Although this year is mostly described as an off-year election in most of the country, here in New Jersey it’s an important election year, as three very different candidates vie for the governor’s office. Interestingly, October (when the campaigns will run hottest) is also National Arts and Humanities Month. For more than two decades, the White House, Congress, and thousands of municipal governments and cultural organizations across the country use October to celebrate the unique role the arts and humanities play in the lives of our families, communities and country.
If trying to connect the election cycle to Arts and Humanities Month seems a stretch, bear with me a second. Politics and governing are the way we employ the accumulated wisdom, intellect and imagination of mankind in service of the greater good, but the arts and humanities are the way that we communicate wisdom to each other and allow for contemplation and reflection.
Where would we be today if thinkers like Thomas Paine or Alexis de Tocqueville had been unable to put pen to paper and then publish their thoughts for wider distribution? Where would we be today without contemporary writers like Maureen Dowd, Taylor Branch and Doris Kearns Goodwin? Or, for that matter, satirists and entertainers like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Lewis Black? (Black is at the Basie Oct. 22, and Colbert on Nov. 1.)
Whether it’s a scholarly treatise, or just an excuse to have a good laugh and lift your spirits during these, the most recent times that try men’s souls, the arts and humanities enhance and enrich the lives of every citizen. Better yet, the nonprofit arts industry strengthens our economy, generating $166 billion in total economic activity annually, and supporting the full-time equivalent of 5.7 million jobs. In Red Bank alone, the Count Basie Theatre’s activity has an economic impact of over $10 million a year, supporting the full-time equivalent of over 300 jobs.W
hat could be more American and worthy of celebration than that?
So in the name of democracy and a celebration of all that is good and right about our communities (and it is exactly in times like this it’s important to remember there is a lot that is right about our communities), I call upon each and every citizen to go out at least once this month (preferably more) and celebrate and promote the arts and culture in our great state.
Numa C. Saisselin
CEO Count Basie Theatre Inc.
Red Bank