Culture crash: the killing of the creative class

Abstract

IJEMHHRVol. 17, No. 2 • 2015 439 Scott Tinberg is an adjunct writing professor, a blogger on West Coast culture, and an award-winning journalist. In this book, he observes that the number of Americans who earn their living by making art is decreasing, and traces its implications. After World War II, the arts were not only a means of entertainment but a road to self-development and knowledge, a road that is now in disrepair. He spends too much time on describing the plight of white middle-aged males, rather on such groups as young women of color. Nevertheless Tinberg makes the case that the demise of newspapers, of risk-taking film companies, and of bookstores, record stores, and video shops, rob its former customers of an informal but effective educational milieu. The profit motive bears responsibility for this unhappy state of affairs and has impacted the middle culturally as well as economically. Tinberg describes the creative class as those who work with their minds at complex levels, including physicians, lawyers, software engineers, publishers, critics, and book and record store clerks in addition to such obvious groups as artists, architects, musicians, filmmakers, performers, and the like. Timberg displays an in-depth knowledge of Western culture and this grounding serves him well when he discusses the vicissitudes of the 21 st century. He tells his readers how ancient cave paintings were not only done for esthetic reasons but to magically attract deer and other animals for the hunters' bows, arrows, and club. To the medieval mind, the painter was of little account except for channeling the glory of God and the saints. Musicians of the late Middle Ages were stationed outside of towns so that they could alert guards as to the approach of enemies and marauders. During the Renaissance, artists and musicians became advertisements for the nobility. The 18 th and 19 th