Unesco and Cultural Development: Experience and Policies

Abstract

There is a consuming interest today in culture. One reads incessantly in the West of the 'cultural crisis', the 'cultural revolution', the 'counterculture'. Increasingly culture is viewed by some people as the only salvation for the civilized world -if indeed any salvation is possible. Culture is thought to be a more effective restorative of civilized society than religion, which is seen as either too parochial or too esoteric; more dependable than science, which can fall under the control of barbarians. For many it has replaced business and politics as the most effective instrument of change. The problem today may be that too much is expected of culture: it is expetced to restore humanism, counter industrial alienation, prevent war. This may be asking too much-especially since there is no firm consensus on what is meant by 'culture'. One organization that has a legitimate interest in culture is Unesco. It has a many-sided interest, one that is difficult to delimit and define. Unesco is an organization that came into being with a reach extending well beyond its grasp. There are so many things that it could do in the cultural field that one's head spins: collections and collation of comparative data, formulation of criteria and standards, promotion of cultural exchange, stimulation of help to culturally underdeveloped countries-the list is endless. In recent years Unesco has sponsored a series of conferences on these and other aspects of international cultural developments, the most recent held in Venice in the late summer of 1970. Following this conference, Augustin Girard, a conferee and a high-ranking member of the French cultural establishment, undertook to write a book (Cultural Development: Experience and Policies. Paris: Unesco, 1972. 143 pp., $4.00) which according to the preface attempts 'to cover the manifold facets of the elaboration of a cultural policy . . .' This could have been a very large undertaking.