1.3 The Arts

As children, we produce art to help express our visions of the world and to show what is important to us in that world. But it also helps us explore our thoughts about that world, which leads to greater definition of our identities.

The arts can preserve a culture even when globalizing forces encourage conformity. These forces are concerned with mass consumption and creation of markets. The following story is an example of how global forces can work against the very essence of why we create art.

When he returns to the village in Mexico and meets the artisan again, he explains the deal, thinking that the artisan will be ecstatic to obtain such a large order. Instead, the artist tells him how hard the work will be, how long each basket will take, and quotes fifteen pesos each for ten thousand baskets.

The entrepreneur is outraged, but the artist explains it: "You see, my good lord and caballero, I have to make these canastas my own way and with my song in them with bits of my soul woven into them. If I were to make them in great numbers, there would no longer be my soul or songs in each one. Each would look like the other, with no difference whatever, and such a thing would slowly eat up my heart. Each has to be another song which I hear in the morning when the sun rises, and when the birds begin to chirp, and the butterflies come and sit down on my baskets so that I may see a new beauty. Because, you see, the butterflies like my baskets and the pretty colours on them. That's why they come and sit down, and I can make my canastas after them."

There are many other artistic influences in our lives that can have a profound effect on our identity, both good and bad. Sometimes, these effects can be intentional and sometimes the influence is unintentional but no less profound.

One of the largest influences and greatest pressures to conform is in the media and most particularly in television. The effect of television begins at a young age and has almost a world-wide audience. Most children worldwide have access to television, and spend more time watching TV than any other activity outside of school. Are kids who watch this much television learning something from it, either consciously or subconsciously? Television has an impact on what you think and what you believe. If you are part of the dominant North American culture, you may think it does not, and you might claim that it does not influence how you act or what you think. However, the messages of television world wide do have an impact on you.

What impact do you think watching regular North American television shows has on you?

TV programming, such as reality shows, dramas, and sitcoms, provide us with messages about what people value and hold to be important. Most TV content deals with winning and losing, which has a very strong impact upon how we react. We learn about the qualities necessary for survival, or the qualities of successful relationships, or appropriate behaviour. Advertising, of course, is trying to influence us—that is its function. But the fact that we are constantly bombarded by the messages in advertising makes its influence even greater.

Now, imagine you live in Tanzania or Tibet. You can access North American television. What would someone living in these areas learn about North America and life in Canada? Most likely they would think that everyone in Canada is rich, wears trendy clothes, and rarely has to work at a regular job for a living.

Although television both informs and entertains, the reality is that most of what we see on television is created to make a profit. It is not a mirror of real life, it is a characterization of real life.

The values television teaches are spread around the world through technology. This is a globalizing force.

The more interconnected we become from nation to nation and culture to culture, the more we can share artistic expression. The globalization of the arts both enriches and diminishes the art form. When elements of various cultures come together to create a new form, a hybrid culture similar to hybrid plants, is often created. This blending of cultures is called hybridization. A hybrid culture is rich and powerful, but it also can mean that some qualities of the original are lost. Movies, literature, and music are globalizing forces that teach people around the world about different cultures and values. These arts can be very powerful tools to express people's experiences. Music, in particular, can create some excellent examples of hybrid expressions of a rich dynamic form of art. But on the other hand, it can also represent the loss of traditional forms of expression.