Abstracts of issue 18 (2003)

Art as Luxury (Clichés and Policy)

The view about music as a science is analysed from a sociological point of view. It is argued that this view is maintained by the need to overcome a main cliché that appears to be dominant during modernity. It is the cliché about art as luxury. It is argued that alienated social relations in cultural life generate both this cliché and the view about music as a science. They both have serious negative implications for the musical education and for the cultural life in general. The paradoxes of the musical education in Greece are analysed on this basis. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that the cultural and the educational policy are based on the cliché about the arts as luxury. This fact is verified by the data collected from a field research in institutes of music education and by a quantitative analysis of the public music schools curriculum. Finally, it is argued that contemporary cultural development requires a type of educational and cultural policy that is incompatible with the cliché about art as luxury.

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