'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'
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Cunningham on the humanities + Innovation
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September 10, 2008
Stuart Cunningham's The humanities, creative arts and the innovation agenda is about the place of the humanities in the innovation regime of the knowledge economy. That regime is one where research turns money into ideas, and innovation turns ideas back into money. In the equation of a Canberra bureaucracy and politicians, if you didn't have enough of the money coming back, you couldn't be expecting more and more money to be going into the research.
Cunningham says that:
the broad context is the relation of the humanities and creative arts to the innovation agenda and the knowledge economy. It is about the humanities and the creative arts, a crucial but little thought-through connection that is assuming centre stage for reasons that are the burden of this paper but also, and relatedly, because of the growth and integration of creative arts courses and staff into the university system over the last decade...
The new macro-focus on the knowledge-based economy and innovation policies has been around in some form or other for a long time, certainly since the information society discussions of the 1950s ...But the shorter term influence is raceable to new growth theory in economics which has pointed to the limitations for wealth creation of only micro-economic efficiency gains and liberalisation strategies.
Governments are now attempting to advance knowledge-based economy models, which imply a renewed interventionary role for the state after decades of neo-liberal small government, prioritisation of innovation and R&D-driven industries, intensive reskilling and education of the population, and a focus on universalising the benefits of connectivity through mass ICT literacy upgrades.
The humanities have been excluded from this regime since the importance of knowledge and creativity and the application of creativity are exclusively limited to the science-engineering-technology set. In contrast to this Cunningham focuses, not on the way humanities, creative arts and social sciences analyse and manage the knowledge-based economy, but on their central role in it.
Creative production and cultural consumption are an integral part of the new economy, as are the
disciplines that educate, train and research these activities. Worldwide, the creative industries sector has been among the fastest growing sectors of the global economy...Entertainment has displaced defence in the US as the driver of new technology take-up, and has overtaken defence and aerospace as the biggest sector of the Southern Californian economy
He says that we can no longer afford to understand the social and creative disciplines as commercially irrelevant, merely ‘civilising’ activities. Instead they must be recognised as one of the vanguards of the new economy. he crucial point here that establishes the indivisibility of the humanities and creative arts is that the new economy requires both R and D, and that the contexts, meanings and effects of cultural consumption could be as important for these purposes as creative production.
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| | Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:12 PM | Permalink |
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