Before my graduation from college, back in my social activist period, I wondered how American society could possible afford High Art while so many went hungry and homeless – domestically as well as internationally. Then I began to see everywhere a desire for expressiveness even in every ghetto – for that matter, ranging from ghetto blasters to Playboy. There were murals and blues bands. To say nothing of the infusion of professional sports, to which every poor youth, from the inner city to the mining company towns, seems to aspire. So opera and museums and other “Establishment” operations came to lose their exclusivity in my mind. Indeed, over the years I’ve heard that the real classical music lovers are the ones in the cheaper seats, the ones they can afford. Mankind, after all, has a need to reach to the higher realms of thought and the imagination of the spirit; anything less reduces our existence to nothing more than economics, impoverishing everyone in the society.

Look closely, and you’ll also see that in America, Art has become the state religion, no matter the level of state and federal funding exists. In this country, at least, there’s also been a long recognition of the fine arts as an adjunct to wealth, for whatever reasons. Many sense an abstract “goodness” in the products of art chamber music, art museums, Shakespeare festivals, opera, poetry, the “book” that so many people dream of writing even if the artist himself/herself remains (often with good reason!) somewhat suspect, a shady character. Perhaps that’s why these big institutions stand between us and the rest of ourselves, as artists and audiences. Something abstractly “good” even when they themselves admit they don’t know much about the field. Contrast that to the related state religions in America: collegiate and professional athletics, Hollywood movies, and rock concerts, wherein no one actually advocates any common wealth. (The High Priests are paid handsomely, after all.)

Art as the semi official State Religion of today? Or should that be entertainment and its host of celebrity worship? The stamp of approval. The aspiration.

Art as commodity, too. “How much did it sell for?” What was the box office?

At heart, all art is, primarily, either spiritual/religious or secular/amusement in intent and execution. Take Milton or Pepys. Today, the overwhelming materialism of our society reflects an insatiable hunger.

Even as starving artists we’re enmeshed in materialism, one way or another. It’s so easy to hold the artist up in some idealized light or the product itself as the object of worship, an idolatry, totally forgetting to turn to the Source of All. The worship of living genius, from Beethoven and the Romantic era on. Or the pretty faces of mostly Hollywood celebrity today.

As an editor on newspapers where nearly everyone was giving totally (many unpaid hours of overtime, etc.) in an attempt for excellence, I was always appalled by the charge of “elitism,” which comes to mean “give me mediocrity not the truth” or “mere pleasantry” from the same people who would not accept such standards in their professional football team or new automobile.

The shift in the meaning of “culture” from learning and aspiration to the mundane lowest common denominator of daily life. Culture, as in a petri dish of mold or germs, rather than a rare book library or new opera.

Still, if you want to comprehend the view from the top of the mountain, you need to climb it. And be warned: driving, if a road’s an option, loses a lot in the translation. From a religious point of view, at least, we can’t settle for anything less than the best in the end.