Inspired by John Kennedy, enacted by Lyndon Johnson, and expanded by Richard Nixon, the NEA has never come close to fulfilling their hopes that American government would invest in culture as it has in science. Indeed, since Nixon left office, the agency’s budget – now just under $150 million – has fallen far short of keeping up with inflation. Though it is the single largest funder of the arts in the United States, grants from local governments for arts projects are much greater.

Moreover, a series of controversies over awards the NEA made to artists and museums for works some viewed as obscene almost led to the agency’s demise. As a result, the agency now has to operate under several restrictions, including a prohibition on support for individual artists.

This record would not have surprised those who have long thought that practical-minded democracies would not give as much encouragement to the arts as once-aristocratic countries, with their more refined tastes. Even philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, are questioning giving money to museums instead of efforts to prevent blindness or other pressing problems.

But perhaps especially in a democracy, the arts matter a great deal, and not because of their economic value, which is debatable in any case. Rather, through the arts, citizens can find ways to express themselves, build cultural bridges across what divides them, and develop their imaginations. Over fifty years, the NEA has played a modest role in these important tasks, which is reason enough for celebration – and for doing more.

Sources:

Mark Bauerlein, with Ellen Grantham, National Endowment for the Arts: A History 1965 – 2008, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D. C., 2009.

National Endowment for the Arts appropriation history

Arts Funding: “Arts Funding Snapshot: GIA’s Annual Research on Support for Arts and Culture,” Grantmakers in the Arts, 2014.

Bill Gates: “An Exclusive Interview with Bill Gates,” FT Magazine, November 1, 2013.

Since then, China has changed a great deal. But the problems that triggered the Tiananmen Square protests are still present.

Today’s China is far more prosperous than it was in 1989. Its major cities glisten with impressive, new buildings, but much of the work was done by low-paid rural migrants with little security or health insurance. Its leading companies compete successfully throughout the world, but often depend on maintaining the favor of government officials at home. Poverty has declined significantly and a middle-class has blossomed. But the gap between rich and poor is vast.

More people in China have access to the Internet than in any other country in the world. Yet, web traffic is closely monitored and censored. Don’t expect to watch YouTube or read The New York Times when you are in Beijing. Though small-scale experiments in local government have been tried, China, as Evan Osnos writes, is the only country where a Nobel Peace Prize winner is in jail, democracy advocate, Liu Xiaobao.

Last month, Indiana University opened an office in Beijing to expand student and scholarly programs in China. If it serves to promote the values of political, economic, and academic freedom to which IU subscribes, it will be a fitting way of honoring the sacrifices made a quarter century ago.

Sources:

Tiananmen protests

Internet usage

Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

But since the 1990’s, we have worried that our tradition of joining was waning. Americans were increasingly “bowling alone,” a Harvard professor claimed, less inclined to work, socialize, or cooperate with their neighbors. At the time, many disputed his findings.

However, his argument got a boost last month from the Federal government’s annual survey of volunteering. It found that just one in four American adults gave some of their time to a civic organization in 2013, the lowest percentage since the survey began in 2002. The rate for young adults, between 16 and 34, fell below 22 percent, lower than for all other age-groups, including the elderly. Less than 20 percent of minority-group members volunteered.

Of course, some people may not consider what they do, such as helping out at school or in church, as volunteering. And there are many other ways to become involved in one’s community besides joining an organization. By international standards, Americans remain more likely to volunteer than the people of most other countries.

Even so, the fact that the United States is much less a nation of joiners than it had been is not a good sign. If we are unhappy with what our communities are like, or what our government does, we will only have ourselves to blame.

Sources

Tocqueville, Alexis de. “On the Use Which the Americans Make of Associations in
Civil Life,” Democracy in America (1839).

Schlesinger, Arthur M. “Biography of a Nation of Joiners,” American Historical Review, Vol. 50, No. 1 (1944), pp. 1-25.

Putnam, Robert D. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1995), pp. 65-78.

“Volunteering in the United States” (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

“World Giving Index” (Charities Aid Foundation)

America’s great Cold War diplomats—George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, and Lwellyn Thompson—were realists. They had no love for Soviet communism, but they warned repeatedly against Americans’ capacity to see their own actions as righteous and others as evil. They knew that that diplomacy depends on recognizing all parties’ essential interests, as well as allowing them to save face.

When the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, agreed to the reunification of Germany, the West promised him that we would not take advantage of the change to expand NATO. Yet today, Eastern European states are part of NATO. NATO installed missile defenses in Poland and Romania and set up a military outpost in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

American diplomats and American money were involved in the ouster of Ukraine’s corrupt but democratically elected pro-Russian president. The new government, ratified by a rump parliament, includes far right-wing forces. It excluded Russian as a national language, alarming eastern Ukrainians, then reversed the decision.

I believe Kennan would have counseled President Obama not to take advantage of the conflict to threaten Russia, specifically through NATO membership, military integration, or deployments and to beware of using American money to support opposition groups, above all in Russia itself. Washington would insist on no less of Moscow if there were a socialist revolution in Mexico.