{"id":5516,"date":"2019-01-23T02:00:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T07:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=5516"},"modified":"2019-01-09T10:41:02","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T15:41:02","slug":"existential-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2019\/01\/existential-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Existential Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"233\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/ExistentialThreat.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5519\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"text-align:justify\">I have written about this basic topic on numerous occasions but I keep getting asked related questions in new ways. Toward the end of last year someone asked what was the most important reason for arts organizations to embrace community engagement: economic viability or cultural justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before I try to address the question, let me summarize the basic points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The first is that <strong>due to rapidly increasing costs, demographic shifts in the population, and ever greater competition for leisure time and dollars<\/strong> (to name just three factors), <strong>the economic prospects for Eurocentric arts institutions are grim.<\/strong>  This is the viability rationale.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The second is that <strong>historically<\/strong> those same <strong>Eurocentric institutions have received the lion&#8217;s share <\/strong>(more realistically, the brontosaurus&#8217;s share) <strong>of society&#8217;s cultural resources. It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify that. <\/strong>This is the morality rationale.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"text-align:justify\">Like any good retired college professor, my immediate response to the question is that there is no one correct answer. More to the point, the issues are not separate ones. <strong>They are simply different aspects of the same underlying issue, the end of European cultural hegemony <\/strong>(yes, I&#8217;ve already reminded you I was a professor) <strong>in U.S. society.<\/strong> In truth, they are both viability arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"text-align:justify\">Fundamentally, it doesn&#8217;t matter which argument is more meaningful to you. They both represent existential threats. And in each case the only practical solution is deep, meaningful engagement with new communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Engage!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Doug<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Image: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/pw\/images\/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif\" alt=\"Attribution\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">Some rights reserved<\/a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/arenamontanus\/\">Arenamontanus<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economic viability or cultural justice. Which is the more important rationale for community engagement? Doesn&#8217;t matter. Both demand deep, meaningful connections with new communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Existential Threats: Economic viability or cultural justice. Both demand deep engagement with communities.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[79,12,13,80],"class_list":["post-5516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-overview","tag-accountability","tag-arts","tag-community-engagement","tag-viability","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1qY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/ExistentialThreat.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5516"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5521,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516\/revisions\/5521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}