Rethinking the Social Impact of the Arts: a critical-historical review

Abstract

This extended paper focuses on contemporary debates around the socialimpacts of the arts and the problem of their measurement and evaluation.It attempts to put forward a new framework for the understandingof the so-called `transformative powers' of the arts, by suggestingthat a historical-critical approach is needed to tackle this researchtopic. The paper therefore presents a detailed critical analysisof the numerous claims that have been made in the West over time,from Classical Greece (V century BC) to the present day, for theways in which the arts can affect individuals and transform society.It offers a taxonomy of these suggested impacts, both positive andnegative, with a view to establishing an appropriate conceptual basisfor the discussion and investigation of what the social impact ofthe arts might mean. At the same time, the paper attempts to reconnectcontemporary policy debates with a complex intellectual history,from which these debates have become detached. It is suggested thatthe impacts of the arts cannot be properly understood, measured orevaluated without reference to this history.