Question
Why is there such a wealth of artistic talent in the United States of America?
Answer
Artistic self-expression belongs in the self-actualization level of the Maslow pyramid. Lots of other, more basic needs have to be widely met in order for a significant portion of the population to turn their attention to art and stay focused on it long enough to turn genetic gifts into mature talents. You also need an environment that has infrastructure for this stuff. Like schools with music departments and instruments that aren't all broken for instance.
A market for art in the broad sense also helps, but is less relevant, since the returns on artistic striving are hugely asymmetric, which means for most, it is a "surplus energy" pursuit since there are going to be no returns, ever. Even in America. Which means you need that surplus. Which means lower-level needs have been satisfied to baseline levels relatively easily. The cliche of working as a waiter while waiting for your big break simply wouldn't work in most parts of the world, where being a waiter would not leave you with any surplus for American Idol training (either in terms of time, or resources to take classes etc.)
I also don't think diversity has a great deal to do with it. Urban living possibly does. There have been many periods in history where great artistic self-expression happened in relatively homogeneous populations.
Either widespread prosperity and surplus or focused patterns of patronage in otherwise impoverished times, are required for a broad artistic culture to emerge. There have been places/times in history where there was very little prosperity, but a lot of artistic expression still happened. This was generally because autocrats grabbed most of the resources and sort of outsourced their self-actualization to courts that they stocked with artists. Truth be told, these artists were often participants in propping up iniquity. Sometimes out of fear (artists who tried to follow the natural tendency of art to turn to dissent were killed) and sometimes out of self-interest.
The interesting thing about America is that you have both kinds. Most artistic talent is of the self-interested variety, living off the munificence of not-so-pleasant people, forces and institutions. This is why there is a strong (and valid) connotation of "selling out" to a lot of artistic self-expression in America. Many people buy themselves the resources to explore their personal self-actualization by carefully ignoring the sources of their support (or being too dumb to recognize it), thereby tainting their self-actualization journeys.
Not that I have any problem with that. I am a total sell-out myself. Just pointing it out for those who might have rather self-congratulatory views of themselves. One of the elements of my art is ruining other people's days with annoying ideas.
A market for art in the broad sense also helps, but is less relevant, since the returns on artistic striving are hugely asymmetric, which means for most, it is a "surplus energy" pursuit since there are going to be no returns, ever. Even in America. Which means you need that surplus. Which means lower-level needs have been satisfied to baseline levels relatively easily. The cliche of working as a waiter while waiting for your big break simply wouldn't work in most parts of the world, where being a waiter would not leave you with any surplus for American Idol training (either in terms of time, or resources to take classes etc.)
I also don't think diversity has a great deal to do with it. Urban living possibly does. There have been many periods in history where great artistic self-expression happened in relatively homogeneous populations.
Either widespread prosperity and surplus or focused patterns of patronage in otherwise impoverished times, are required for a broad artistic culture to emerge. There have been places/times in history where there was very little prosperity, but a lot of artistic expression still happened. This was generally because autocrats grabbed most of the resources and sort of outsourced their self-actualization to courts that they stocked with artists. Truth be told, these artists were often participants in propping up iniquity. Sometimes out of fear (artists who tried to follow the natural tendency of art to turn to dissent were killed) and sometimes out of self-interest.
The interesting thing about America is that you have both kinds. Most artistic talent is of the self-interested variety, living off the munificence of not-so-pleasant people, forces and institutions. This is why there is a strong (and valid) connotation of "selling out" to a lot of artistic self-expression in America. Many people buy themselves the resources to explore their personal self-actualization by carefully ignoring the sources of their support (or being too dumb to recognize it), thereby tainting their self-actualization journeys.
Not that I have any problem with that. I am a total sell-out myself. Just pointing it out for those who might have rather self-congratulatory views of themselves. One of the elements of my art is ruining other people's days with annoying ideas.