In the humanist tradition: the RAND study on the benefits of art.(Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts )(Book Review)

Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts Kevin F. McCarthy, Elizabeth H. Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras, and Arthur Brooks Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2004 104 pp. $20.00

The authors of Gifts of the Muse make two statements that I think are important in understanding and assessing their effort. The first is that their conception of art and its benefits is grounded in the humanist tradition and not in fashionable contemporary theories that extol art's social and political aspects. The second is that, despite their admitted lack of empirical proof ...