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When it comes to living in a democracy, Nato Thompson argues, nothing affects us more directly and more powerfully than culture. Culture suffuses the world we live in, from TV to music to advertising to sports. And all these things, Thompson writes in his new book, Culture as Weapon, influence our emotions, our actions, and our very understanding of ourselves as citizens.

But comprehending how dominant culture has become also means thinking about the ways it can be, and has been, employed to manipulate consumers, by politicians, brands, and other powerful institutions. In Culture as Weapon, Thompson delves into the culture wars of the 1980s, the early origins of public relations and advertising in the early 20th century, how culture became a powerful vehicle for reinventing cities, and how brands associate themselves with causes to shape their own reputations. He looks at how artists have responded to these impulses, and how the emergence of the internet contributed to a new kind of immersion in culture, in which were more deeply absorbed in it than ever.

Thompson is the artistic director of the nonprofit arts organization Creative Time, which commissions and supports socially engaged works of art. He spoke to me by phone. The interview has been edited and condensed.

Sophie Gilbert: Your book explores how arts, entertainment, and culture in the larger sense color our view, as citizens, of how we interpret current events. Do you think this played out particularly in the last election?

Nato Thompson: I feel like it plays out in every election. And to put a cautionary note around it, Im game on for talking about the urgency of what Trump presents, but the misleading part of that is that it makes us think that those who didnt vote for Trump are somehow outside of the bubble, which I totally do not believe. It falls too conveniently into the idea that the masses are somehow hypnotized by the media-culture machine but the progressive rationalists escape it, which just isnt true. Our ideological terrain is much murkier than that.

Gilbert: Thats interesting, because my next question was going to be about how you explore in the book how people and companies use culture to expand and maintain their influence. And one thing about the last president was that he was really a master of this, and in using cultural soft power. Can you talk a little bit about how he used culture within his administration?

Thompson: Just the way Obama ran was interesting. He ran on a change platform, which is also what Trump ran on, obviously. Certainly this was the post-Bush era, and change was welcome to a country totally exhausted by the Iraq War and the War on Terror, and so the brand of Obama, to put it in those terms, was, Yes we can, and, Change you can believe in. Which certainly appeals to the heart, but could also easily be an ad for Pepsi-Cola. That said, he was extraordinarily personable, and probably the coolest president we will ever have. He was extremely deft on a talk show, he was the first president who could do a mic drop, he was the first president up there shooting hoops where you actually thought he was good. He was cool, but certainly not without a brand image.

Gilbert: The first chapter is largely about the culture wars that emerged during the Reagan presidency, and it feels in some ways very familiar, especially with the current threats to NEA funding. Do you feel like history is repeating itself?

Thompson: Yes, although at a very different speed. One of the lessons that were all learning that Reagan knew, very well in fact, is that controversies are on your side. When it comes to the culture wars, paradox is your friend. So when Trump says hes going to build a wallwhich I think is going to be the most iconic artwork of this eraits meant to make people angry. Some people think Trump is a master media strategist, but whether he is or not doesnt matter. His personality happens to coincide with the needs of the media itself, and his behavior is such that the camera cant get off him, and thats something that the Christian right learned with the culture wars. When Jesse Helms went after sodomites, not only was he able to galvanize what he called the silent majority, but simultaneously he was able to gay-bash, to talk viscerally about sex, while pretending to hate it. He could have his cake and eat it. Trump does that too, I think. He enjoys condemning things because the things hes condemning obsess the media.

Gilbert: Theres a quote in the book from Hitler, who describes citizens as a vascillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another, and how the art of propaganda consists of finding ways to capture their attention. Do you think culture wars are about uniting people or dividing them?

Thompson: Well, I dont want to generalize because its a complex media landscape, and certain actions do in fact bring people together. But to say something kind of weird, I know a lot of people say love trumps hatethey use that phraseologybut I would say fear of the other is a more historically powerful force. Fear is one of these things in our emotional toolkits that gets a reaction out of us as people very fast. In our psychology, fear doesnt have an opposite: It is the dominant emotional register. I say that because its useful to understand that fear is something were very vulnerable to, and because of that it will continue to be used. Its a weapon we use on all fronts, because its how we function. This is the way things tend to have played out historically, and are playing out now.

Gilbert: What did you make of the inauguration? What kind of message did it project?

Thompson: It was interestingthere was so much footage of anarchists breaking windows, and I thought, this is the same media impulse that couldnt take its eyes off Trump. An alternative title for the book certainly could have been, If It Bleeds, It Leads, and you see that same addiction to hyperbole, addiction to sensationalism, ratings, clickbait. I watched that and was so infuriated by it, because it just felt like nothing was changing in terms of the way were reading the world.

Gilbert: I wanted to ask, too, about the concert the day before, with Toby Keith and The Piano Guys. Eight years previously we saw this huge cultural event with Bruce Springsteen and Beyonc, and the recent concert was also touted as a big inaugural event but the talent was markedly different. Do you have any thoughts on the message of that?

