William Safire And Art That's Good for You

The problem? An instrumental view of art places art on the same plane, say, as video games. If art is good for cognition, and video games are good for cognition (there's research looking into that, too), then why steer little Jimmy away from Doom and toward Beethoven? Unless you believe in intrinsic values for art, or in instrumental values that are higher than simply building cognitive ability, then video games and art are essentially the same.

Safire's speech was evidence of how thoroughly the instrumental viewpoint, and the conservative one, now dominate in public discussions of art. In a speech that pointed prominently to Richard Nixon's early support for the NEA, Safire all but said that the best hope for arts advocates is to line up behind the conservative consensus. If you want arts traction in Republican Washington, it makes sense to stick to Shakespeare and education initiatives (a path the NEA has taken, productively, and is now being followed all too predictably by the Kennedy Center, which has announced the last thing we really need: a six-month Shakespeare "festival").

Safire used the word "classic" repeatedly. He spoke of the hope that "cognitive science today can help illuminate classic art." He even referred to the creation of "new classics," an odd locution for an expert on speech.

Arts advocates are no doubt very happy to have allies such as Safire and may not notice the subtle shift in vocabulary toward the dominance of words like "classic" -- which suggests art that is widely admired, consensus-building and essentially noncontroversial. And Safire's devotion to the arts is certainly genuine. But walk outside, onto the terrace above the Potomac, and read what's written on the walls of the Kennedy Center. The president for which it is named once said, "I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty."

That kind of thinking has been fundamental to the thought of arts advocates for generations now. They defined the challenge facing them as a public that fears art, or is simply ignorant of art, or can't get access to art. If only arts lovers had the right arguments in their quiver (art can improve cognition, for example), then the arts might take on a central place in American life.

But what if the problem is more fundamental than that? What if the real problem is that some significant portion of the U.S. population simply hates art? Not fear. Not ignorance. Not even indifference. But loathing.

What would that look like? If you don't like to listen, or observe, if you don't like ambiguity or complexity, if you prefer to shout your opinion (even if you openly acknowledge you know nothing about what you're saying), you are, perhaps, someone inclined to hate art. It's possible that for years now, arts advocates have been wasting their breath, arguing into a black hole, with opponents who will never happily yield an inch to art.

If that's true, then perhaps arts advocates don't need the tools of persuasion that Safire is offering them. Perhaps they simply need a little more fight in them, a willingness to confront openly what H.L. Mencken called "the booboisie" rather than persuade soccer moms and uber-parents that art will help Junior ace his SATs.

American art used to confront and shame the art haters, exposing their provincial ignorance and bald hypocrisy, their cant and dogma and lies. Art used to be about more than convincing people that piano lessons will help your darling get into MIT. But no more. By limiting the debate to the idea that art is useful for developing practical skills, the arts world disengages from a more epic battle with forces in our society that prefer a world closed to questioning, impatient with the new or threatening, and comfortable only with certainties passed down from authority figures. Perhaps that's why these forces have recently taken on such prominence in our cultural discourse.

The new consensus -- which mixes a quiescent view of art and the classics with arguments about cognitive improvement -- won't, in the short term, be bad for "the classics." But what about everything else?