Commodified Creativity: The Liberal Arts School and the Market

May 2020 - Stretch Journal

Nominated for Outstanding Nonfiction Prose at the 40th annual Evvy Awards

Creativity. Passion. Imagination. These buzzwords litter the mission statements of America’s top liberal arts colleges. 75% of the schools listed on Times Higher Education’s Top 20 Liberal Arts Colleges in the United States have mission statements that include these words. Institutions encourage their young artists to attack the world with unbridled creativity and an uninhibited artistic spirit as they study the commonly known liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, fine arts, mathematics, music, literature, philosophy, language, and history.

Students pursuing the arts and the institutions that instruct them set out to be trailblazers in the world of self-expression and creativity. However, as an artist studying at Emerson College, one of America’s top arts and communication schools, I have found that this creativity has been largely co-opted by capitalist thought: one’s art is only valued if it is able to draw attention and generate profit. The function of art has shifted in the neoliberal arts setting.

The American liberal arts student is taught to create, not for the sake of creativity or the artistic spirit as their institutions say they encourage, but for the sake of the market. These institutions push the doctrine that if their students participate in the academy, they will be granted access to monetary opportunities in their field of supposed creativity. Through a financially-centric curriculum and an intense focus on student contribution to the creative economy, liberal arts schools indoctrinate their students, forcing principles driven by profit, not creativity. 

When artists prioritize profit over creativity, they feed large arts industries that exploit workers for the personal gain of their wealthy leaders. Students who enter the creative world with a financial focus will be used as a tool in furthering asymmetrical systems of power and wealth within these arts industries. Contradictory to their mission statements, American liberal arts colleges have abandoned core values of creativity and artistic passion and exchanged them for ones of exhibition and profit.

It is essential to define neoliberalism in order to effectively enter this conversation. Author of “Neoliberalism” Tejaswini Ganti explores various elements of the history of neoliberal thought. He explains “the aim of [neoliberal] intellectuals…was to oppose what they saw as a rising tide of collectivism, state-centered planning, and socialism and to develop an agenda that was distinct from classical liberalism….market economy was far superior to state intervention and that the absence of private property was akin to totalitarianism” (Ganti). Neoliberal thought is largely tied to the deregulation of the free market, privatization, individualization, and the shift away from state welfare. Neoliberals encourage the privatization of arts industries, tearing various elements of culture out of the public, accessible sphere. Neoliberals rail against ideas of community and collectivism, ideas so essential to the creation of art.

I would also like to frame this discussion of commodified art in the theory of Walter Benjamin. In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin argues that, because of the rise of mechanical reproduction, the function of art has dramatically changed over time. In prehistory, art was originally created for use in survival, religion, and cult activity. However, the reproduction of art has shifted its function from survival and religion to exhibition and profit. 

Essential to Benjamin’s claim relating to the role of mechanical reproduction in the function of art is the concept of aura. The aura relates to a work’s original context and history. It is the work’s “presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be…The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence” (Benjamin 3-4). According to Benjamin, the aura of a work of art exists only within the original piece, not a copy. When a work of art is reproduced, it loses its original place in time, history, and the general context in which it was created. The concept of the aura only exists due to the advent of mechanical reproduction. Without reproduction, there would be no notion of authenticity; an original piece of art is only considered original because of the existence of its reproduction. When a piece is reproduced, its aura begins to fade. 

Mechanical reproduction is entirely a product of the Industrial Revolution and 19th-century ideals of individual capital and property ownership. The Industrial Revolution was fueled by capitalist ideology which promoted the creation of a new, wealthy class of investors. The Industrial Revolution eventually led to the invention of the camera, one of the ultimate tools for artistic reproduction, according to Benjamin. Capitalism and mechanical reproduction are responsible for the destruction of pure art: art that retains its original context, history, and, therefore, aura, void of any commodification or manipulation. 

In the context of the liberal arts school, commodified art is the only form of art. Pure art does not exist in the American collegiate system because the creativity promoted by liberal arts schools is tied directly to capitalism. Mechanical reproduction may not be the reason for a lack of pure art in academia. However, the ideals that fuel it, capital, property, and wealth, the ideals that Benjamin warns so vehemently of, certainly are. 