Thompson: Theres been such a different range in this election with cultural strategies, and here Im talking capital-C culture, like arts and entertainment. Because, of course, we all know Trump had a difficult time getting acts to agree to come, and certainly had he had his druthers, he would have had the Rolling Stones or someone big-name and mainstream, but it didnt go that way. Quite frankly, I dont think Trump thinks of himself as appealing to the demographic that actually ended up playing the inaugural concert.

Gilbert: I thought about the protests, too, when I was reading the section on Campbells soup, and the power of branding for charitable causes, like pink soup cans for breast cancer. It seems theres immense power in this instant visual iconography, like a sea of pink hats everywhere.

Thompson: As far as Im concerned, that march could have been led by a myriad of different issues, but thank goodness it was a womens march. It was great for that, it had a different tone and a different feel, and the pink hats led a lot of that, a feeling of literal texture. The Campbells thing is a little different because that chapter is about how companies like to brand themselves as social-good companies, like how Googles motto is Dont Be Evil. I think that under Trump were going to be in for a lot more of brands for social justice, because, I suspect, a lot of people are going to be unhappy with him, even if they supported him. A lot of the energy with him was against somethingagainst Hillaryand now shes out of the picture thatll have to shift to another target. And a lot of companies will be able to position themselves as being against the current system, when really in fact theyre not against it at all.

Gilbert: The idea in the book too about the massive psychogenic illness of social media, and our self-perpetuating bubbles was fascinating. Because right now, every time I go on Twitter, I get a feedback loop of doom.

Thompson: I think were all in a national and international learning curve with that. Its almost like theres an emotional logic to social networking that were all learning together, collectively. Were learning the emotional responses that happen to us online, were learning that were all kind of trolls when it comes to the internet. Were watching everyone freak out but also learning that freaking out emotionally wears us down. Were all on this strange emotional rollercoaster ride together. This is such a new way to receive news, its such a new way to relate to people close to us. Who knows where its all going? But that, certainly, is very different from the culture wars of the 80s.

Gilbert: How can we, as consumers of culture, be aware of the ways in which our emotions might be being manipulated by it? While also not being afraid of it?

Thompson: Well, its a good question. I think mindfulness, certainly, and Im no therapist, but Im a big fan of talking things out in groups and getting some distance from how things affect you before you react to them. Theres an early analysis in the book of Walter Lippmann [his thoughts on democracy, and how he believed that people acted emotionally rather than rationally]. I would say the same analysis applies to media. I dont want to dismiss democracy as a concept, but certainly key pillars of itthat citizens vote rationallyare inaccurate when it comes to who we are as people. Part of that, then, is really getting a handle on how people know what they know. A lot of what drives culture is branding, and a lot of the driving engine of our society knows already exactly who we are and how to get us to do things. The logic of most industries actually works very coercively. So, Im not answering your question, but I think its good to be aware of how intimate and deeply fearful we are.

Gilbert: What I took from your last answer is that since were begin targeted so effectively by brands based on our identity, maybe we should start mixing things up? I should start consuming culture that isnt typically my kind of thing?

Thompson: Quite honestly, on a more strategic level, its good to just get outside of your bubbles. Looking at the red state/blue state thing, its not really about states. If you throw a rock 40 minutes outside of a city, youll probably hit a Trump area. But what that demonstrates, too, is that geographical proximity also has a huge power over who we think we are. The people around you inform you more than the internet does. This says to me that what we need is for people from the country to come to the city, and people from the city to come to the country, and we need to have honest and open conversations about what were thinking about.

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Nato Thompson's New Book Explores Culture's Power to Persuade ... - The Atlantic

The culture wars have fundamentally changed, not because Donald Trump won but because Hillary Clinton lost and lost to Trump. This proved what we on the Right had long hoped: politically correct shaming tactics would lose their power.

PC shame worked for so long it seemed unbeatable. I certainly thought it so. Leftists brought out everything this round, including maneuvering the Republican primaries for Trumps win because theyd have ever so many options for PC shaming against him in the general. Clintons campaign and its many famous and moneyed allies pulled off the pinnacle of PC maneuvering. Yet this time it failed.

Americas culture warriors have not fully absorbed this failure yet. On the Right we always thought this day would come, but it took so long and had so many false starts that I think we now miss its arrival. We react defensively to the shame tactics out of habit. (See, for example, the Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes affair.)

While I empathize with the frustration and feel the urge to call out the PC tactics for what they are, as a practical matter reacting defensively is pointless now. Any defenses we offer will be overshadowed by whatever President Trump does. Either he will prove the slanders true or he wont, and given the stories the Left is dishing out, they are giving him wide boundaries for bad behavior. (See for example,BuzzFeedand the dossier andSlateand Dylann Roof.)

Plus, PC shaming works when targets feel isolated, demoralized, and fearful of opposing the lefts agenda. After this election, who feels fearful of opposing the Left? Yes, constitutional conservatives might feel isolated and demoralized, but not about opposing the Left. Thatll be the easy part of the next four years.

Why interfere while the opposition is in the process of destroying itself? As the probable quote from Napoleon goes, In that case, let us wait twenty minutes; when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.

