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Towards Cultural Democracy University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/36329 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. TOWARDS CULTURAL DEMOCRACY: CONTRADICTION AND CRISIS IN BRITISH AND U.S. CULTURAL POLICY 1870 - 1990 CHRIS BILTON PH.D. THESIS UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF CULTURAL POLICY SCHOOL OF THEATRE STUDIES OCTOBER 1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS Summary (iv) Preface (v) Acknowledgements (vii) Notes (viii) Abbreviations (ix) Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology: the Crisis of Cultural Democracy 1/ 1.1 The historical pattern: contradiction and crisis 1/ 1.2 The contradiction of cultural democracy 5/ 1.3 The origins of cultural democracy in Britain 12/ 1.4 Theoretical perspectives: the culturalist solution 17/ 1.5 Culturalism 2: culturalist optimikn and the new determinism 21/ 1.6 From theory to practice: culturalism and community arts 31/ Chapter 2: The Nineteenth Century Civilising Mission: A Study in Contradiction 40/ 2.1 The 'moment' of cultural reform 1870 - 1910 41/ 2.2 The conspiracy theory of cultural democratisation 44/ 2.3 Education and social class in the civilising mission 56/ 2.4 The settlement house: from 'useful culture' to 'neutral space' 64/ 2.5 Neutrality and sacrifice in the American settlement house 77/ 2.6 Culturalism and utilitarianism: the settlement movement 1900 - 1919 87/ 2.7 Contradiction and crisis: the cyclical pattern 94/ Chapter 3: The Federal Arts Projects: Repositioning the Artist 99/ 3.1 The historical pattern: towards a materialist cultural policy 991 3.2 New deal cultural policy in context 1935 - 1939 106/ 3.3 The 'usable past' of the Federal Art Project and the Federal Theatre Project: progressive nostalgia 116/ 3.4 A Marxist past: 'art as a weapon' and commitment 127/ 3.5 John Dewey and the politics of equilibrium 1361 3.6 Democratisation and decentralisation 1421 3.7 State rights and utilitarianism 1939 - 1943 155/ 3.8 Crisis and equilibrium 162/ Chapter 4: Media Access and the Public Sphere: the moment of media reform 1965 - 1990 169/ 4.1 Hegemony and contradiction 170/ 4.2 Theoretical background: bringing the audience back in 172/ 4.3 Broadcasting policy in Britain and the U.S. 1925 - 1965: two paradigms 182/ 4.4 Two versions of media access 198/ 11 4.5 The moment of media reform: culturalism, access and the market 206/ 4.6 The culturalist model: from neutral resource to common carrier 217/ 4.7 Access and the public interest: theoretical background 227/ 4.8 Public interest access: 'the community of neutrality' and 'the community of loyalties' 235/ 4.9 Splitting the difference: community and postmodernity 245/ Chapter 5: Conclusion 254/ 5.1 Contradiction and equilibrium 254/ 5.2 Breaking point: materialism and idealism revisited 255/ Phase 1: materialism, idealism and cultural policy formation 258/ Phase 2: conflict and exposure 266/ Phase 3: cultural analysis: from theory to anti-theory 270/ 5.3 'Letting go': postmodernism and cultural policy 272/ 5.4 'Holding on': revisionism and synthesis 279/ Bibliography 285/ Summary This study examines the theoretical contradictions of 'cultural democracy' in Britain and the United States. Cultural democracy here refers to the claim that community participation in cultural activities (artistic production and consumption) leads to participation in a democratic society. In Britain 'cultural democracy' has been associated especially with the 'community arts' movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Using Gramsci's theory of 'hegemony' as a framework for analysis, I will argue that the theoretical inconsistencies of 'cultural democracy' in the 1970s and 1980s can be traced back to a fundamental contradiction in British and U.S. cultural policy, between 'materialist' and 'idealist' conceptions of culture. This contradiction has resulted in moments of crisis in British and U.S. cultural policy, followed by periods of 'unstable equilibrium'. In support of this argument I will focus on four of these moments of contradiction and crisis. First I will develop my hypothetical model of contradiction, crisis and equilibrium in relation to the British community arts movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Then I will apply this model to three successive 'moments of crisis' in British and U.S. cultural policy: the 'civilising mission' of the late nineteenth century public cultural institutions in Britain and the U.S., particularly the settlement house; the U.S. federal arts projects of the 1930s; dilemmas of access and accountability in recent media policy. I will