April 6, 2000 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Pew Charitable Trusts “got mugged” last summer when it unveiled a $50-million project to help foster a national discussion about the management and financing of arts groups, says The American Prospect (March 13).
Some conservative critics scoffed at various Pew suggestions, including the notion of having the news media devote more time and space to the arts, and spending more government funds on arts projects.
Yet the foundation, in embracing the theory that “deliberative democracy” will result in sensible policy if disparate citizens are given basic facts about an issue and encouraged to debate, “is pussyfooting,” the magazine says.
“Sometimes, you just need to put your head down, ignore the Philistines, and do what you think is right,” it says. “Pew obviously shares the perspective of many in the arts community that they are underfunded, so it is frustrating to see the foundation pretending to stand above the fray, posing as an objective mediator.”
Pew’s attempt to help arts groups build a persuasive case for greater public support is laudable, however, the magazine adds. Part of its grant money will go to gather badly needed information: analyzing the economic health of arts organizations across the country, for example.
But the foundation may be falling into a trap in seeking to defend the arts using a utilitarian calculus rather than on the philosophical and even spiritual grounds put forward in an earlier era.
“Pew will talk about the money that cultural groups bring into cities,” the magazine says. “Businessmen will counter that sports teams bring in far, far more. And the business interests will be right. In a sense, Pew is trying to play the game by its opponents’ rules.”
Pew’s response is that such measurements are inevitable. “Probably the first attempts to really measure such a qualitative thing as an arts experience are going to be bumpy and imperfect,” Marian Godfrey, who directs the foundation’s culture programs, told the magazine. “But it is going to happen anyway. The era of accountability is upon us.”
The article is available online at http://www.prospect.org.