As for the Left, they have learned little from this election. They are still dishing out the shame tweets, posts, celebrity commercials, and speeches, unaware in their hysteria that only their choir is listening anymore. They think ignorance and credibility is everyone elses problem and have been reviving reporting habits from their fake but accurate phase back during the George W. Bush administration. (Recall for example, the origin of that phrase: thefake Texas Air National Guard memo.)

The days after the election saw many calls byjournalists, publishers, and others to rethink how they didjournalism. ButFredrik DeBoernoticed the turn back a few days after the election:

You know for a brief moment there,on Wednesday, I thought that there was a chance that wed see change where its needed, from the Democrats and from the liberal media that drives so much of Democrat messaging and strategy. I am holding on to the deluded hope that Lucy will let Charlie Brown kick that football and the Democrats will evolve past celebrity endorsement limousine liberalism and putting their trust in Ada, the Algorithm That Couldnt Do Math. My hope that the media might look at itself and ask why it couldnt rouse the public with all its oppo on Trump didnt last a week.

Theres been a wave of Twitter threads and essays saying that liberals and the media should have to change nothing, that its the rural enclaves of the country that have to get acquainted with the politics and cultural values of the urban coasts.

That wave of Twitter threads and essays shifting blame away from journalists continued. When it receded, it left advice columns and manifestos about how journalists can betterinfluencethe news. Skim two to a dozen of those pieces, and there isnt much onjournalistfundamentals, such as investigation and reporting. The profession honestly thinks it has been doing journalism all this time, and simply did not adapt a messaging strategy quickly enough for the Internet age.

Ben Rhodes was right: media is full of reporters who know nothing and do not care to learn. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg is taking a U.S. listening tour, but the over-vaunted Fourth Estate is sharpening its propaganda techniques.

Unfortunately for them, few others are going to play along with the propaganda this time. After this elections choice of the lesser evil and their many misses, public trust in mainstream journalismhas collapsed. Trump voters already did not trust the media. They found alternative sources for information, even if some of them arent pleased with how those alternatives developed. A substantial chunk of Clinton voters are livid that they were manipulated or lied to.

An undetermined, but probably large portion of the public is actively looking for realjournalism. Thats the game changer.

It is no secret that mainstream media shuns Right writers, and thus their ideas. A token conservative here or there and quarantined in the opinion section is all mainstream media powers have tolerated. This has far-reaching consequences.

Fox News and the Right blogosphere came into being because of this shunning, and the Right blogosphere evolved into Right online media. That is, the shunning produced not only the mainstream media bubble, but eventually the Right media bubble as well. Then, to keep their respective audiences clicking and listening, those bubble moguls resorted to the old Yellow Journalism: sensational titles on top of stories with more regard for seduction and subscriptions than for facts, research, investigation, or consequences.

One of the distinctive features of modern yellowjournalismis hate-click baiting. Leftists would dish out some PC shame and Right writers would mock them for it, hoping for the cross links. Hate clicks for everybody! Who cares if most readers arent even reading past the titles! Stats are up, and ad dollars are keeping the lights on.

While each sides cheerleaders might love the practice, many readers loathe it. They hate clicking on an article that has little to do with the title. They want to actually understand the issues, the history, the theories. They want more than snarky pieces about why a writer is right. Worse, those confident pieces often turn the coverage itself into the newsas if every story needs a Deep Throat angle.

While the public was generally content with the two bubbles, it was difficult to gain traction outside of either.After the recent election, however, news consumers who once liked having their opinions confirmed and who tolerated some of the hate-click excesses have recognized that they need to read more deeply, and not about the drama among press outlets.They have noticed thejournalismgap. And weve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time.

Since news consumers have other jobs, they dont want to have to do the researchthemselves. Thus, there is agrowing market for realjournalism, yet most of the legacy media is refusing to provide it.

Legacy media could actually fill thejournalismgaprather quickly by hiring Right, not just an opinion page token here and there, but reporters, editors, designers, etc. Legacy media still has the larger audiences because they were not born, as Right media was, as a reaction to lacking perspective. Having other perspectives in the news room would push them to old journalism standards and quickly revive their organization.

Alas, this is not happening. I started drafting this article days after the election as a guide to some of the newsrooms with the most bubble-bursting potential, but within a week the potential was lost. Every entry read like an open letter to my lefty buddies. Small sparks of interest in Right writers turned cold. In just two months, the Left and Right bubbles have grown more distinct, and further apart. And the journalism gap remains.

Capitalism, however, abhors a marketvacuum. Somebody will start providing realjournalism. Ahandful of writers, concentrated on Medium interestingly enough, are alreadyexperimenting. Butif more of the Right doesnt join the effort, then we would have blown a bigger opportunity than the Libertarians did in the last election. We dont need to wait for an invitation from big media anymore. Thats not where consumers are looking. We can simply fill the journalism gap and isolate the propagandists.

Ajournalismrevival isnt that hard. Get back to basics: research and straight reporting, proper sourcing, editorial fact-checking, copy editing, accurate headlining.

Going back to basics is not just nostalgia for an older, better time and way. We need real journalism. While I count myself among those who breathed a deep sigh of relief when the reality hit that Hillary Clinton would never be president, we still have a demagogue moving into the White House. Many of his supporters tried to persuade reluctant Republicans to his side by claiming that Congress and pundits would keep him in line.Constitutional conservatives know this must be done; expansive executive power doesnt become acceptable just because an executive order gets the policy right.

