Cultural democratisation – the idea that cultural experiences should be made available to everyone – dates from the post-war period and the establishment of the Welfare State, almost 80 years ago. In its early days, it achieved a lot, through new civic theatres and galleries, arts access programmes, and the opening of higher education (including art colleges) to a generation of baby boomers. But as is often the case, the law of diminishing returns kicked in, and most of its benefits were achieved by 1970. Since then, policy-makers and arts managers have continued to press harder on the same buttons, but with less and less effect.
One reason is that cultural democratisation contributed to a fundamental change in how people saw themselves and their relations with others. It paved the way for the cultural revolution of the 1960s, as young people emancipated by new educational and cultural opportunities rebelled against the intrinsic paternalism of the system that allowed it.
The weakness of cultural democratisation lay in the idea that there was one culture – or at least one culture worth anything – and that the state’s task was to make that culture available to all. It was not hard for those who had benefited for the first time from elite culture’s resources to see its prejudices and hypocrisies. The culture that democratisation initiatives exist to promote and serve is very rich, but it is also limited, extractive and blinkered. It consigns most cultural expressions to a second rank it labels popular, folk, mainstream, world. commercial or some other similar term, if it recognises their existence at all.
This has always mattered but it matters especially today, when so many people feel betrayed or abandoned by the social contract of western liberal democracy. If people feel unseen and unheard, if they feel that their concerns and opinions are ignored, if they feel their way of life and beliefs are belittled, what reason have they to believe in the system? Some stop participating in a democratic process which fails to respond to their demands. Others turn to leaders who promise simple answers to their grievances. The success of these populist authoritarians – of right and left – lies more in their ability to give the impression of listening to people than in anything they actually achieve. They understand, consciously or otherwise, our need for the human dignity of being seen, heard and respected.
There are many challenges facing a cultural sector marked by overproduction in a world of diminishing resources but they will not be solved by continuing to pursue ideas that belong to the past. Cultural democratisation is not just out of date, its inherent paternalism can only add to people’s alienation from a governing class unable to free itself of the belief that it always knows best.
It doesn’t, as the multiple political disasters and scandals of recent decades amply shows. We need a new social contract which recognises the valid and equal role of all citizens in shaping their society – and its culture.
François Matarasso 