As a student at a liberal arts college, I have found much of the creativity expressed by the student body to be tied to the market. Emerson’s most populated major as of 2018, Visual and Media Arts, is one heavily connected to the market. Film students are taught to create with the intention of promoting celebrity and generating profit, inherently capitalist ideals.

In the context of filmmaking, actors perform, not for an audience, but for a camera and crew; the actor need not adjust to a specific audience as they might in theater. Performance is easily able to be altered and, therefore, lacks aura. Because of this “The film responds to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the ‘personality’ outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity” (Benjamin 11-12). The film industry is inherently tied to exhibitionism. Star players within the industry become more important to the audience than their performances in the films themselves. This concept of the cult of the celebrity ultimately leads to the commodification of people as celebrities are idolized and monetarily compensated by their audiences. Filmmakers and actors create films for exhibition sake and monetary gain. Likewise, film students are taught to do the same.

Business of Creative Enterprise and Marketing Communications majors are taught how to thrive in industries that take advantage of small artists and generate profit through largely unethical means of production. As the Business of Creative Enterprises’ home page understates, their students learn “to become executives, managers, and innovators.” The success of students in these majors is dependent on the free market, dependent on power structures that allow for the rise of the ‘executive’ and the fall of the working class.

However, as a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major, I rarely encounter class discussions that center around the economic role literature plays in the art world. Unlike film, business, and marketing, writing is, as Benjamin would argue, an undisputable form of pure art as it is unsusceptible to mechanical reproduction and retains a constant aura. 

100 years after Emerson College’s Boston campus was opened as an arts and communications school, the college opened a campus in Los Angeles, California. The L.A. campus has produced countless Hollywood actors, directors, producers, and screenwriters. Because of Emerson’s ties to the industry, their alumni have dubbed themselves the “Emerson Mafia.” The Mafia is essentially a body of well-connected members of Hollywood who can help young graduations network in their respective industries. The concept of an engaged alumni is seemingly harmless. However, the goal of the group is not to connect all Emerson students for the promotion of art and creativity. The Mafia’s mission, according to the group’s two 13-year-old Facebook pages (which have 18 thousand members), is to advertise “job opportunities…upcoming events…[and] promote [personal] work.” 

The Emerson Mafia’s primary function is a capitalist one: advertise employment opportunities and individual artists’ work for the purpose of profit and exhibition. One joins the Mafia hoping to benefit, not creatively, but financially. 

If the Mafia’s mission statement lined up with Emerson’s, it would be to encourage imagination and artfulness. Yet, the Mafia is more concerned with capital than creativity. When searching “Mafia” on Emerson’s website, 139 search results appear, showing the college’s approval and endorsement of the group. Emerson students who join the Mafia allow their art to function primarily for the sake of profit, abandoning original intent and aura. 

Another aspect of the commodified liberal arts creativity is how schools choose to market to their target audience. If admissions standards fall in line with mission statements, liberal arts colleges would look for creative, passionate students. However, author of “The Semiotic Production of the Good Student: A Peircean Look at the Commodification of Liberal Arts Education,” Bonnie Urciuoli, argues that art schools market towards their ideal, constructed image of the perfect student, a brand she defines as the “Good Student.” 

According to Urciuoli, the Good Student brand is created by the liberal arts school to promote “an unambiguously positive image of the product of higher education” (Urciuoli). However, this ‘product of higher education’ does not live up to the artful, creative standard toted by liberal arts colleges. The ‘unambiguous positive’ student is not a starving, struggling artist who is willing to create despite great personal loss. Quite the contrary. The Good Student is one who understands how to navigate and achieve great profit within the class system. The Good Student can be both an artist, but more importantly, a business person. 

