{"id":3395,"date":"2025-01-24T13:02:49","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T18:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3395"},"modified":"2025-01-24T13:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T18:02:52","slug":"the-tangled-legacy-of-jfk-and-the-cultural-cold-war-america-needs-a-new-public-policy-for-the-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2025\/01\/the-tangled-legacy-of-jfk-and-the-cultural-cold-war-america-needs-a-new-public-policy-for-the-arts.html","title":{"rendered":"The Tangled Legacy of JFK and the Cultural Cold War:\u00a0America Needs a New Public Policy for the Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Kennedy at Amherst College, where in a major arts address he extolled “free artists”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Today\u2019s online Persuasion<\/em> magazine carries my thoughts on \u201cThe Tangled Legacy of JFK and the Cultural Cold War:\u00a0America Needs a New Public Policy for the Arts.\u201d You can read it here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottom-line, I write: \u201cIf, logically, American arts policy today should focus on greatly increasing government support at every level, never has this prospect seemed less likely. Now, too, is a logical moment for top-down cultural diplomacy to soften and inform relations with at least some governments deemed hostile or intractable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a longer extract:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is little-known that, when he died, President John F. Kennedy was about to appoint Richard Goodwin \u2013 a vigorous member of his inner circle \u2013 his advisor on the arts. Kennedy\u2019s initiative would have vitally supported the ongoing cultural Cold War with Soviet Russia. Something like it is ever more necessary today. The American arts \u2013 as will increasingly become widely apparent \u2013 are in crisis. And the United States, incongruously, still possesses no Ministry of Culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy\u2019s arts advocacy was surpassingly eloquent. . . . At the same, time, however, the White House\u2019s eagerness to host the likes of Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Casals was mired in Cold War rhetoric. The central dogma of the cultural Cold War, as pursued by the United States Government, was the notion that only \u201cfree artists\u201d in \u201cfree societies\u201d produce great art \u2013 a plainly unsupportable claim. . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the \u201cpropaganda of freedom\u201d cheapened freedom by overpraising it, turning it into a reductionist propaganda mantra, is one measure of the intellectual cost of the Cold War. . . .  It also prejudiced Kennedy against government arts subsidies \u2013 lest artists discover themselves pushed and prodded by the state. And this prejudice lingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are today witnessing an erosion of the arts far beyond the arts challenge that worried Kennedy. . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where will new funding arise? . . . Though the need for government support is now self-evident, though the American experiment in laissez-faire arts support can by now be pronounced a failure, there is no political will to create an Arts Council on the European model. We have no Jacob Javits or Claiborne Pell in Congress, no Nancy Hanks at the NEA. Social justice activism has fractured the arts community at a crucial moment. Widespread public awareness of the arts as a necessary component of a nation\u2019s life remains mainly apparent abroad. If, logically, American arts policy today should focus on greatly increasing government support at every level, never has this prospect seemed less likely. Now, too, is a logical moment for top-down cultural diplomacy to soften and inform relations with at least some governments deemed hostile or intractable. . . .<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An indispensable Cold War asset, cultural diplomacy concentrated JFK\u2019s vision of a more civilized nation. But reductionist misunderstandings of the arts \u2013 as ambassadors of \u201cfreedom\u201d or instruments of social justice \u2013 ultimately disserve America\u2019s vital interests, whether at home or abroad.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read a related article on why the arts and social justice are strange bedfellows, click <\/em>here:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more about \u201cThe Propaganda of Freedom,\u201d click <\/em>here<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s online Persuasion magazine carries my thoughts on \u201cThe Tangled Legacy of JFK and the Cultural Cold War:\u00a0America Needs a New Public Policy for the Arts.\u201d You can read it here. Bottom-line, I write: \u201cIf, logically, American arts policy today should focus on greatly increasing government support at every level, never has this prospect seemed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","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}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-SL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3395"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3401,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395\/revisions\/3401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}