This article previously appeared in adapted form in de Volkskrant.
On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, George Lakoff published 17 things you can do to save democracy during Trump’s second term.
In that piece, Lakoff states quite a few obvious truths, but he also makes a few good points. And one resonated with me in particular: it was about the social and democratic importance of art and culture.
I am often asked whether I don’t find it difficult to have one foot in civil society and the other in the cultural sector. People at NGOs or activist groups do not always understand why it is important to spend time helping or funding a museum, a theatre, a musician or an artist. Don’t we have more urgent problems to solve than keeping a modern art institution afloat? Conversely, part of the cultural sector has come to see social challenges and organisations mainly as challenges and threats: ‘complicated’ assignments from the government, such as getting more women of colour into the organisation’s leadership. Or they are (rightly) concerned with protecting their artworks against actions by climate activists or afraid of pro-Palestine activists.
However, I have never had much difficulty explaining the connection between the two worlds. In doing so, I also gratefully make use of the clichés I often see on protest signs: “Earth without Art is just Eh” or “No Music on a Dead Planet”. In short: we need a livable planet to save art, and we need art to make life on the planet worthwhile too. But the importance is even more intertwined, as Lakoff also emphasizes:
“Literature, music, and art, are crucial to a healthy society and a functioning democracy. Fund them and support them in every way you can. Artists, musicians, and writers will help inspire the changes we need.”
George Lakoff is the founding father of narrative thinking and framing. Recently, during a storytelling workshop, I used the following example to explain the differences between superficial frames and stories, narratives, and the deeper narratives that underlie them: Jaws is a story about a man who has to kill a shark. Together with many other stories, it builds a narrative that “sharks are scary and dangerous.” The deeper narrative beneath that, which is always present, is about fear of the unknown and the relationship between humans and nature.
It is easy, in discussions about cuts to culture or reforms of codes or the cultural system, to remain within a superficial frame: culture is valuable because it generates money for our economy. So many people work in the cultural sector. We need a new code to promote proper governance in the sector. We need to pay more attention to geographical distribution when awarding cultural subsidies. All true, and yet less important. After all, these are at most causes or consequences of something deeper that we as a society seem to be forgetting: art and culture are intrinsically important. It inspires, sparks imagination, irritates and creates friction. Art connects and intertwines, brings strangers together, and can remove prejudices. And because it does so successfully, it has rightly and naturally gained an important place in our economy and labor market. And for that reason it is especially painful and harmful when there is poor governance or unsafe working environments. And that is why it is scandalous that for decades so little money has gone to art and culture outside the four major cities. But those are consequences of the importance of culture, not arguments for the importance of culture.
By limiting your argumentation to those kinds of surface frames, you risk stepping into your opponent’s frame: we judge things only by their economic value. Yet I still see the cultural lobby mainly using these arguments.
In short, Lakoff was right: we must stimulate and fund artists and the arts. And not because they contribute so much to the policy goals of the political whim of the day, or because they must measure themselves against the port or steel industry as an economic engine. Artists do not have to change the world, but those who change the world do need art. Advocating for the cultural sector therefore begins with learning to tell the story of the true value of art and culture better, to funders, your audience, and especially politicians and policymakers. I would be happy to help you with that.