But who can keep President Trump in constitutional line? News media has hit rock bottom oncredibilityand kept digging.Congress looks wobbly. If he fails on the economyand one of theunderreportedtruths of this election wasIts the economy, stupidthen we need constitutional constraints on executivebackin practice before President Oprah Winfrey is sworn in. We dont have theluxuryto indulge our PC defense habit or traffic spike tactics.

A final plea of persuasion, for those of you seeking a little more justice forjournalists failures: think of this as freezing them out. Make them feel voiceless, as we felt in the past decades.

Billy Ray Valentine:[watches Louis clean his shotgun] You know, you cant just go around and shoot people in the kneecaps with a double-barreled shotgun cause youre pissed at em.

Louis Winthorpe III:Why not?

Billy Ray Valentine:Cause its called assault with a deadly weapon, you get 20 years for that shit.

Louis Winthorpe III:Listen, do you have any better ideas?

Billy Ray Valentine:Yeah. You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.

Coleman:You have to admit, sir, you didnt like it yourself a bit.

For the modern yellowjournalistswho thrive on clicks take away their clicks.Ignore them. As I recall, we didnt like it ourselves a bit.

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How The Right Can Bridge The Journalism Gap Now That Clinton's Loss Changed The Culture Wars - The Federalist

Another skirmish is breaking out in the U.S. ongoing culture war. The hot-button issue stoking the outrage machine this time: the meaning of masculinity.

The latest skirmish broke out last week when Wisconsin state Sen. Steve Nass, a recurrent critic of the University of Wisconsin, sent an email to his colleagues in the Wisconsin Legislature with the subject line, UW-Madison Declares War on Men and Their Masculinity Not a Joke.

The target of Nass ire is the University of Wisconsin Mens Project, a six-week course that offers college-aged men the opportunity to critically reflect on an age-old question: What does it mean to be a man?

The dueling sides (however reductive) in this latest culture war flare-up should seem familiar. In one corner, the cultural conservatives, like David French of the National Review, who believe that men in general have essential natures that are different from women. We shouldnt be cultivating a masculinity that valorizes vulnerability, conservatives insist; rather, we should be raising young men to embrace their natural strength, demonstrate courage, and live dutifully. Inasmuch as boys are taught what it means to be a man, its the responsibility of the family to instill proper values and certainly not the university they claim.

In the other corner are liberal academics who see masculinity as a cultural construction with some toxic characteristics that can be changed by recognizing how cultural norms of masculinity are created, embodied and performed. Regardless of the positive values young men learn from their fathers, liberals argue that popular media and college culture have just as much influence on the making of student masculinity. And the university which wants to ensure the health and achievement of its students believes it has a role to play in helping college-aged men recognize and stand against the most toxic parts of that culture.

Between these two sides is a yawning chasm, a gulf defined by differing answers to some giant questions about social change and human nature itself. Questions like: Is masculinity an inherent, natural quality of all humans with an X and Y chromosome, or a cultural construction? Is masculinity something that can be changed? If so, how, and toward what ends?

Despite the distance between these two sides, I think theres common ground here, if were willing to look for it.

As a young man, I attended the UW-Madison (B.A. 2007). And I can tell you from firsthand experience that the pressures young men experience during college, couched in notions of masculinity, are real and powerful.

I can recall listening time and again to other young men brag about the number and nature of their sexual dalliances, lurid tales in which sex was not-so-subtly equated with conquest. I know well the culture of competitive binge drinking, a culture that defines the measure of ones manhood by the toxicity of ones blood alcohol level. Ive broken up fights in those alcohol-drenched hours of the evening, after those same young men have been thwarted in their attempt to add another notch to their headboard.

This culture is, of course, not a monolithic description of college masculinity; plenty of college-aged men resist these norms and practices. But this particular set of values is powerful. Communicated to men through popular media, and enforced by men up and down this unfortunate food chain, college-aged men have too often been acculturated into this way of seeing and valuing themselves.

And its here where I think both sides can find some common ground. There are, undoubtedly, legitimate differences of opinion between Sen. Nass and the Mens Project. But lets be clear: Offering young men the opportunity to reflect on the excesses of binge-drinking, hook-up culture, and violence all expressed targets of the Mens Project sounds like the programming offered by a church youth group, not a group of campus radicals. So why would conservatives like Nass simply dismiss this work?

The cynical answer, of course, is that it makes for good politics. In many ways, Nass got what he wanted: another headline hell employ to justify further cuts to the university budget. (The last line of the email to his legislative colleagues asked, Will we have the courage to reform the UW System in the 2017-19 biennial budget?)

Instead of feeding the outrage machine of the culture wars with another splashy headline, Nass should engage with campus leaders who are promoting a healthy vision of masculinity. There's most certainly some common ground; and where theres disagreement, lets disagree! If the senator doesnt like parts of the Mens Project curriculum, then he and others should present visions of the masculinity they want to promote not just call for more budget cuts.

