Losses to Our Culture

I am sure that some of my readers have not been happy with some of my political commentary. However, when politics obstruct our culture and the arts, left or right, we should care!

The most obvious case was highlighted in an article in The Guardian with the headline “Kennedy Center Ticket Sales Fall to Lowest in Years after Trump Takeover”. The Washington Post was cited on many of the details including the fact that 43% of ticket sales between September 3 and October 19 remained unsold! A year ago, over the same period 93% of tickets were sold or given on a complimentary basis. To be fair the fact that the President had called in the National Guard to Washington, DC. did not make people feel more secure, but Kennedy Center staff told the Post reporters that the week after Trump declared himself Chair and replaced the Board, sales had dropped by roughly 50%. We also know that some performers have bowed out of scheduled performances in protest. It becomes a downward spiral. With subscriptions way down, it discourages additional donations.

The administration’s directives to the National Smithsonian Institutions on what should be shown and emphasized and what not, has put pressure to fall in line on all 22,000 U.S. museums who have previously received grants for everything from exhibitions to updating their records.

Think about what it means to defund PBS (The Public Broadcasting Service). Some of the larger stations may find ways to survive but not those in smaller towns and rural areas. Children will miss out on PBS programs that provide free pre-school education. The beloved Sesame Street is just one of the PBS programs teaching basics like numbers and the alphabet, as well as social skills.

I am mystified by this war on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI). Maybe for once we should not be just using the letter abbreviations but rather what they stand for. What is left if you leave those words out of your life? Maybe the Left has gone to extremes with their wokeness but that is not a reason to censor plays, movies, books, and museum exhibitions, denying the foundation on which society is based and from which it learns. Happily, many arts organizations do not rely heavily on government funding, but even those will be strained to find private donations to cover any losses.

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency to fund the arts and arts education nationwide and act as a catalyst for public and private support. It is the only organization that does so in all 50 states. Just one example is the Creative Writing Fellowship, created In 1966, which awarded up to $50,000 to published writers of prose and poetry. It was cancelled this past August. Many well-known writers, such as Louise Erdrich, Joys carol Oates and Isaac Bshevis Singer took advantage of the Fellowship early in their career and we are the richer for it.

The Greater Pittsburgh Art’s Council last month published an Art Blog on Cultural Policy reported, “On October 1, NPR reported on 550 celebrities who relaunched The Committee for the First Amendment a group first organized during the post-World War II Red Scare.” In the letter shared by NPR, the authors wrote: "This Committee was initially created during the McCarthy Era, a dark time when the federal government repressed and persecuted American citizens for their political beliefs. They targeted elected officials, government employees, academics, and artists. They were blacklisted, harassed, silenced, and even imprisoned. The McCarthy Era ended when Americans from across the political spectrum finally came together and stood up for the principles in the Constitution against the forces of repression."

As I have often said, history repeats itself …