That is the soft bigotry of low expectations. It is not mere coincidence that both Ivey, former head of the Country Music Foundation, and the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, William Ferris, are folklorists. That is, everything. This, and the consequent policy of spreading funding far and wide, resonates with Congress, which last year rewarded the NEA with its first increase in appropriations since 1992. Legislators are utilitarians, and in his speech Ivey gave art, very broadly defined, a comparably broad range of utilitarian justifications.
Art is whatever an artist says it is, and an artist is anyone who produces art.
Actually, we want to rescue cultural policy from people who talk like that. Ivey is two and a half years through a four-year term. Ferris' term expires in November. The question, unanswered 36 years after the endowments were created, is whether this democracy is capable of a cultural policy unapologetically oriented toward excellence. E.W. Scripps Publications , All Rights Reserved.