And then, perhaps, we could try something novel, like oh, I dont know talking to each other? This is college! Lets explore ideas, let our young men wrestle with those ideas, and then choose for themselves what it means to be a man intentionally. Despite our first instinct, the culture wars can be an opportunity for democratic engagement, not just scorched-earth politics.

These conversations are all the more imperative as we count down the days until the inauguration of Donald Trump, a man who intentionally and unintentionally made his red-blooded masculinity a central part of his campaign, and who now serves as a de facto role model to so many young men across the country.

From his campaign slogan to Make America Great Again (like when men and women had clearer gender roles), to his muscular foreign policy positions that openly embraced war-crimes (like water-boarding or killing the family members of known terrorists), to the sexist dog-whistles (contrasting Mr. Trumps broad-shouldered leadership with Secretary Clintons lack of stamina), to the outright misogyny of bragging about sexual assault and dismissing it as mere locker room talk, Trumps particular brand of masculinity was front and center in his campaign.

And regardless of one's politics, surely we can all agree that casually boasting about sexual assault isn't the type of "masculine" behavior we'd want our young men to emulate.

This makes the work of the Men's Project the conversations they provoke and the light they shine on toxic expressions of masculinity as critical as ever. While Sen. Nass and the Men's Project will never come to a perfect agreement about what masculinity is or should be, if the senator were to embrace the conversation, I think he'd find a lot more common ground than he anticipated.

Eric Luckey is a Ph.D. student in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.

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Eric Luckey: Masculinity and the culture wars: Looking for common ... - Madison.com

A few weeks ago, I participated in a panel sponsored by the Cherokee County Republican Assembly. The question was: Did the Conservatives lose the culture war? According to businessman Alex Gimenez, they did. Given that liberals have captured the media and schools, he identified these folks as setting our cultural agenda.

Matthew Perdie, a documentary moviemaker, disagreed. He argued that Donald Trumps electoral victory demonstrates that political correctness is on the wane. As for Catherine Bernard, a lawyer, she was more equivocal. She suggested that conservatives should be more tolerant of minorities.

In my opinion, however, nobody won the culture wars. Liberals, conservatives and libertarians alike were losers. Each faction promoted a program that is now in tatters. All made promises that were not kept. The result is a stalemate in which each side still expects to claim victory.

The reason that none will is because they are out of date. All three endorse ideas created hundreds or thousands of years ago. None was specifically designed to address the problems we currently experience.

Thus, many conservatives urge us to embrace religious verities. They tell us that if we recommit to laws handed down by a merciful God, we will regain his favor. We must therefore love one another. We are to treat each other essentially as siblings so as to safeguard our collective welfare.

This strategy will not work because too many Americans are secular. They refuse to embrace the old-time religion. Nor can three hundred and thirty million people truly love one another. Although they may behave decently toward strangers, they are not, and never will be, kin.

As for the libertarians, they advise us to become entrepreneurs. If we are free to pursue our private interests in an unfettered marketplace, we will all be better off. The problem with this approach is twofold. First, we are not equally talented or aggressive. Second, this leaves love entirely out of the equation.

Although the liberals have been dominant for about a century, they too aspire to the untenable. They tell us to turn to the government for salvation. If we allow its experts to make decisions we are incapable of making for ourselves, we will prosper as never before.

The liberals call this social justice and explain that a fully democratic regime will create complete equality. Once it controls the means of production, it will ensure that everyone receives a fair share. With greed having been suppressed by a myriad of regulations and affirmative action empowering the least formidable among us, the playing field will finally be level.

Except that we have now had some experience with residing under a bureaucratic yoke. Government experts turn out to be at least as corrupt as the industrial moguls who preceded them. Their version of political correctness pits minority groups against one another such that it is the politicians who enrich themselves.

No one is happy with the current situation because no one has obtained the alleged benefits. As it happens, we have developed into a mass techno-commercial society. This ushered in undreamt of wealth and a myriad of choices. But it also introduced unprecedented insecurities.

With so much power at our disposal, we are today capable of big mistakes. The traditional ideologies guarded against these. Religion gave us divinely inspired answers. The marketplace stimulated a multitude of technical and political innovations. As for the progressives, they offered relief from frightening choices by making these for us.

The alternative to these failed worldviews is for us to take care of ourselves. If we become emotionally mature grown-ups who understand the problems before us, we can individually determine what is best for us personally and collectively. As self-motivated experts, we ought to learn from the traditional philosophies so as to take charge of our destinies.

The problem with this option, however, is that it thrusts the responsibility upon us. Aside from the hard work it takes to master contemporary complexities, if things go wrong, we will be to blame. This prospect has already stimulated a flight from freedom and reanimated cultural solutions that have hitherto demonstrated major limitations.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D. is a professor of sociology

at Kennesaw State University.

Originally posted here:
MELVYN FEIN: Who won the culture wars? - MDJOnline.com

A lecture given at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University, October 4, 2016.

I was curator of Performing Arts at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 1988 through 1996. Our mission was to be a catalyst for the creative expression of artists and the active engagement of audiences. We presented 100 performances each season in theatres ranging from 100 to 4,800 seats. Given the mission, I at times produced identity-based performance work; some of which became entangled in the Culture Wars of the 1990s.

