives have never understood the Arts. They see it as a haven for left-wing radicals.

If you look at funding for all forms of education you will see the same principle repeated. Decisions driven by conservative ideology. It has no ambient overtones what so ever.

Robert Kennedy put it like this:

“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages… It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

When I was studying for my Dip of Fine Arts I often used to say, when we were discussing its history that:

“Art in all its forms, dance, music, drama, painting or other genre, is but a reflection of society at the time.”

A class fascination for me was trying to identify the political leanings of my fellow students. Invariably when they spoke about their work, it was apparent that those producing works with a radical but social objective: commitment to social justice were always of the left.

As for me, I always confronted the class and told them that if art was not commenting on society then it was not contributing toward it.

The Arts are about broadening human horizons, lifting people up, and opening their eyes and hearts to the beauty of existence.

Simply put, it is easier to be creative if you are sensitive to the human condition. Art over many centuries has reflected the society in which it found itself. From ancient Aboriginal painting to Pablo Picasso’s depiction of war in his work Guernica, which was a powerful political statement about the Spanish war.

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We judge art not by how it arrived on the canvas but how it speaks once there.

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The Russians and Germans made art a general tool of propaganda.

Then there was early Christian art that portrayed arguably the world’s first socialist as white and fragile when the reverse was probably the truth.

Throughout history, art has been used in as a means of political persuasion. Art challenges many of society’s deepest assumptions. Look at the persuasive techniques of street art.

In music think about the protest songs of the 60s and the rap singers of today. Think about the environmental lyrics of John Denver and the working-class words of Bruce Springsteen.

The protest songs of Dylan, Billy Brag and Joan Baez.

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An artist creates a sculpture alone; a painter uses a brush in isolation. But music forms a community, where the spirit of life can be felt.

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In literature the writing of John Steinbeck whose book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ changed my life and the leftist writing of Australian poet Henry Lawson.

Other notable Australian leftist writers include Thomas Keneally, Patrick White, Marcus Clark, Frank Hardy, Manning Clark, and Martin Flanagan.

And it should not be forgotten that the Australian film industry might never have gotten off the ground but for the efforts of the left-wing Philip Adams and Labor legend Barry Jones.

In my observation and experience people from the creative arts, be they writers, actors, painters, sculptors, poets, musicians or from whatever genre, predominately come from the left. They tend to be more sensitive to the marginalised and social issues like the environment, equality, gay rights, and are more open-minded about such issues.

Their views are more humanitarian and empathetic. Artists are not afraid to speak through their work and readily accept the challenges of change and its consequences. Artists see possibilities and opportunities that others do not.

The left side of politics has always attracted those from the Arts because there is a mutual philosophical co-existence and understanding of what human nature is.

On the other hand, the right side in Western democracies can only see the Arts through the prism of capitalism and profit. Rightists only see the Arts as a means for social display and as a source of commodities to be bought and sold for profit (like everything else). They instinctively resent and despise those morally and spiritually superior to them.

Censorship of art and entertainment is, historically, a socially conservative trait.

There is no greater illustration in political history of the rights attitude to the Arts than when, in the 1950s USA, junior Republican Senator, Joe McCarthy accused 10 innocent Hollywood writers of having connections to the Communist Party. It snowballed to the point where the slightest suggestion of association ended many entertainers’ careers and left a dark stain on American political history.

Many had to go to England to further their careers. The events of the time were later encapsulated in the movie; ‘The way we were.’

Notable names included as communists were: Helen Keller, Leonard Bernstein, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Artie Shaw, Zero Mostel, Charlie Chaplin, Langston Hughes, Orson Welles, Dolores del Rio, Danny Kaye, Dorothy Parker, Lena Horne, Gypsy Rose Lee, Burgess Meredith, Ruth Gordon, Eddie Albert, Richard Attenborough, Barbara Bel Geddes.

Charlie Chaplin had this to say about the allegations:

” … Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.”

I suspect that if a poll was taken of prominent actors, writers, musicians and other artists etc. in Australia prior to any election 90% would pledge their support for Labor, and 10% for the Greens. The only way the Arts will ever increase its funding by conservative governments is to convince them that it’s profitable. In a way it’s like the advertising industry which is dominated by capitalists but creatively inspired by the leftish artistic directors.

Artists and the left exist in a natural marriage of ideological compassion and understanding that speaks of protest of dissent of change of charity and challenge, but most of all for the common good. The creative arts share its values and social democracy exists for the same reason.

Now, here’s that video of Trump:

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My thought for the day

An artist creates a sculpture alone; a painter uses a brush in isolation. But music forms a community, where the spirit of life can be felt.

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