artistic accomplishment

Charles Murray asks in the pages of New Criterion:

Given what we know about the conditions that led to great accomplishment in the past, what are the prospects for great accomplishment in the arts as we move through the twenty-first century?

Although I take issue with his dark hints about "problems associated with increased secularism" [such as lower crime, higher education, and longer lives?] and his "strongest conclusion that ... Religiosity is indispensable to a major stream of artistic accomplishment," this article functions as an intriguing appetizer for his 2004 book Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950.