AJ Chronicles: The Battles for Who gets to say what Culture Is

Two stories this week add up to something important when placed side-by-side. Congressional Republicans introduced a bill to nationalize book banning, which would give federal authorities sweeping powers to purge school and public library collections of content they don’t like. In the second, a volunteer group called Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian has spent thousands of hours photographing wall texts in the Smithsonian museums before the Trump administration rewrites them (which is in process). A lawsuit also accuses the administration of a “sustained campaign to erase history” in America’s national parks. While the Trump administration seeks to reframe official cultural history, people are responding by mobilizing to preserve the cultural record. Among all the other craziness of our current politics, this strikes me as the heart of the cultural moment we’re in.

Evidence abounds this week that the battles for culture are intensifying. The FCC asked broadcasters to sign a pledge to produce “patriotic” programming celebrating American civic life and then doubled down with a formal push for pro-America content. Trump demanded Netflix fire a board member — Susan Rice, a former Obama official — who warned corporations not to bend the knee to him. Netflix then pulled out of a contentious battle to buy Warner Studios, a few hours after CEO Ted Serandos met with Trump at the White House. The Netflix acquisition had already been approved by the Warner board, but regulatory approval for the deal was going to be bloody. Meanwhile Disney told the creator of its anti-fascist drama Andor not to use the word “fascism” in press interviews. Taken together, these tests of authority over cultural institutions are probes of where the line is, of how much self-censorship the cultural sector will perform without being explicitly required to.

A quieter version is playing out in public funding all over the map. Illinois’ arts budget is flat and below where it was 20 years ago. And the province of Nova Scotia eliminated 100% of its funding for programs that put artists in schools and closed nearly half of its provincial museum sites. The UK’s free museum entry policy, once treated as untouchable, is now under active scrutiny. The DePaul Art Museum in Chicago announced it will close this summer. London’s Young Vic is laying off staff after years of deficits. None of these are the same story, but they pose the same question: what does society actually owe cultural institutions, and why?

Aeon ran an essay this week on instrumentalization — the pressure on universities and arts institutions to justify their existence in terms of economic or civic outcomes rather than intrinsic value. This is an old and much debated question that has tilted back and forth over the years. Is the case for culture (to the powers that be and in their language) the economic value it performs? Or is it the appeal for support and relevance that culture helps shape the character of our wider culture? The argument is swinging hard to the “justify your worth” question. Culture is increasingly asked to prove its worth in somebody else’s currency. The FCC’s “patriotic content” push and Illinois’s flat arts budget are different expressions of the same underlying logic.

The strategic question for arts leaders isn’t whether to engage with this pressure — there’s not really a choice — but how. A few things may be worth keeping in mind. First, the self-censorship risk is real and insidious. Disney’s instruction to its Andor creator didn’t come from the government; it came from Disney’s own risk calculus. Organizations that start editing themselves before anyone demands it are doing the government’s work for free. (how has that worked out so far for the big law firms and universities that capitulated?)

Second, the volunteer archivist story is a model worth pondering. When institutions are under pressure to change what they say, the most durable response is to build a record that’s harder to erase. Third, the funding crisis and the political pressure are not separate problems. They’re related. Defunded institutions are more precarious, more vulnerable to capture. The organizations most at risk of bending to political pressure are the ones already operating at the margins financially (see Metropolitan Opera, et al).

Also Worth Your Attention

Ireland’s basic income program for artists goes permanent — with caveats. Ireland has made its basic income for artists a permanent program, which sounds like unambiguous good news. But the fine print is important: more than half of artists and arts workers in Ireland still experience what the report calls “enforced deprivation,” even with the support. The program proves the concept but also proves how much more is required. For leaders thinking about artist sustainability — which should be everyone — this is the most interesting policy experiment in the sector right now. And as AI threatens more and more jobs, universal guaranteed income is poised to be a bigger part of the conversation. What might that look like and how might it be implemented?

Artists are using AI and not telling anyone. A new study finds that artists and writers routinely hesitate to disclose AI collaboration and the fears seem to be justified: positive assessments of work shift measurably once people learn AI was involved. This is the human provenance issue at the fundamental level. Organizations that present or commission work might need some sort of a disclosure policy. But that seems problematic — on all sides of the equation. The gap between what artists are actually doing and what audiences know about it is widening, and when it closes, it won’t close gently.