The Arts
Soul of Britain, with Michael Buerk, 23rd July 2000
Soul of Britain, written and presented by Michael Buerk was broadcast in nine episodes in June & July 2000. This BBC TV series explored what people in Britain today really believe. What is their attitude to moral issues? What do they think about Christianity? The BBC commissioned the largest ever survey of beliefs and attitudes for this series.
Art and Spirituality
In this program, Michael Buerk asks whether art can take the place of spirituality. He asks whether it matters if more people know the plot of Eastenders than the stories of the Bible?
Buerk pointed out that fewer of us are going to Church, but more are going to cinemas, art galleries, theater and opera. He quoted figures from the 'Soul of Britain' survey, showing that:
- 79% of us now visit religious buildings for aesthetic (rather than religious) reasons
- 12% of us go to church at least once a year
- 35% of us have been to a museum
- 30% of us attend theater, opera, or ballet
- 16% of us attend pop concerts
Apparently 1.5 million singles and 2 million albums are sold each week, and last year the British public spent £2,210 million on books.
So are the arts replacing religion as the place where we ask 'the big questions' about the meaning of life? (If they are, there is something for the Churches to learn from this?)
High art or popular art?
Disappointingly, the discussion in this program was largely a debate over 'high' art and 'popular' art. This was off the point as far as the issue of spirituality is concerned. (Unless it is argued that 'high' art deals with the spiritual big questions, but 'popular' art does not - a position which is very difficult to defend).
The accusation leveled against 'high' culture is often that it is pretentious and contentless, while the accusation against 'popular' culture is that it is banal and ratings-driven. But this could be a false distinction: in postmodern culture, it is meaningless to try to distinguish high art and popular art.
According to Steven Connor in 'Postmodernist Culture' it also becomes increasingly difficult to separate creators from critics. Art as creation becomes merged with art as criticism of creation, or even as parody of creation.
Sex, Violence, and Censorship
If we are getting our spiritual messages and our answers to the big questions from the arts, what kind of messages are we getting?
- 18% of terrestrial TV programs depict sex
- 43% of prime time TV contains violence
Yet 53% of us say there should be no control at all over artistic expression
In this program, Buerk asks what responsibility the creators of art have for its effects? (This program was broadcast in the same week in which a group of teenage boys were convicted for killing another boy in a copycat killing from the film 'Reservoir Dogs'. How can anyone continue to argue that violence in the media does not affect us?)
We now have, as one of the participants on the program said, a popular culture that 'demands blood and guts' - and mass market films are often extremely violent.
Questions worth asking
- Is there any way of deciding whether a work of art is of enduring value? Is there any meaningful distinction between high art and popular art?
- Is there any reason for us to expect limits on how far artists will go? Or can we expect to see more and more graphic portrayals of violence and abnormal sexual activity? Will 'snuff' videos become the normal fare of terrestrial TV within the next few years? (It is worth comparing our culture with what happened in the Roman empire shortly before it fell, where the masses were kept pacified by the violent spectacle of brutal real life killing in the Circus Maximus).
- If there is no over-arching framework of beliefs, is it even possible for art to do anything other than reflect society as it is, in an increasingly violent and degrading way, as the artist looks for ways to grab our attention and shock us?