Many American historians, especially when they shapeshift into the role of nationalistic boosters, enjoy referencing the praise Alexis de Tocqueville bestowed upon “Democracy in America” when he visited the new nation from his native France in the early nineteenth century. Most tend to omit or overlook the eternally relevant indictment de Tocqueville issued against the dominant value system of American life. “As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans,” de Tocqueville wrote a friend in a private letter, “one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?”
The ultimate criterion of judgment in the United States destroys that which is most elemental to the maintenance of an excellent and enjoyable civilization. Profit is essential for creating a high standard of living, and it does energize a creative spirit in many individuals, but if made central to a culture, it becomes vampiric — slowly sucking the blood out of anything that cannot perpetually produce treasure for money managers, financiers, investors, bankers and agents.
Republicans often aspire to surrender our society to the banal ring of the cash register. President Trump, in his federal budget, proposed the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, but Democrats, and a few sane member of his own party, have rejected his Philistine vision. In the new federal spending bill, funding for the arts will actually increase. Before celebrations can begin, however, it is important to note — and mourn — that in states across the country, Republicans are far more successful in slashing support for the arts and education. As with social services and reproductive rights, the crisis facing arts and education programs underscores the need for mindful voters to involve themselves with equal dedication and intensity to state battles as they do presidential and congressional campaigns.
With concern, I am now an observer of a new battle in the “how-much-money-will-it-bring-in” war. Governor of Kentucky Matt Bevin recently proposed sweeping cuts to the state budget, which include the complete elimination of the University Press of Kentucky. The publisher obtains its funding through book sales, the largesse of a private foundation, and roughly $640,000 from the state.
The University Press, which has an excellent staff whose livelihoods are now at risk, publish books in history, regional culture and a variety of other genres critical to the preservation and enhancement of their community’s story. A large selection of books about other interesting and important topics — ranging from the history of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago to film noir — are also available in the back catalogue. Legendary writers, such as Bobbie Ann Mason and Crystal Wilkinson, have worked with the press. (They are also the publisher of my second book, "Mellencamp: American Troubadour.")
In an essay calling the budget “petty” and “barbaric,” the brilliant novelist, poet, farmer and Kentucky native Wendell Berry wrote, “This destruction would amount to an act of censorship, for the knowledge made available by the Press belongs to the people of Kentucky, to readers now and to come. It is a part of our commonwealth, which the governor and the government are entrusted to protect, not destroy.”
There is a painful irony that exists due to the ignorance and hypocrisy of many right wing politicians, such as Bevin. They are the first to complain, with some justification, about how “elitists” on the coasts and in the Beltway see their cities and villages as little more than “flyover country,” and yet they are also the first to undermine the educational and cultural resources within their states dedicated to the advancement of their own stories, traditions and artists.
The complete list of programs scheduled for elimination in Kentucky demonstrates absolute contempt for education, literacy and the arts. It also exposes a profound cruelty. Aid for residents with disabilities, including children, and scholarships for poor students are also now at risk.
In a nation that fails to even provide medicine for its sick, assistance for its disabled and support for its elderly, it might seem quaint to argue over museums, university publishers and arts centers, but there is no reason why providing for the social welfare should preclude the establishment and protection of a civilization infrastructure.
Switzerland, unlike most Western European nations, does not have a public health care system, but through a variety of state regulations, keeps health insurance costs affordable even to its poorest citizens. Swiss medical treatment routinely ranks higher in quality than American health care. Tuition at Swiss universities ranges from 600 to 1,000 euros per year, which equates to roughly $735 to $1,225. Switzerland also grants its citizens generous paid medical leave policies and highly subsidized child care.
William F. Buckley, the dean of conservative intellectuals, had a vacation home in Switzerland, and in 1993 he told Brian Lamb on C-SPAN about how the country presents a challenge to his ideology.
Adam Smith said that the state can legitimately do certain things. And those are a very short list. It can look after the common defense and it can be the custodian of monuments. So I asked myself the question: Does the authority of Adam Smith attach to a state enterprise that takes dead musicians and makes their music available? I had specifically in mind something that happens in Switzerland. In Switzerland, for about, like, a buck a month or whatever it is, you can plug your telephone line into six channels, and one of those channels, if you push button number three, has nothing but classical music day and night.
It is simply a marvelous amenity. So I was trying to manipulate conservative orthodoxy in such a way as to suggest that a monument need not only be something chiseled in marble, sitting in the middle of a park, but might also be keeping alive a musician and providing the wonderful amenity of access to him cheaply.
Buckley, as a low tax conservative, but also as a thoughtful and learned man, wanted civilization, but did not want to pay for it. At least in his struggle, there is the acknowledgement that some prizes of society, even if they are not profitable, are worthy of not only protection, but promotion. European nations, despite having lower GDPs and less excess income, dedicate far more funds to the arts than the United States.
In the “world’s greatest nation,” there is little appreciation for the arts or education. Florida, in 2017, decimated its arts and cultural budget, as did Texas, Wisconsin and many other states.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently reported on a “punishing decade for school funding,” detailing how “Public investment in K-12 schools — crucial for communities to thrive and the U.S. economy to offer broad opportunity — has declined dramatically in a number of states over the last decade.”
Community colleges, which President Obama proposed making tuition-free, are experiencing a financial crisis experts expect to continue into the “foreseeable future.”
Meanwhile, art museums across the country have resorted to selling some of the most magnificent parts of their collection to keep their doors open without significantly raising entry and membership fees, as state support collapses.
The shortsighted and simpleminded can justify America’s assault on the arts and education with dubious conservative slogans like “fiscal responsibility,” “belt tightening” and “real world metrics,” but no euphemism can conceal its true nature. It is a form of cultural suicide.
A nation that values nothing will produce nothing of value.
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