University of Illinois Chicago political scientist Kelly LeRoux (who got her PhD at Wayne State University here in the D) and co-author Anna Bernadska recently published a study, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, that shows a positive correlation between participation in the arts and engagement with civil society. They analyzed more than 2700 respondents to the 2002 General Social Survey, conducted biannually by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and generally considered one of the primary sources of data on American social trends. Their analysis found that people who have direct or indirect involvement with the arts are more likely to also have direct participation in three dimensions of civil society: engagement in civic activities, social tolerance, and other-regarding (i.e., altruistic) behavior. These results hold true even when factoring in demographic variables for age, race, and education.

Most studies on the social impact of the arts address economics and related externalities such as improved educational outcomes and general community well being. (See, for example, the work of Ann Markusen of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the University of Minnesota summarized in my blog post here.) The study by LeRoux and Bernadska is different in that it empiricially investigates ties between the arts and citizenship. Instead of seeking a market rationale for arts patronage, the authors stress the benefits for civic virtue. The study is also noteworthy because rather than looking at the direct impact of community and other arts projects, such as mural painting, theatrical productions, and the like, it takes an audience-studies approach more typically associated with media and communications analysis.

It’s important to note that the authors demonstrate correlation not causation. In statistics, correlation establishes the dependence of certain variables on one another, which is useful in predictive modeling. But the relationship, either positive (the more of one variable, the more of the other) or negative (the more of one variable, the less of the other), doesn’t necessarily mean that the one is specifically the cause of the other. There may be other factors at work (called intervening variables) not measured in the analysis. While that may be the case, the study is still useful in suggesting additional ways in which the arts benefit society.

Not the least of these is the development of the critical function, which is fundamental to the advancement of discourse and building consensus on matters of common concern within the public sphere, which civil society theorists see as key to a viable, participatory democracy. Indeed, German social scientist and political philosopher Jurgen Habermas in his important study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (MIT: 1991 [1962]), cites the development of the field of literary criticism and aesthetics over the roughly 150-year period in Europe starting in the late 17th century as laying the groundwork for citizens to think independently and thus reflect upon their role in society and ultimately act as political agents. More recently, French philospher Jacques Ranciere in books such as The Future of the Image (Verso: 2009), Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics (Continuum: 2010), and The Emancipated Spectator (Verso: 2011), has established the link between aesthetic practice and political action.

This also explains why anti-democratic forces in American society have worked so hard, starting with the so-called Culture Wars of the 1980s, to eliminate public funding for the arts. It turns out, that Big Bird really is potentially subversive.

This post also appears in Motown Review of Art.

The third session of the Flying Seminar offered an opportunity to deliberate possibilities for the next phase of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Bill Zimmerman, a self-described veteran troublemaker, gave an account of his many experiences with progressive actions in the United States. Not unlike the two earlier sessions, in which OWS members compared notes with Polish and Japanese troublemakers, the current activists were able to compare and contrast their knowledge and their ideas with yet another out-of-the-box thinker.

Bill Zimmerman was in New York City to give talks and promote his book, a memoir that recounts a history of American political activism starting in the 1960s through Zimmerman’s personal experiences.

When it comes to organizing people, Zimmerman opened a box full of tactics that he and his fellow activists have used over the years to spur and demand change. He started off with letting us in on a lesson he learned early on. After having been active in increasingly militant protests against the Vietnam War, he realized that this kind of activism did not resonate with the public. The movement was forced to reconnect with people or otherwise lose its essential support. As it turned out, Americans responded to the call for humanitarian aid and Zimmerman was able to organize the international charity Medical Aid for Indochina, which brought humanitarian relief from American citizens beyond enemy lines. This prompted a serious discussion about the need to connect and stay connected with ‘your audience’ and how to get people who are sympathetic to a cause to participate.

Inevitably, this also brought back the more strategic question of wanting to work within the current capitalist system or striving for an alternative scenario through a systemic social-economic change. Most discussants were in favor of the use of creative instruments within our current system. Of course, Zimmerman’s experience lies exactly there. He was active in electoral campaigns, organized populist movements, produced political commercials, and worked on ballot initiatives, an instrument of direct democracy that is allowed in 23 states. As Jan Gross put it, “The framework is not your adversary, it can be filled with friendly initiatives.”

The systemic question reminded those around the table of a breakpoint for the movement of the 1960s: the decision to either live the change or organize the public to make change. Those who lived the change were able to influence values and styles. And this was another point of recognition for the OWS activists, whose disappointment with many of our current values has drawn them towards wanting to live the change, as exemplified by the camp in Zucotti Park and the many other public spaces in the US and abroad. They wonder, “How do we want to live, how do we want to treat each other?”

The accomplishments that OWS has made so far were lauded. The movement’s slogan of the 99% and the 1% has truly resonated with the public. There was agreement that OWS has given a spark for a new narrative and that a new language and rhetoric is needed.

Many questions were touched upon, although remained open: if this is the time for a third party movement, if large-scale boycotts are a useful instrument, what specific practical demands resonate with people and how to get people to participate – issues of students loans, underwater housing, and education in general were discussed as potential areas for demands. Instead of ending on tactics, Zimmerman emphasized the importance of organization. He strongly believes that people can empower themselves through organizing. For him, it all-important to reveal to people that they have power, can express that power and have control to set new relations. But the burden to organize should not only lie on OWS: “non-OWS needs to take more responsibility.”