First some context: in 1989, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded $8.4 million in artists fellowships. This represented the apex of these awards. It was also the year photographer Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS and Senator Jesse Helms eliminated New York Gay Mens Health Crisis grant of $600,000, objecting to queer content in sex education material.

In 1989, two NEA grants came under political fire. The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania used a NEA grant to mount a retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpes work, entitled "The Perfect Moment," that included homoerotic photographs that some in Congress deemed pornographic. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC canceled this exhibition anticipating the content would trigger a political storm on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress also objected to The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts in Winston-Salem re-granting NEA dollars to Andres Serrano because of his Piss Christ photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine.

Cultural Infidels To mark the start of the 90s, the Walker put together a multidisciplinary festival, Cultural Infidels. Historical films by iconoclasts Andy Warhol and Jack Smith were juxtaposed with John Greysons Urinal and Isaac Juliens Looking for Langston. Kathy Acker read from her latest writing, and we exhibited one of David Wojnarowiczs lithographs. Art and culture were politicized; this is nothing new, and we were eager to support the present day provocateurs.

Karen Finley performed her profoundly moving We Keep Our Victims Ready. The first night was sold out. Two plainclothes police officers introduced themselves, telling me they were sent to determine if the performance should be closed down. Since this was the first night, I wondered why someone had complained to the police without having seen the work. The vice squad left midway through; there was nothingpornographic.

Critical and audience reaction was rapturous. However, syndicated columnists Evans and Novak wrote about the vice squad visit in The Washington Post, catching the attention of Jesse Helms staff. No mention was made of the quality of the performance, only that the vice squad visited the museum in Minneapolis.

Two months later, Holly Hughes made her Walker debut reading an excerpt of Raw Meat as part of P.S. 122s Field Trips. She returned twice more performing World Without End and No Trace of the Blonde.

Culture Wars Later that year, still in 1990, choreographer Bill T. Jones spoke to me about a new dance he wanted to create. His partner Arnie Zane had given the title on his deathbed: Last Supper at Uncle Toms Cabin. I invited Bill to be in residence in partnership with the University ofMinnesota.

Still grieving Arnies death from AIDS, Jones wanted to find hope as a gay black man in America. He envisioned a final resolving tableau of fifty-two nude bodies of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, ages, and genders. Local dancers, including students from the University of Minnesota dance department, augmented his company.

Before the performance at Northrop Auditorium, word came down that the university did not want students to be nude. Despite the warning, they all dancednude.

Some months later, Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church crowd protested Last Supper At Uncle Toms Cabin when it was performed in their home state at the University of Kansas.

Also in 1990: Keith Haring, who designed Bill T. Jones Secret Pastures, died of AIDS, and Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Centers Dennis Barrie was charged with obscenity for exhibiting Robert Mapplethorpes photographsthough after a ten-day trial, all charges weredropped.

Senator Jesse Helms pressured the NEA, and individual artist grants to Karen Finley, John Fleck, Tim Miller, and Holly Hughes were denied after being recommended by a peer panel. In a lawsuit, the defendants alleged that the NEA and NEA Chairperson John E. Frohnmayer violated their constitutional rights by wrongly turning down their applications for grants. (The Supreme Court eventually ruled in the artists favor in 1998.)

In 1990, Decency Amendment language was added to reauthorization language for the agency. All NEA recipients were required to sign a decency form. The Walker signed it. There was nothing indecent in what wepresented.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New Yorks Public Theater, Bella Lewitzky, Elisabeth Streb, and a few other artists refused. I spoke to Bella about it later. During the McCarthy hearings in the 50s, she was subpoenaed to appear before his committee, but slammed the door on the agent telling him, My dear, I am a dancer, not an opera singer. She was not going to capitulate forty years later.

The following year, 1991, on Easter Sunday, I presented Diamanda Gals Plague Mass at The Guthrie Theatre. The Goth kids loved their high priestess depiction of unbearable grief from the AIDS pandemic.

1992 saw Walker presentations of Ron Vawters brilliant Roy Cohn/Jack Smith juxtaposing the closet conservative lawyer with the flamboyant performance artist, as well as Reza Abdohs visceral treatise on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, The Law of Remains. Abdohs piece was performed in an empty warehouse. The audiences followed deconstructed tableaus of violence, madness, and mayhem, moving through the building and sitting on the raw floor.

Tim Miller performed My Queer Body that spring. On World AIDS Day, Will Parker sang from the AIDS Quilt Songbook; his last concert before he died of AIDS. Two years later, Minnesota Composers Forum, Arts Over AIDS, and the Walker produced a Minnesota AIDS Quilt Songbook entitled Heartbeats.

Ben Cameron, then head of the NEAs Theater Program, asked me to be on the Individual Artists panel that year. Given whom I had presented, I wondered if he knew who I was. Of course I do, thats why I want you on the panel, he assured me. Holly Hughes and Tim Miller received grants.

David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS at age thirty-seven in 1992, two years after he won a historic Supreme Court Case over an incident in which Donald Wildmon and his American Family Association distorted his visual art in a conservative fund-raising campaign.

