ABSTRACT
Writers supporting the arts often use religious imagery because religion is one repository of non - or anti-materialistic thinking. They use the notion of faith as a metaphor and a safe haven: at least here we will be free of values that are concerned only with the cash nexus. Art is about play. Children’s play is always purposeful. This book is about the marginalisation of the arts, so they are not in the core of the curriculum, but on the edge; barely, in many cases, in the schools at all. The arts are in the doghouse, and the new working class is an underclass in cardboard boxes. And the arts have to battle, not just for themselves, but for everybody who knows that his or her right to speak is threatened.
