One of the problems in measuring the health of any community’s cultural ecology is that you first have to determine what a healthy cultural ecology looks like. If you don’t have an ideal state in mind, you end up with random and irrelevant measures (dollars spent by nonprofits, dinners bought by patrons, room nights in local hotels, etc.) that distort your sense of purpose and dissipate your sense of self.
The good folks at Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley are among the few I’ve seen to take the process in the proper sequence: define (out loud) what you believe to be a healthy cultural ecology, and then determine the measures by which you’ll measure that health over time. It sounds blazingly simple, but it’s astoundingly rare.
The organization just published the second edition of its Creative Community Index, with even more thoughtful and targeted data than the first run in 2002. Better still is the introduction to the index, which lays out how they define a healthy cultural ecology. You can disagree with that definition if you like, which is actually the most powerful result of their approach: it fosters a conversation rather than just advocating a cause.
So, what makes up a healthy cultural ecology? According to the index, it’s the health and balance of three interrelated elements: cultural literacy, participatory cultural practice, and professional cultural goods and services. In their words:
- Cultural literacy is defined as fluency in traditions, aesthetics, manners, customs, language and the arts, and the ability to apply critical thinking and creativity to these elements. Cultural literacy is acquired through formal institutions such as schools, fraternal groups and religious congregations, and informal institutions such as the family.
- Participatory cultural practice is the engagement of individuals and groups in cultural activities in a nonprofessional setting. Drawing, writing poetry, cosmetic makeup, singing in a community chorus, social dance, and garage rock bands are examples of participatory cultural practice.
- Professional cultural goods and services are the products of formally organized cultural producers and individual professional practitioners, whether working in the commercial or nonprofit sector. Examples of professional goods and services might include a production of Tosca by Opera San José, a new video game produced by Electronic Arts, a public sculpture commissioned by the San José Arts Commission, or a computer graphic created by a local artist.
The inclusion of ”participatory cultural practice” (a more productive label than ”amateur,” which has come to mean ”bad”) is a powerful element of this index, and a radical departure from the usual focus on only professional nonprofits. It’s also great to see commercial goods and services in the mix of creative goods and services, which likely annoyed some nonprofits to no end.
What a great report, and a great idea. I particularly like the notion of establishing the metrics, then taking measure of your community. Too often communities try to create “cool” and “creative” things, and then find out that what they have created isn’t really what people want. Would that every community had the vision of San Jose, and the resulting report card to help steer future decisions and development.
It looks to me as if the policy community’s tendency to broaden the definition of culture year after year is in direct proportion to the diminishing relevance of ‘culture’ as it has been traditionally defined.
Is it possible that cultural policy wonks have realized that culture-with-a-capital-C is on its way out, and that their fortunes are better tied to a populist brand of culture that isn’t bogged down by Western history or crippled by the failure of American education or threatened by so many audience development challenges?
I’m all for recognizing multiple forms of creative expression within the definition of culture, but not to the point of complete relativity. San Jose’s study is little more than an academic county fair where various forms of communal creative expression are given their due. The only exception is that it refuses to hand out any blue ribbons.
(By the way, I found your blog last week and I think it’s great!)