“S” for Scientific. “S” for Spiritual.

Any attempt to explain the clash between spiritualism and science and how the two differ in explaining the world around us in a short blog entry, is of course doomed. In this admittedly shallow format, and with my own severely limited knowledge and time to truly do justice to this fraught topic, I will resort to generalities. I can do no more than touch on a couple of questions raised in a recent conversation with a person one could label ’spritual’. In a dialogue between the two world views, there are some puzzling, possibly anecdotal similarities worth considering – if only for the purpose of sharpening our respective mental tools (so here: I admit nothing!).

Arts, Culture and the Butterfly Effect

Harper’s government announced $45-million cuts to various arts and culture programs. Kory Teneycke, Harper’s communications director said that “when we find examples of programs that are clearly not meeting their objectives, without apologies we will cancel them”.
On the face of things, this makes sense. Government spending as a whole should be scrutinized regularly. Arts and culture programs are no exception. But will funds taken from under-performing programs end up supporting ‘performing’ arts and culture programs? I somehow doubt it. One representative comment posted on the Globe and Mail’s web site bluntly expressed a populist sentiment that this government may share: “..arts aren’t my priority. Let millionaire snobs buy up crappy paintings. I want my tax dollars to go where it’s most needed…”. He may express, in less refined terms, what Harper’s government actually feels about arts spending.