"How utterly we fail at discussing culture in America"
April 13, 2009 by CMC
Newsweek recently reported on Wynton Marsalis’ speech to the arts advocate organization Americans for the Arts. In it, he made his case for the importance of the arts to Americans. He eloquently spoke of how throughout our history Americans have used “homegrown arts to make us into one people, to teach us who we are.” He ended his speech by playing his horn to a standing and clapping crowd.
Noting how art is not given its proper due in policy and political circles, the author of the piece faults what he considers arts advocates’ failed strategies: talking about the economic and job-generating value of arts, or of art’s power in cultural diplomacy, or of art as powerful entertainment. He then argues that “…amid all the demands for better funding for the arts, hardly anybody addresses the graver shortfall, which is for better thinking about the arts.”
Arts communities have clearly failed to develop a broad consensus about their importance and value. And new and persuasive thinking is surely in order to make the case that art matters. Just as we cannot reduce music to just an economic force, we also cannot rely on the emotional power and historical resonance of music in making our case that music matters. We must come up with better “frames” with which to make our case, now more than ever.
But we should also not rely on just making the abstract case for art through framing. Art is generated from communities, whether hyper-local ones or national ones. We must work to support these communities. We must make it easier and more rewarding to participate in these communities. And we must articulate why these communities are fundamental to our national success.
To do this, we can use community organizing tools to give artists a place at the policy making table. We can develop music-friendly policies and laws and hold lawmakers accountable for their support–or lack thereof–of them. This is the kind of hard work that CMC is doing now, and we think it’s the most effective way to give support to the wonderful advocates like Wynton Marsalis, who put into sound the value and power of art of everyday.
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What type of community organizing tools did you have in mind? Could the social web play a part in this strategy?
Yes, absolutely. And good old fashioned knocking-on-doors organizing, too. Much like a political campaign, actually.