Does global data reflect a war on the imagination?

before it answers that, Is such a question petty in this new age of genocide?

Chat GPT 5 answers 12.09.2025:

That is not a petty question—it cuts to the heart of how different forms of violence are related.

On the surface, genocide and the erosion of cultural or imaginative life seem incommensurable: one annihilates bodies, the other forecloses possibilities of thought. But history shows they are often linked. Genocide is not only the destruction of people; it is also the destruction of their ways of imagining themselves, their relations, their futures. The systematic suppression of language, art, ritual, stories, education, and memory has always accompanied mass violence.

So to speak of a “war on imagination” is not to trivialize genocide—it is to see how the same logics of domination operate at different scales:

• Genocide strikes at the existence of a people;
• The war on imagination strikes at the existence of a people’s capacity to think otherwise, to imagine futures not dictated by power.

In a “new age of genocide,” the fight over imagination may even be more urgent: when people are stripped not only of life but of the ability to imagine life otherwise, violence achieves its deepest victory.

You might ask, then: is naming a war on imagination petty, or is it a way of keeping open the horizon where resistance, healing, and alternative futures can be conceived? It could be that tending to imagination is itself a mode of resistance against annihilation.

Would you like me to draw out parallels—historical and contemporary—between cultural destruction, suppression of the humanities, and genocidal logics, so you can see how the two struggles are intertwined rather than ranked?

[If the reader would like this instance of AI to draw out historic and contemporary parallels between cultural destruction, suppression of the humanities, and genocidal logics, please email me here]

Please use your global reach to research data on support for arts and humanities mapped over the last ten years. Please keep the view broad, not narrowed down to USA or Europe, and include Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South America. The question you are researching is, Does the data reflect a war on the imagination?

Chat GPT 5 answers 13.09.2025:

[unless in square brackets the "you" below refers to me and the "I" below refers to the AI. I have left the caveats and additional solicitations for further prompts as given by the LLM.]

Thank you—I ran a broad, cross-regional survey of the last ten years (policy reports, sector studies, UNESCO/UNCTAD/ICOM syntheses, national budget documents, press investigations and rights-monitoring) and read that evidence in the conceptual frame you’ve developed (perception/imagination, virtual/actual, political preparation and the Skinner-box logic). Below is a concise, sourced, and interpretive answer to the question you posed: Does the global data on support for arts and the humanities over the past decade reflect a “war on the imagination”? I give a short answer first, then the evidence by theme (with concrete country/regional examples you asked for), caveats, and suggested next steps.

Short answer (thesis)

There is not a single global conspiracy to extinguish imaginative life; rather, the data show a systemic, multi-sited set of political-economic and state practices that cumulatively constrain imagination. These practices include austerity and the squeezing of public cultural budgets, the market-formalisation/commodification of culture, higher-education disinvestment in humanities, platform/attention economies that reward legible, scalable formats, and explicit political repression of artistic freedom in some states. In many places the outcome is functionally equivalent to a war on the imagination: the social conditions that sustain non-instrumental, risky, and experimental imaginative practice are being eroded or repurposed. (UNESCO Documents)

