As the guilded age came to a close in the 1900s, railroad barons, industrialists and banking kingpins put money into the arts in order to launder their image and legacies. We see no such thing today. Why is that?
I’m an independent film producer in NYC who has previously acted in Hollywood studio films and sold screenplays. I’m also extremely online. I have found that wealthy techies, in general, have little to zero interest in investing in culture. This has been a source of frustration considering the large percentage of new money that comes from the sector.
I’m not alone in feeling this way: I have a friend who raises money for a non-profit theater in Boston, another who owns an art gallery in Manhattan, and another who recently retired at the LA Opera. All have said not to bother with anyone in tech. This has always bummed me out given that I genuinely believed with all of my heart and soul that the internet was going to usher in a new golden age of art, culture, and entertainment. (Yes, I was naive as a kid in the 00s.)
Art and culture can truly only thrive on patronage, especially in times of deep income inequality. Yet there are no Medicis in 2023. So what’s missing here? Where is the disconnect?
Too many universities have transformed what used to be broad liberal arts programs with technical majors into narrow vocational programs. The focus now is on training to get a job and make lots of money. Interest in anything outside of that is discouraged in all kinds of ways.
I think some of this is the result of conservative attempts to eliminate critical thinking skills from the educational system. More of it is a side-effect of the more limited opportunities offered by our late-stage capitalist economy.
I have a computer science degree, but I studied anthropolgy, literature, and history as well. It pains me to see all of that devalued and ignored.
I think you’re on to something.
I studied in a university which also had a famous art department. I tried taking courses on the art programme’s aide, but they didn’t take me - all courses required the 10 month basic arts studies to participate.
I think some mingling would benefit both the artists and the techies. Steve Jobs famously studied calligraphy, and later made apple the mainstay of digital art, so it can be profitable too.
This is my personal experience. Feel free to skip it.
I was lucky in a number of ways. I started college about two years before the first computer boom hit, but I was already an experienced (if self-trained) programmer. Instead of spacing the programming courses out over four years I took them all in two semesters. That left me with a lot of elective hours to fill.
I had been an avid reader since kindergarten, with major interests in science fiction and fantasy. That lead me to take courses in history and medieval literature. Those lead me to anthropology, which was a world-changing experience for me.
The professors I studied under, outside of my major, were generally pleased, if a little puzzled, to have a technical geek in their classes. To everyone’s surprise, I turned out to be a very good student in those areas. After the first few classes I was encouraged to take graduate level seminars, which I really enjoyed. I was still treated as a bit of an oddity, but I got a lot of support.
By the time I graduated with a B.A. in Computer Science, I had also earned minors in Anthropology, English, and Medieval Studies. If I could have stayed for another semester I would have had Anthropology as major and added History as a minor.
That was one of the best times of my life. And it certainly expanded my perception of the world. In retrospect, my Computer Science classes were probably the least important thing I did in college. Studying multiple disciplines forced me to understand different ways of thinking and different sets of values. That has served me very well in the years since, both professionally and personally. I am also happier because of it.
I wish everyone had the opportunities I did. I think we short-change students by feeding them bulk information and telling them that is what an education should be. The most important thing anyone can get from an education is the ability to continue to learn.
As a techie (although not a rich one), the idea of sponsoring the arts has not crossed my mind ever before reading this. After a minute of thinking, here’s my thought why:
- Techies value different things.
Back in the day, those rich and powerful valued social standing. Money was merely just a (very powerful) signifier of this. Art was a proxy for both money and standing: it showed you had resource enough to spend on frivolity, and also implied you were erudite enough to appreciate it. This is still true today: walk into a traditional rich man’s house, or a place designed to appeal to the wealthy (such as expensive restaurants or professional investment offices), and you will see art on the walls.
Techies, however, are different. Many of them view their wealth and power as achievements despite their social standing, not because of it. Many techies (due to their interest in tech from an early age) were close to social outcasts when they were younger, and as a result they still don’t value social status.
Techies (again, due to their instrinsic interest in tech) tend to value coolness, sci-fi futurism, and impact factor more than anything else. This is why you see the headlines on the latest billionaire investing ridiculous sums of money into impractical tech projects (Elon Musk is a great example of this); they do it mostly because it’s cool techwise and because they think it would make for a really cool future. (Self-driving cars all over the roads? Fully automated drone deliveries directly to your home? Space tourism? VR that is indistinguishable from reality?)
And techies don’t just not value social standing, they almost dislike it (due to being social outcasts again). “Hobo chic” is a perfect example of this: Silicon Valley offices pride themselves on letting their employees wear whatever they want, disliking traditional signifiers of social standing; and when the CEO meets wealthy traditionalist old-money types wearing suits and acting formal, he will wear shorts and a T-shirt (“look at you, stuck in the social maze, having to wear suits and act politely to climb the ranks; now look at me, I am above all of that, for I have intrinsic technical value that you do not.”)
Art, another traditional signifier of social status, is also not valued for the same reason, unfortunately. I don’t think you can change that without a significant cultural shift to the Valley and what it stands for.
They feel like it’s not “needed” Only in the absence of art will they understand.
Art hadn’t been properly commodified yet because the technology for mass produced art didn’t exist. They still needed artisans and artists, so they had to fund the arts if they wanted to see any created. They didn’t appreciate art more, per se, but they saw it as fundamentally different from other widgets.
This is no longer the case. With the advent of photography, film, digital information, and of course the internet we now see profitable “art” without any need to fund it with philanthropy. Aside from one-off public works projects they can fund by stealing public funds, they can only imagine art through the lens of profitability and have no understanding of the amount of free time and energy that has gone into creating so much of the art that exists today.
There is no Medicis in 2023. Instead you get Marvel.
Something I kept hearing when I was younger is that STEM = money and getting a degree or pursuing a career in something that doesn’t make money is a waste of time. This idea gave a lot of people a high and mighty attitude that if you arent working in tech you’re wasting your life. “Get fit and learn to code” became the go-to life advice when I was in my 20s. People that don’t understand art (not as in getting a message out of it, but understanding why people enjoy creative works) telling each other and anyone that will listen that if something isn’t a money making engine theres no reason to do it
