Culture and the State in America

Abstract

During 1989-1990 the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) underwent a fierce attack because it indirectly funded allegedly anti-Christian work by Andres Serrano and an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe considered pornographic by some. In 1991 a revisionist, didactic display of western art at the National Museum of American Art (part of the Smithsonian Institution) aroused congressional ire. Yet that fracas now seems, in retrospect, fairly calm compared to the controversy generated in 1994-1995 by The Last Act, a long-planned exhibition concerning the end of World War II in the Pacific slated to appear in the National Air and Space Museum, part of the Smithsonian. It was cancelled by the secretary of the Smithsonian because of immense political pressure and adverse publicity emanating from veterans' organizations and from Capitol Hill. Throughout 1995 those who hoped to eliminate entirely the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the NEA, the Institute of Museum Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and to reduce support for the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not succeed, but they did achieve devastating budgetary cuts. Moreover, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich insisted in a twopage essay in Time magazine that removing cultural funding from the federal budget ultimately will improve the arts and the country.' These controversies and attacks, taken together, have had me wondering why it is that most nations in the world have a ministry of culture in some form, whereas the United States does not. Indeed, the very notion seems politically inconceivable in this country. It has been proposed from time to time, most notably in 1936-1938 (offered in Congress during Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term as the CoffeePepper bill), but each time abortively.2 It has been considered and rejected by several presidential administrations. Comparative investigation of State support for