alt Hacker News> Tying artistic and financial success [...]
If you're referring to the article's description of the study's measure of success, the metrics had little to nothing to do with direct financial gain.
> [...] in the sense that they have vanishing influence on public discourse.
Nothing inherently requires art to be a part of the public discourse. Sometimes artists create art for art's sake, and/or just to make a buck. Sure, occasionally some art makes it big in the public eye and becomes part of the zeitgeist, but the vast majority of art barely sees the light of day.
The article, to me, comes across as focused on art as a job, especially sentences like "greater creativity and success in creative careers". There's a ring of self-help/pop business that just strikes me as artless.
> Nothing inherently requires art
Of course not: I've used academic in the precise sense of people deciding to go through the institutions of art, and coming out with a noticeable lack of tasteful intelligence. Is art education just a quest for social self-realization? is it a sinecure for the happy few? That I have no idea illustrates the point.