What do we mean when we use the term cultural policy? It’s a question academics have been mulling over for decades and it is one that certainly bears repeating.
At a 1999 meeting of Princeton University’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies Faculty and Student Affiliates, members made reference to a 1983 paper, ‘What are Cultural Policy Studies: And Why Do We Need Them?’ by Professor Paul Di Maggio, Research Director of the Department of Sociology. Meanwhile, Lawrence Rothfield, Faculty Director of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago was compelled to respond to objections presented against the term by both members of the public and academic colleagues, publishing ‘Cultural Policy Studies?! Cultural Policy Studies?! Cultural Policy Studies?! : A Guide for Perplexed Humanists’‘ in 1999.
Rothfield points out that one of the legacies of McCarthyism is that in America terms like cultural policy, especially when written in capitals, can be associated with Soviet style efforts at social control and cultural homogenizing. He mentions the story of a major foundation that proudly announced a new $50 million program to support research in cultural policy, only to be peremptorily and viciously savaged in the press. The problem, says Rothfield, is that because America doesn’t have a centralized, coordinated cultural policy it can be difficult for others, especially humanists, to conceive the work undertaken by cultural policy researchers. Di Maggio concurs and suggests there are three main things we should take into account when thinking about cultural policy.
He recommends: “It is useful to think about cultural policy across many different fields; that we should be aware it can be a mechanism to achieve public goods about which there is broad consensus; and that we should also take into account that there can be a “distinction between direct policies that are intended to shape cultural fields and indirect policies that do so unintentionally.” So given all this, could it be that America would ever have a cultural policy, especially if broad consensus is achieved about which public goods we want to achieve?
In a plenary speech by Ellen McCulloch-Lovell, who served for seven years under the Clinton administration, given at the Barnett Arts & Public Policy Symposium, entitled, ‘Can We Have a Cultural Policy?’ the answer is: “In many ways we do, although we wouldn’t say so.” What we do have is a collection of policies enacted by government, private enterprise, national and local groups, and individuals acting to preserve a rich tapestry of cultural values, and that framework is supported by a political and legal system that tolerates and encourages diversity. But should America have one as, say, in Europe?
Here McCulloch-Lovell’s response is more of a party political speech than a genuine reflection on the question, but the points she raises are valid, and can be linked to concerns Rothfield expressed regarding the perception of cultural policy and how these have been used to create cultural stultified societies in the past. She says: “No, not a monolithic one, not if after every election funding is redirected, design and architecture are altered and organizations cannot know what forms of support are available. Yes, if it means this growing awareness of how many decisions stimulate or depress cultural development, if it means more commitment to knowing what works — especially after the 33-year experiment in public-private partnerships. Yes, if it means understanding and acting on the power of arts education to develop the whole, creative, reflective, communicative, human person. Yes, if it means employing the arts to have strong, aesthetic communities. Yes, if it means providing alternatives to the crass, the homogenized, the assaulting, in popular culture. And surely yes if it results in stable far-sighted funding for cultural organizations and artists.”
The adoption of a national cultural policy would convey the need for an even broader an in-depth debate about the role of the state and private enterprise in supporting and promoting culture, how cultural policy should be set, and what checks and balances would need to be put in place. It would also bring to the fore issues such as the treatment of the cultural heritage, social welfare, and access to cultural pursuits enjoyed, or not, by America’s indigenous population and those from poor communities.
Debate on these and associated issues is helpful in order to promote a culture where all its citizens are valued by all its citizens. Talking about cultural policy helps stimulate the debate, but as to whether we really want the state to set up a brand new Ministry with the sole aim of ‘setting a policy for culture’ even the Government acknowledges that there are some areas best left out of its control. As Dana Gioia, current chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, says: “The reason that America has had this diversely distinguished history of art, this unprecedented breadth of achievement … is because America was and is a society that recognizes the individual freedom of its citizens.”
