The comments so far on my post about the National Performing Arts Convention — have been mostly very heartening. As is one private e-mai, which I hope to be able to share. The comments are well worth reading.
One point that emerges from the comments is how silly it is — to put this in plain English — to assemble a group of well-meaning amateurs and ask them to solve a serious problem that needs the attention of professionals. Of course I mean amateurs in politics, promotion, and the planning of strategic campaigns. The democratic impulse here is well-meaning, but — in my view — terribly misguided. If the arts aren’t getting enough attention, locally and nationally, how can we fix that? Well, you might start by talking to people who deal with that kind of problem every day — people, for instance, in politics, advertising, marketing. If you assemble a group of people without professional experience in those areas, most of the suggestions you get will very likely not be useful. Or, as some of the commenters pointed out, you’ll get suggestions that have been made many times before. i’m not saying that amateurs might come up with something really workable that professionals would never think of, but if all we’ve got is amateurs making suggestions, we won’t even know when that happens!
Case in point: the most popular answer (see the NPAC blog for full details) to the question, “What should we do about arts advocacy and communicating our value at the NATIONAL level?” (Caps in the original.). The most popular answer — by far — was:
Create a Department of Culture/Cabinet-level position which is responsible for implementing a national arts policy.
But this is just silly. Yes, I know that some European countries, maybe many, have ministers of culture in their governments. But what would it take to create one here? Some kind of national upsurge in support of the arts. No president is going to support this innovation just because a convention of happy enthusiasts in Denver proposed it. And no Congress is going to pass legislation creating the post, just because people at NPAC think they should.
Once you understand that, the proposal turns out to be self-contradictory. But that can’t happen until the arts get the support they’re not getting now! The proposed solution couldn’t be implemented unless there wasn’t any problem in the first place.
Please note! I’m not saying it might not be possible to build a political movement to support the arts. I think it’s unlikely, but I could be wrong. The mistake, though, is to make the cabinet-level arts department a priority now, when you have to create the movement before any such thing would be possible.
Greg,
It was a pleasure to read the excellent insights from you and your readers in your earlier post about NPAC. I’d like to see more of these extended conversations in the dance world.
I’d like to offer a different perspective in response to your point above about “well-meaning amateurs” attempting “to solve a serious problem that needs the attention of professionals.”
I’m actually all in favor of “amateurs” addressing these issues head-on. For starters, we are talking about “amateurs” who are very knowledgeable in their own spheres of interest within the performing arts community. They may not have specific expertise that you mention in such areas as “politics, promotion, and the planning of strategic campaigns.”
But what we need, I believe, is innovative approaches to promoting and furthering the objectives of the broad performing arts community. New voices and recommendations are a great way to tap into new directions, experiments and possibilities for the arts.
And, realistically, when it comes to topics such as how can the performing arts better embrace the Internet, especially for the purposes of collective action, everybody is an amateur in this realm. The Internet, I believe, is highly underutilized in the performing arts and all voices and opinions that can contribute to new digital gameplans are more than welcome.
What I do object to in terms of the AmericaSpeaks process is what appears to be a relatively shallow, time-compressed and vacuum-like process.
The AmericaSpeaks approach, I believe, should start at least a month before a conference. Delegates ought to be provided with briefing papers, case studies and other related documents that provide context and background about the ideas that are likely to be generated during the town meetings. I’m not saying to overwhelm delegates with materials they are not likely to read. I’m recommending a thoughtful collection of reading materials that will get the participants up-to-speed.
Then, once on-site, the worthwhile interdisciplinary conversations (I like Henry Fogel’s description of the benefits of this brainstorming) will be grounded in a more realistic understanding of what has been done and what has been successful.
So, overall, I think the highly participatory approach of the town meetings and AmericaSpeaks is excellent in theory, but it needs some major modifications and improvements for it to have more weight and substance.
Greg,
You didn’t really address my point:
I described above how the quality of the discussions at the Town Meeting could have been more practical and meaningful if the delegates had been better briefed prior to the beginning of these participatory gatherings.
By better briefed I suggested that participants be provided with briefing papers about the topics that were likely to be addressed. The papers would, of course, come from experts in their respective fields.
These democratic forums will never be perfect, but I think they offer potentially excellent opportunities for experts in the field of performing arts to share what’s on their mind and hear opinions and ideas that they may not often be presented with.
To what extent should the voted on strategies be formally incorporated into the gameplans of associations who produced NPAC? That’s a tougher question to answer, but I’d be dubious.
Greg –
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Too often, my perception is that the performing arts community has this attitude that “no one outside our sphere could POSSIBLY understand the arts like WE do.” As if outside experts would be of little use. As if innovations and best practices had never been transferred across industries before.
The ironic thing is that we very proudly trumpet the fact that companies are studying organizations such as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra to try to learn from their management success. If corporations are willing to look to the performing arts for new and better ideas, why must we insist on figuring everything out on our own?
I attended an NPAC session that was given by former NEA Chair Bill Ivey. In that session he talked about a cabinet-level position too, in fact I believe he said he had approached senior staff with the idea during his tenure. While the idea wasn’t on everyone’s to do list people were politely listening to what Ivey had to say.
Even though he claims to have shopped the idea, Ivey seemed to not believe in his own cause. Current events and troubles aside, one of the biggest reasons a cabinet-level arts department will never be is how arts policy is handled in ten different ways by ten different departments each with its own agenda. The NEA and the NEH are the most obvious examples. The Smithsonian, the State Department, the Pentagon, even the individual branches of the military would all have to agree to give up their agendas in favor of a national one. I don’t think it’s likely that any of these groups would yield easily.
I can’t even get into the discussion about how or what we would promote as American culture since so much of it is imported from elsewhere. As Ivey pointed out, our biggest cultural export at the end of the last century (from a purely quantitative point of view) was Baywatch. As much as I hate to say it, what is more uniquely American than TV?
Greg:
There’s nothing wrong with a sector — even amateurs in a sector — setting big goals, including something as big as a Department of Cultural Affairs. Although in the past I’ve argued against such a department, today I’m all for it; not because a central authority would serve the nonprofit performing arts, but because the agency would instead work on intellectual property, access to heritage, trade in cultural goods, mergers among arts industries, fair use, Internet access for all, media ownership, Net Neutrality, and tethered hardware and software. Absent a central agency charged with making sure policy serves public purposes, legislation and regulation that shape our arts system have allowed the marketplace to pull these and many other issues away from the public interest.
Now, if we get it right, I’m convinced all boats will rise — including the boats holding our cultural nonprofits. But the first step is to place cultural policy on the public policy agenda, and step two is the development of the mechanisms necessary to advance a vibrant expressive life as a public good in American democracy.
Maybe we’ll have to settle short of a cabinet department — but even a White House Council of Cultural Advisors would help.
But Greg, I agree strongly with one of your key points. It’s not what we want, or what we think, that matters; it’s ultimately the priorities of legislators, regulators, and jurists outside the arts that count. We need to advance cultural vibrancy as a public good in post-consumerist society; maybe that will begin to get their attention.
Best,
Bill