Urciuoli expands on this idea of achieving profit. She explains “For…pricey elite liberal arts colleges…the social reproduction of class takes precedence, although this point is not generally made explicit. To the extent that graduates of such institutions are expected to be trained…to acquire a high-end…skill set of ‘cultural capital,’…the most useful [of which] is social knowledge by which one can successfully navigate…class mobility…in and out of the workplace” (Urciuoli). ‘Cultural capital’ is a set of skills that one can use to demonstrate cultural competence and social status. Colleges train their students to acquire cultural capital, a term tied directly to classism and status. The Good Student is one who can embody the capitalist mindset; the academic and the artist alike are successful based on their ability to navigate class mobility. Personal, monetary progress is branded, marketed, favored, and encouraged over traditional artistic ideals. Class reproduction is more of a priority than pure creativity. 

Urciuoli’s focus on elite art schools implies that wealthier schools promote the social mobility of their already wealthy students. Capitalist ideals of private property, personal capital, and individual mobility are evident.

Dean Kenning explores these capitalist ideas through the lens of the professional arts setting in his essay “Art world strategies: neoliberalism and the politics of professional practice in fine art education.” Kenning argues that neoliberal ideology, one of market-based productivity and enterprise, can shift the mindset of a student studying in a creative setting. Kenning claims that “education policy has, over the last decade in particular, been tasked with the role of changing thinking and behavior so that student desires coalesce with premarket economic policy” (Kenning). Kenning notices a trend in liberal arts curriculum; students are being pushed to think about their work in relation to the market. This profit-driven mindset destroys any possibility of the existence of pure art. Kenning’s argument that this trend has evolved over a decade implies that this mindset has become embedded in liberal arts students’ thinking.

Kenning expands upon these arguments while in conversation with Angela McRobbie’s Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. McRobbie discusses the politics of creative labor, arguing that the promotion of creativity is a way to encourage market innovation. McRobbie explains that “enthusiasm and critical intellect of people are precisely what is captured…and actively used to replenish and innovate so that capitalist production is seemingly…made more interesting’ (McRobbie 40). Both Kenning and McRobbie argue that the dialogue around creative industries has changed greatly: the art and economic spheres have become closely intertwined. The meaning of ‘creativity’ is more closely tied to economic innovation than artistic excellence. However, this shift in thought has begun in spaces where many young workers begin entering their fields: college campuses. Those supposedly studying methods and modes of art are taught that those concepts are directly tied to the economy. Pure art does not exist in spaces where creativity is tied solely to market-based innovation. 

By sacrificing true liberal arts values for the neoliberal agenda, liberal arts colleges actively destroy the collective spirit that has been cultivated by communal art spaces. Kenning explores various aspects of neoliberalism, stating that it “is a form of behavior geared towards competitive strategies, and it is the job of neoliberal governance to actively produce competitive behavior in individuals, for example by attacking the collectivist principles represented in trade unions, the public sector and the welfare state, so that market rationality and the price system can regulate society more fully” (Kenning). Art cannot thrive in an environment that encourages intense competition for the sake of destroying collectivism. Collaboration and community are values that the art world cherishes greatly. To sacrifice these values in order to generate profit is to defy all standards, ethics, and values arts communities have worked to establish.

Neoliberal thought encourages behavior antithetical to that of the traditional art world. One must be competitive and cutthroat to survive in their field, even if their field is in the arts where collaboration is vital. As students are taught through primary and secondary education, collaboration, creativity, passion, and innovation are essential for success. However, neoliberalism has made it impossible for young artists to be successful without the end goal of their creativity being wealth and celebrity. Ideals of both artistic collaboration and competitive profit cannot exist within the same sphere. 

Liberal arts schools should prioritize the fulfillment of their students’ artistic and creative spirit. First and foremost, arts schools must host a holistic curriculum in the humanities that is not, in any way, tied to the market. If schools wish to produce graduates who are prepared for success, they must disconnect their definition of success from any notion of profit. Success should be measured in levels of creativity, passion, and imagination, not in dollar signs.

Acknowledgments

Christopher Craig, a truly inspirational man, who has opened my eyes to an incredible world. 

Anna Harberger who has always helped in cultivating the collective spirit. 

Kate Healy, Sophia Kriegel, Sareen Bekerian, Ramona Kriesel, and Kristina Kuewa for peer review.

Mary Kovaleski Byrnes who has truly changed me as a person and as a writer. 

Thank you.