Back in 1965, Alvin Toffler, best know for "Future Shock," wrote a book called "The Culture Consumers: Art and Affluence in America," which noted that the booming American economy was capable of satisfying most consumers' needs and had produced what he called the Comfort Class. People across the country were turning to visual arts and performance arts, as producers, consumers and sponsors. He noted that colleges and universities across the country were both bringing in top performers and putting on some of the world's most challenging plays and musical productions with student groups, sometimes including highly respected professionals from outside the area as part of the production.
Unlike some critics of American culture, or its reputed lack of culture, Toffler traveled the country, visited university campuses, talked to professional and amateur performers and to impresarios competing with local university booking offices for both talent and audiences.
He also looked at what psychologists have to say about art, its role through the ages (lightly touched upon, but a useful reminder that art has only rarely been the sole province of the professional.) In other words, his reporting isn't politically correct, New York City parochial or infused with psych babble. This is quality journalism at its best -- inquisitive, imaginative in its effort and fact-based in its delivery.
"Art, not merely because it sometimes transmits the value of a past age, but because it has been a part of human society since the beginning, is an anodyne for rootlessness."
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