In 1993, Huck Snyder, designer for Bill T. Jones Last Supper at Uncle Toms Cabin, died of AIDS. The Walker showed Derek Jarmans film Blue. The screen was filled with Yves Klein blue, devoid of moving images, with voice-over narration from Jarmans diaries. This blue was the color Jarman had experienced while being administered eye drops to fend off blindness from AIDS. A year later, Jarman wasdead.

Actor Ron Vawter died of AIDS in 1994, as did the fierce Marlon Riggs, who became another flashpoint in the NEA funding controversy when his Tongues Untied was broadcast on the PBS series P.O.V. His black queer reel-ness became a lightning rod for malicious conservativeoutrage.

Bill T. Jones brought Still/Here to Northrop Auditorium in 1994. To develop the piece, he held workshops across the country with people facing terminal illnesses. Newsweek called it a work so original and profound that its place among the landmarks of twentieth-century dance seems ensured. Arlene Croce refused to see it but wrote about it in The New Yorker, dismissing it as victimart.

Ron Athey In 1994, I presented Ron Atheys Four Scenes in a Harsh Life. The work opened with a campy burlesque dance by an African-American man, Divinity Fudge, covered in balloons. Ron burst the balloons with a cigar, and then transitioned to a scene in which he raised the tattoos on Divinitys back by cutting stylized marks, patting with paper towels and sending these blood-marked prints along pulleys toward the audience. Operative words to note: blood-marked prints and toward the audience.

In another section, Ron inserted needles into his own arm as his voice-over talked about overcoming addiction and suicide attempts. The iconography of Jesus Passion was then evoked with a crown of thorns pierced into Rons scalp with acupuncture-like needles. The evening culminated with two women being pierced and ecstatically dancing in a queer wedding ceremony officiated by Ron, now clothed in a business suit, exhorting in a booming revivalist voice, There are so many ways to say Hallelujah!

The sold-out performance was well received by an audience of about 100. Post-show discussions with the artist, attended by eighty people, were thoughtful and engaging. Theatre and dance critics had been invitednone chose to attend.

Three weeks after the event, a visual art critic from the Minneapolis StarTribune called, wanting to verify someones distorted, fantastical version of the performance. She did not want to meet in person, and warned me to look for her lead story on the front page the next morning. Here are some choice quotes from that initial article: Knife-wielding performer is known to be HIV-positive and that the audience knocked over the chairs to get out from under the clotheslines.

This was the first of more than twenty articles the newspaper published about a performance its critic had not seen. Vituperative argument about Atheys work escalated into that summers fodder in the NEAs reapropriation battle, since the Walker had received a grant to subsidize the full season of performances, including Atheys.

When Jane Alexander, the head of the NEA at that time, defended the Walker from the erroneously reported and inaccurate coverage, the disgruntled local critic fueled the fires by writing directly to Alexander and to Congress, Your attempts to blame the press for criticism of your agency merely trivializes the issue and obscures the facts. By advocating directly to Congress, she inserted herself into the narrative, and still the newspaper let her continue her coverage.

That local critic also wrote an op-ed piece. Admitting State health officials agreed there was little risk of audience members contracting the AIDS virus from the performance, she fired off that presenting this work was akin to adding blowfish to the buffet of a Japanese restaurant without warning the clientelepotentially poisonous fish whose flesh is said to deliver a peculiar high An eventraises thorny questions. As someone who headed the Walkers public-information office ten years ago, Im glad I dont have to answer them on the institutions behalf.

Walker Director Kathy Halbreich was quoted, I find the negative responses to this troubling, not because of the artistic issues, but because theyre suggestive of the fear we have of people with AIDS. The critics response was, Given the complexity of the issues thats a disturbingly facile response. Somewhere in the background I hear an echo of Clarence Thomas accusing his critics of racism.

Even after this incendiary commentary, the writer continued her reporting for the Minneapolis StarTribune.

Sen. Jesse Helms called Athey a cockroach on the Senate floor. Rep. Bob Dornan termed him a porno jerk and Sen. Clifford Stearns ranted about how Athey endangered the audiences life by the slopping around of AIDS-infected blood.

Minnesotas Sen. Paul Wellstone supported the Walker, as did Congressman Martin Sabo inthe House, and Sen. David Durenberger criticized the highly inflammatory reportingless to do with the Walkeror any single performancethan with the fundamental differences over whether and how the Federal Government should be funding the arts.

Televangelist Pat Robertson tarnished the Walkers good name, and the American Family Associations fundraising exploited Athey for financial gain. But the strangest solicitation came from the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, asking for contributions to defend artists such as Athey. To my amazement, they used the same decontextualized and demonized descriptions of his work the right was usingperpetuating lies and misrepresentations. Good intentions had unintendedconsequences.

National arts service organizations in Washington, DC went into overdrive, trying to save the NEA. However, none called me to discuss what had actually happened. Instead they only talked to themselves within the confines of the beltway, reacting to exploitive and explosive press accounts.

My mother telephoned after watching Rush Limbaugh. Buckets of AIDS-tainted blood were intentionally thrown at the audience, he snidely commented and the audience ran for their lives. When I told my mother Limbaugh was a liar, she responded, But it was on television.

