New Deal or no New Deal
By chrissie on Monday, September 14 2009, 15:24 - Permalink
(New) Deal or No (New) Deal
"Like all vital experiences in life, (culture) must....include participation in the broadest human sense. Today we are trying to give (everyone) the opportunity to ...make art a vital part of their lives.
Not the words of a current UK Minister for Culture but Thomas Parker setting out the ethos for the 1935 US Federal Arts Programme.This is not to say that participation and access have been absent from our recent cultural policy. But, as recession kicks deeper and an election beckons, politicians and political commentators are falling over each other in their eagerness to embrace the concept of the New Deal.
Commendable as this may be, I believe we need to take a step back, and re-examine Roosevelt's initiative in the context of political and social realities.To start with Roosevelt was elected on a platform of radical reform. Driven by a desire to create a more equal society - where "social values" were placed above those of the "self seekers, he wanted US citizens to find their happiness, not "in the mere possession of money...but in the thrill of creative effort.". Two years into his presidency it was clear that the social mobility he hoped for would take more than fiscal intervention; "We find our population suffering from the old inequalities.....we have not weeded out the over-privileged and we have not effectively lifted up the underprivileged...." .
With this in mind I re-examine the UK context and question our ability to be truly radical in taking these ideas forward.....