The Dumbing Down of American Culture
As a parent and as a citizen, I have long been concerned over what I perceive to be a decay in American culture. And the crux of the problem is life as experienced by our children. A life that is increasingly filled with advertisements, video games, computers, lousy movies and sedentary activity, and a seemingly incessant need for stimulation. Now I know that I am neither a sociologist nor a cultural anthropologist, so my views might not possess the legitimacy of my discussions concerning Wall Street or technology. That said, I did spend my childhood in a different era and am experiencing first-hand the environment in which my children are growing up today, so I am not completely without valid reference points or data. But mine is not a call for the abolition of the things that my children are experiencing today, but a better balance among them and activities that promote creativity, social interaction and physical and spiritual health such as reading, imaginative play, listening and playing music, creative writing and outdoor group activities. And I am deeply concerned that American culture has lost its way, and in the process has created a bifurcated society that further divides us along class lines. This is not my vision of America.
The catalyst for this post came from an abridged version of a commencement speech carried in the July 19th Wall Street Journal, delivered a week ago at Stanford University by none other than the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia. While I generally consider myself to be a pretty good writer and reasonably capable of getting my point across, Mr. Gioia’s speech is so beautifully written and well-considered that I feel anything I could say would pale in comparison to its brilliance. A few of the more memorable points mentioned include:
The loss of recognition for artists, thinkers and scientists has
impoverished our culture in innumerable ways, but let me mention one.
When virtually all of a culture’s celebrated figures are in sports or
entertainment, how few possible role models we offer the young. There
are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that
are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child’s
imagination, and we’ve relinquished that imagination to the marketplace.********************
But we must remember that the marketplace does only
one thing — it puts a price on everything. The role of culture,
however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of
things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what
is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A
culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond
mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us.********************
In a time of social progress and economic prosperity, why have we
experienced this colossal cultural decline? There are several reasons,
but I must risk offending many friends and colleagues by saying that
surely artists and intellectuals are partly to blame. Most American
artists, intellectuals and academics have lost their ability to
converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in
talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and
inaudible in the general culture.********************
We need to create a new national consensus. The
purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that
is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create
complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive
lives in a free society.This is not happening now in American schools. What
are we to make of a public education system whose highest goal seems to
be producing minimally competent entry-level workers? The situation is
a cultural and educational disaster, but it also has huge and alarming
economic consequences. If the U.S. is to compete effectively with the
rest of the world in the new global marketplace, it is not going to
succeed through cheap labor or cheap raw materials, nor even the free
flow of capital or a streamlined industrial base. To compete
successfully, this country needs creativity, ingenuity and innovation.It is hard to see those qualities thriving in a nation
whose educational system ranks at the bottom of the developed world and
has mostly eliminated the arts from the curriculum. Marcus Aurelius
believed that the course of wisdom consisted of learning to trade easy
pleasures for more complex and challenging ones. I worry about a
culture that trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy
comforts of entertainment. And that is exactly what is happening — not
just in the media, but in our schools and civic life.********************
If you don’t believe me, you should read the studies
that are now coming out about American civic participation. Our country
is dividing into two distinct behavioral groups. One group spends most
of its free time sitting at home as passive consumers of electronic
entertainment. Even family communication is breaking down as members
increasingly spend their time alone, staring at their individual
screens.The other group also uses and enjoys the new
technology, but these individuals balance it with a broader range of
activities. They go out — to exercise, play sports, volunteer and do
charity work at about three times the level of the first group. By
every measure they are vastly more active and socially engaged than the
first group.What is the defining difference between passive and
active citizens? Curiously, it isn’t income, geography or even
education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and
participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a
heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and
expressing the world — equal to but distinct from scientific and
conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being —
simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition,
imagination, memory and physical senses. There are some truths about
life that can be expressed only as stories or songs or images.Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our
emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, “It
is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.”
Art awakens, enlarges, refines and restores our humanity.
I find this incredibly alarming, mainly because I have a hard time envisioning the way back. Sure, my kids have video games (DS Lites, to be exact), occasionally watch Boomerang and see the once-in-a-while crappy movie (which still annoys me). But my wife and I find ourselves aggressively managing their consumption of video games, computer games and video content in an effort to maintain balance in their lives. I can’t tell you the feeling of watching my children experience art and literature first-hand; it is almost magical.
When we were in Paris last month we took our boys to the Musee Rodin, which has an amazing sculpture garden just perfect for viewing with children. My little one was extremely excited by the sculpture, making observations about how certain statues appeared to be related to one another (which, in fact, they were) and providing his theories concerning the artists’ motivation. Though he is only six there was a purity of thought and a clarity of expression that brings tears to my eyes, completely unfettered by preconception or bias. And when I was at the luggage return at JFK one day later, a fellow traveler said to me “You were at the Rodin yesterday, weren’t you? I recognize your boys; they had such interesting and insightful things to say about the sculpture.” I felt like hugging him. I couldn’t have been any more proud.
The problem is, we are not representative of the general populous. We live in New York City, one of the world’s great cultural hubs. We are blessed by having parents with artistic and musical skills and interests which were instilled in us as children. And we have the resources to travel and expose our children to different peoples and cultures. And it is even hard for us to fight society’s pressure for our children to conform, which means playing lots of video games, spending lots of time on the computer, viewing a bevy of low brain-food movies and other intellectually bankrupt activities. This is not a hopeful sign. I only hope that our subsequent Federal administration can take Mr. Gioia’s assessment into account, because he is right. And this isn’t simply a call for re-emphasizing the arts for art’s sake, but a call to protect the spirit of creativity and intellectual challenge that is ingrained into what it means to be an American. At least the America that I know.