The amount of hate mail and hostile phone messages I received was astounding. Example: We got the abortion doctor, youre next. Blood-red graffiti was painted on the glass doors of the Walker. The police included my house in their regular drive-bys. Any time I left the house, I would hesitate and look out the windows.

Through it all, Walker director Kathy Halbreich was extraordinary. Leaders do not always get to choose their battles. Halbreich was gracious and supportive under intense pressure, as were the Walker board and staff. Local artists, too, rallied around the Walker and me. One, Malka Michelson, created a campaign button: Safe Sex, Not ArtBe a John.

In 1995, Reza Abdoh, the Artaud of our day, died of AIDS. This was the last year grants to individual artists were awarded by the NEA, with the exception of literature fellowships and honorifics in jazz and folk arts. Art, love, and politics collapsedan extraordinary epoch wasover.

For many artists, validation does not come originally from the market place, but had come from the federal government, often leveraging other local and regional support. Ending these fellowships had dire consequences, signaling artists were no longer valued on a national level. Many state agencies followed suit. We have been living with the detrimental impact ever since.

Reflections During the entire summer of the Athey media swirl, not one museum director called Kathy Halbreich to offer support or empathy. Peter Zeisler, then head of Theatre Communications Group, called me irresponsible for presenting Ron Athey, although he had never seen him perform.

Other arts organizations facing controversy experienced the same. Few museums supported each other for controversies surrounding Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Chris Ofili. Directors and boards ran for cover when colleagues came under fire; burying their heads in sand until they, too, were challenged.

Regional theatres didnt support performance artists under fireKaren Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Milleruntil the Manhattan Theatre Clubs Corpus Christi firestorm or the various protests accompanying Angels in America and The Laramie Project sprung up across the country.

The art world got tripped up and confused, supporting only work we liked, but like should be criteria at home for above the couch. Freedom of expression is a more precious commodity than taste. Conservative critics were very clear about their moral imperative as they vilified artists and terrorized institutions. No one won the culture war; we lost it.

Ten years ago, at the World Trade Center site, The Drawing Center and International Freedom Center had to defend themselves against misrepresentative media, when then Governor Pataki demanded both institutions guarantee that neither would do anything to denigrate America or violate the sanctity of the site. The Drawing Center walked away and Pataki eliminated the Freedom Center from Ground Zero plans.

In 2010, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery included David Wojnarowiczs A Fire in My Belly video excerpt in its Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture exhibition featuring painting, drawing, photography, installation, and media images of lesbian and gay identity.

Museum director Martin Sullivan pulled Wojnarowiczs video when assailed by the Catholic League and conservative Republican Representatives John Boehner and Eric Cantor. They deemed it inappropriate for a federal institution, although none had seen the show.

Thankfully, the Association of Art Museum Directors lambasted the removal of his video:

The AAMD believes that freedom of expression is essential to the health and welfare of our communities and our nation. In this case, that takes the form of the rights and opportunities of art museums to present works of art that express different points of view. Discouraging the exchange of ideas undermines the principles of freedom of expression, plurality and tolerance on which our nation was founded. This includes the forcible withdrawal of a work of art from within an exhibitionand the threatening of an institutions funding sources.

Present Day More than two decades later, some of the cultural infidels are being embraced by the museum world. I wonder: Are the body fluids dry enough? Is the blood pure enough after all this time?

In 2013, The NEA Four, Karen Finley, Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Tim Miller, were in residence at the New Museum.

In 2014, the Hammer Museum invited Ron Athey to perform in connection with the publication of Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey, a beautifully illustrated catalogue in which Atheys extensive work is analyzed, placing him alongside Jean Genet, Antonin Artaud, and Yukio Mishima, as well as contemporary art-world figures Chris Burden and Bob Flanagan. The Hammer was the first American museum to present Rons performance since the Walker twenty years ago. I was asked to do an overview of the controversy in his career and lead a post-performance dialogue and question and answer session with the artist.

Last year, Walker Art Center included video excerpts of Rons historic performance and clips from the media coverage in a gallery highlighting work from the 1990s as part of the organizations seventy-fifth anniversary celebration. Both Ron and I spoke at a symposium. It was surreal to watch myself defending Athey on a television monitor in the gallery with Ron standing beside me.

And currently, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is showing Robert Mapplethorpes work in an exhibition entitled Focus Perfection, which had already been seen in Los Angeles and will then travel to Sydney.

However, the Culture Wars arent over. Here at Brown University, you are engaged in present day battles around freedom of expression and academic freedom. Your president, Christina Paxson, in an opinion piece last month in The Washington Post wrote,

Suppressing ideas at a university is akin to turning off the power at a factory. As scholars and students, our responsibility is to subject old truths to scrutiny and put forward new ideas to improve them.

At universities, we also advance understanding about issues of justice and fairness, and these discussions can be equally, if not more, difficult. From the earliest days of this country, college campuses have been the sites of fierce debates about slavery, war, womens rights and racial justice. These discussions create rocky moments, and they should. If we dont have these debatesif we limit the flow of ideasthen in fifty years we will be no better than we are today.

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Inside the Culture Wars Maelstrom of the 1990s | HowlRound