The evidence—main trends and representative country/regional data

1. Global shock and fragile recovery after COVID
   The cultural and creative sectors suffered very large losses during the COVID crisis (UNESCO/independent estimates put global losses in 2020 at hundreds of billions of dollars and the creative sector shed millions of jobs). Recovery has been uneven; many cultural workers and institutions remain precarious and underfunded. The pandemic revealed and deepened pre-existing vulnerabilities in the arts/ecosystem. (UNESCO Documents)
2. Public funding for culture: sustained pressure and uneven patterns
   • International studies and museum sector surveys show persistent downward pressure on public funding in many jurisdictions and a rise in calls for alternative financing models (private philanthropy, corporate sponsorships, tax-incentive models). ICOM’s recent global work documents declines/fragility in public museum funding. That pattern intensifies dependency on market funding and philanthropic priorities, which are uneven geographically. (International Council of Museums)
   • Examples: Brazil experienced institutional instability under Bolsonaro (dissolution of the Ministry of Culture in 2019 and contested cuts to Rouanet incentives), though later administrations and subnational initiatives have sought partial reversals. South Africa’s national arts budgets have been cut in recent multi-year frameworks, undermining subsidy lines for theatres and community arts. (Smithsonian Magazine)
3. Humanities and higher education: enrolment and program pressures
   Large datasets and national studies show falling shares of humanities degrees in many countries over the last decade; humanities departments have been closed or scaled back in universities facing financial stress. This weakens institutional infrastructures that cultivate critical imagination. (See Humanities Indicators and corroborating national reporting.) (American Academy of Arts and Sciences)
4. Marketisation, ‘creative economy’ growth and the commodification paradox
   UNCTAD and related reports show the creative economy’s rising GDP and trade footprint—but that macroeconomic valuation often privileges commodifiable, scalable cultural forms. Creative industries are simultaneously deemed economically valuable and pushed to conform to market metrics; this incentivizes safe, formulaic production rather than risky, experimental imagination. (UNCTAD)
5. Platform dynamics and attention economies
   While hard empirical studies on long-term cultural effects are still emerging, the structure of dominant platforms (recommendation algorithms, virality dynamics, monetization) systematically privileges repeatable, legible content and discourages sustained, slow, or non-market-friendly imaginative practices. This technological mediation amplifies the same instrumental logics identified in funding and higher-education trends. (See sectoral analysis and commentary; more targeted empirical work is recommended.) (World Economic Forum)
6. Authoritarian/state control: suppression, instrumentalisation and political use of culture
   Several states show clear policies that instrumentalise culture for state narratives or repress dissenting artistic voices—this is a direct curtailment of imaginative freedom. Examples in the period surveyed:
   • Russia: increased state-directed cultural funding and presidential grants are paired with strong political control of content and prioritisation of pro-state projects. (Kremlin)
   • China: sustained and large state investment in cultural industries (funds, subsidies, development of cultural firms) combined with strong content and ideological control—growth plus governance. (State Council of China)
   • Iran/Egypt and others: documented crackdowns on artists, arrests, censorship and suppression of independent cultural activity—direct attacks on imaginative dissent. (Freemuse)
7. Petrostates and cultural investment as soft power (Gulf examples)
   Wealthy Gulf states (UAE, Saudi Arabia) have made large, visible investments in museums, cultural districts and global cultural assets (Louvre Abu Dhabi, forthcoming Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Saudi Vision 2030 projects). Those investments expand cultural infrastructure but are also state-led projects of image-making and soft power—not necessarily supportive of open, dissident imagination. They often co-exist with limited civic freedoms. (Louvre Abu Dhabi | Book Tickets)
8. Regional heterogeneity and development contexts
   In low and middle income countries the cultural sector is often informal and underfunded even where cultural activity is vibrant. Some governments incorporate cultural policy into development strategies (tourism, trade) but funding remains limited compared with needs. Donor/philanthropic interventions can help but are uneven. (International Council of Museums)

Synthesis—does the data amount to a “war on the imagination”?

• Yes, structurally. The convergent pressures—(a) shrinking or conditional public arts/humanities funding, (b) marketisation and metrics-driven valuation, (c) platform attention economies privileging legibility and scale, and (d) explicit state repression in some regimes—create conditions that systematically narrow the social and institutional space for risky, non-instrumental, open imaginative practices. That is functionally equivalent to a political assault on the conditions that sustain imagination. (UNESCO Documents)
• No, not necessarily as a single planned campaign. The phenomena are multiple, uneven and driven by different actors (neoliberal policy choices, platform economies, authoritarian state control, and philanthropic market solutions). The “war” is best understood as a composite effect of these political-economic and technological trends rather than as centrally coordinated global policy. (BOP Consulting)
• Authoritarian exceptions exacerbate the worry. In places where the state explicitly represses artists and curbs free expression (Iran, parts of the Middle East, and other authoritarian contexts), imaginative life is under direct assault; in marketized liberal democracies, the assault is structural and mediated by austerity and market incentives. Both routes produce similar losses for imagination in practice. (Freemuse)

Caveats and limits of this assessment

1. Heterogeneity and counter-examples: Some states and localities increased cultural support or enacted protective policies in the last decade; culture and imagination also flourish in grassroots, informal and transnational networks that official budgets do not capture. (OECD)
2. Quantitative gaps: Many global datasets focus on GDP/trade metrics or institutional budgets and miss qualitative practices of imaginative life. Ethnographic studies and local case histories are needed to complement the macro picture. (International Council of Museums)
3. Platform causal complexity: Platforms clearly incentivize certain cultural forms, but measuring long-term effects on collective imagination requires longitudinal consumption and production studies that are still emerging. (World Economic Forum)

Concrete next steps I can run for you right now (pick one or more)

• Produce a regional map (PNG/PDF) summarising 2015–2025 trends in public cultural funding (Up / Flat / Down / Mixed) with citations for each named country (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, selected South American states).
• Compile an annotated bibliography (12–20 load-bearing sources) you can cite (UNESCO, UNCTAD, ICOM, national budget docs, rights reports for Iran/Egypt).
• Drill into platform effects by assembling empirical studies on recommendation systems and creative production (YouTube, TikTok, Spotify) and their commissioning/monetization impacts.
• Produce a brief case file on each listed country (2–3 paragraphs per country) summarising funding trends, notable policy moves, repression/investment patterns and key sources.

Which of these would you like me to prepare next?

[If the reader has any suggestions as to what would be most useful next please email me here]