Balancing on the Edge of the Flat World

By SARAH CROCKER

I was recently browsing on Amazon.com for CDs. When I was ready to proceed to the checkout, my electronic shopping cart contained a Deutsche Grammophon disc of Messiaen's Éclairs sur l'au-delà, performed by the Orchestre d'Opéra Bastille with Myung-Whun Chung conducting. The purchase of this international collaboration was made with a simple click of the mouse and very little consideration of the factors behind it. Yet the forces that came together to make my transaction possible are the forces of globalization.

Sarah Crocker

In his recent weigh-in on the state of globalization, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, Thomas Friedman outlines the rapid advances in communication and information-sharing that have, to use his metaphor, "flattened" the world. There are obvious advantages to a flat world, one in which information flows more freely and communication with other cultures is much easier. But this flattening also presents unique challenges to artists.

A notable feature of the flat world is the diminishing importance of real human contact. As artists we depend on human contact and connection to give our art meaning, but what we do can now so easily be reproduced in a streaming Internet file or imitated by an electronically-synthesized recording. Such mass-production of art is cheaper and can reach more people almost instantly. It also is subject to new electronic manipulation, out of which new and once inconceivable art is certain to be born. Yet this accelerated distribution of art ultimately could cost us the privilege of enjoying art live and up close.

With the flattening of the world also comes the dissolution of national pride and tradition. Many of the traditional art forms we cherish have been born of this same cultural identity that is now threatened. The globalization of local traditional art forms may serve to preserve those that would otherwise be ill-equipped to transition into the commercial realm. Yet this adaptation subjects those very same art forms to manipulation that transforms them into something new and different. In order to preserve cultural traditions associated with nations and specific groups of people, will we have to subject them to global mutation?

In the quest for life's meaning, people turn to the arts.

All of this has ramifications for the public funding of the arts in America as well. With globalization, the value of a nation's cultural status in respect to world standing may become increasingly irrelevant, because a flattened world is a world in which cultural boundaries become fainter. Any true appreciator of the arts is not interested in the arts for the sake of prestige among the world's nations. Yet it is this quest for prestige that has often inspired political action leading to increased funding in the arts in America (think of the U.S. during the Cold War years). The personal power of art is not a practical sentiment for a politician to express, but the international status attached to a country that is a leader in the arts is something much easier to grasp politically. As the world flattens and individuals and companies—not nations—become the forces guiding world markets, the weight of the argument for federal arts funding on the basis of international cultural standing will diminish. From a financial perspective of the arts in America, this could be a serious problem. Because when federal arts funding is cut, the art being produced becomes the art that can reach the largest audiences the most cheaply and can make the most money, not only for the artists, but for the entire arts industry. In the flat world of the future, the arts game will increasingly become a money game.

Indeed, Friedman's view of the future is sobering when applied to the arts, but in his crusade for a compelling metaphor, he overlooks the fact that people always will be driven to look outside of themselves for greater meaning in life, and it is in this quest for meaning that they will ultimately turn to the arts.

The good news about the flat world is that the most important strength you can have is creative imagination, and as artists, we have a history of this. If we wish to survive the flattening of the world without being squashed, we must constantly search for new ways to connect artistically without sacrificing the integrity of our artistic traditions. If we keep our eyes open, educate ourselves as broadly as possibly, and think creatively about our roles as artists, we will find a way to balance on the edge of this flat world.

Sarah Crocker is a master's degree student in violin.