A few years ago, I answered the question in the title of this post in the negative:
It seems to me that human development is very uneven:
Technology: The most rapid progress
Science: Rapid DevelopmentSocial behavior: Slow progress
Sports: A slight improvementPersonality: No progress
Art: No progress
Now, I wonder if this judgment was too hasty. Maybe I was thinking about this story in the wrong way. In this post, I will suggest that I have been conflating stocks and flows, and that this has distorted my view of the relative progress in these two sectors.
To be clear, I understand the argument as to why science seems to be more advanced than art. Science has advanced a lot in the last few centuries, while many of the most popular artists in music, painting, poetry and theater did their work centuries ago.
But now I wonder if this is some kind of “apples and oranges” comparison. It seems to me that a field can be judged by it stock of achievements, or of it to flow of creativity. Thinking back to my previous post, I believe I was comparing the stock of scientific knowledge to the flow of art. Let’s reverse those tests, using physics as part of science. What happened to the stock of artistic success, and what happened to the movement of scientific art?
During the first 30 years of the 20th century, physicists discovered the structure of the atom. They developed the theory of quantum mechanics. They have developed special and general relationships. No doubt there were many more discoveries, but those are some of the most important. Fields of applied physics such as astronomy also saw important discoveries, including the formation of stars, the existence of galaxies and the expansion of the universe.
Unless I’m mistaken, in the last 30 years nothing of this importance has been achieved, although progress continues to be made in many areas. However, from the point of view of the “innovation flow”, you can argue that physics is declining, and that the greatest breakthroughs happened many years ago. Who is today’s Einstein?
Now let’s consider artistic knowledge from a “stock perspective”. I would argue that the art world is far ahead of where it was 100 years ago, and far ahead of where it was 200 years ago. This progress has taken several forms:
1. New artists are constantly emerging from the area, adding to our stock of artistic creations. Painting like Picasso Guernica it didn’t exist 100 years ago. If you go back 200 years, then all the styles like Impressionism and Post-Impressionism did not exist.
2. Our understanding of the field of art has advanced compared to what it was centuries ago. In the mid-1800s, Vermeer’s paintings existed, and were completely unknown to art experts. However, most of the art experts lacked the ability to appreciate his greatness. Today, even people with undergraduate studies in art history can appreciate Vermeer. Many more examples could be cited, especially as you move up in time towards the present. So in 1890, Vermeer was “discovered” and yet Van Gogh remained undiscovered.
Goethe was one of the greatest minds of the early 19th century. In his book titled A trip to Italy, shows what a well-educated European might have known about painting back in 1816. However, I suspect that I know more about painting than Goethe. That’s not because I have a better mind, it’s because I stand on the shoulders of giants, watching a field of knowledge that has grown tremendously over the past 200 years. As an analogy, a college sophomore majoring in physics may know more physics than Isaac Newton.
So why the idea that art recedes while science advances? I see several possible reasons:
1. A lot of abstract art and atonal music don’t make sense to most people. But it’s also true that quantum mechanics and relativity don’t make sense to most people. Given enough time and progress, any field of human endeavor will go beyond the comprehension of most people.
2. But people are willing to accept models like quantum mechanics and relativity, when they are told that these models support technologies that lead to things like lasers or iPhones. For this reason, science is more respected than art. But the fact that people who do not understand any field accepting one of the two as a matter of faith is hardly a good argument for the claim that science is more progressive than art.
3. People use double standards. They judge art by flow—how does the flow of new fine art compare to the flow of new fine art in the past? In science, they look at the accumulated stock of knowledge, which is often increasing. That’s a double standard, love science.
In my opinion, many fields of art and science are well past their “golden age”. Rapid progress often occurs when new techniques open up opportunities for innovation—a knowledge equivalent to the Oklahoma land grab, when people rushed to claim land that was suddenly available. In science, techniques such as genome sequencing have recently allowed major gains in our understanding of how and where ancient people migrated. Areas of science without innovation tend to stagnate. In art, painting has stagnated and filmmaking has taken over as the dominant visual art of the last 100 years.
In my field (macroeconomics), things seem to be going backwards in recent decades. Few economists seem to understand that low interest rates do not mean easy money. Few economists seem to understand that fiscal stimulus is ineffective because of inflation. Few economists seem to understand that the Fed determines the long-term rate of inflation. Few economists seem to understand that trade barriers do not improve the economy. Macro is down on both stock and flow sentiment.
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