conclude by exploring some alternative theoretical formulations of the relationship between 'culture' and 'community' and their possible application to cultural policy and cultural democracy. iv Preface: Background to the research This research project began with my interest in community arts and the so- called cultural democracy movement in Britain and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. I wanted to examine the intellectual basis for the belief that a democratic, participatory artistic culture is the prerequisite for a democratic political system. The rhetoric of cultural democracy seems to have it both ways: on the one hand cultural elitism is seen as the inevitable consequence of social inequalities based on class and race, on the other hand participation in cultural activities is presented as the solution to social alienation and exclusion. The key question seems to be one of `determination'; is culture 'determined' by social class, race, gender, geography, or is participation in cultural activities capable of transforming, even overcoming social divisions and a variety of social ills from voter apathy to rising crime rates? Behind the two positions sketched out here lie two conceptions of culture: the 'materialist' or 'Marxist' view of culture as part of the 'superstructure' determined, in the last instance, by the base of 'material relations', and the 'idealist' or `culturalist' view of culture as a transcendent common good, a 'general perfection' in which and through which social class and social • difference ceases to matter. Community artists seem to be idealists when describing their own work, materialists when describing the culture of the 'establishment'. This central contradiction has formed the starting point for my work. I also wanted to challenge the perception that the cultural democracy movement represented a 'radical break' from the post-war policies of cultural democratisation. There is a danger here of consigning the movement to the nostalgic list of heroic radical failures; thus according to one regional arts officer in the U.K, community arts 'had its day' in the early 1980s and is now a quaint anachronism. Yet 'community arts' has more in common with the nineteenth century 'civilising mission' and the merry England of the 1945 Arts Council than its supporters care to admit. The community arts movement is rooted in long-running dilemmas of cultural policy; these dilemmas will continue to be important even if the term 'community arts' has fallen out of fashion. Finally, community artists and community arts and media activists are unusual in British cultural policy in that they actually seek to ground their work in a coherent theoretical analysis, even if that analysis is not always clearly articulated. I hope that in taking a theoretical approach to my subject I may stimulate some debate about the motives and objectives of community arts and cultural democracy. On a personal level, this study has been an attempt to rationalise my own mixed feelings towards the community arts movement, based on my experiences first as a 'community arts worker' and then as an arts development officer in London in the 1980s and early 1990s. My conclusion has been that the internal contradictions and buried assumptions charted in this study may actually be the source of the movement's dynamism; as soon as one faction claims to have discovered a 'definitive' strategy or rationale, the movement falls apart. By exposing the internal dynamic of 'democratic' and 'democratising' cultural institutions, I am not intending to offer a blueprint, only a plea for continuing experiment and debate. vi Acknowledgements First of all thanks to my wife, Anna, for moral and financial support, and for rescuing me from my own 'moments' of contradiction and crisis. At the University of Warwick, thanks to my supervisor, Oliver Bennett, for his editorial mixture of encouragement and scepticism, and to Margaret Shewring, for her many helpful suggestions and practical advice. Thank you also to the University of Warwick for providing me with a university award. Many of the ideas in this study began to take shape as a result of the MA programme in European Cultural Policy and Administration at the University of Warwick; I would like to thank the teaching staff, especially Oliver Bennett, Andy Feist and Heather Maitland, and my fellow students. I would also like to record my gratitude to all the people and institutions who provided me with access to ideas and information over the past three years, especially the following: in New York, Professor Brann Wry at New York University, Hollis Headrick at New York State Council for the Arts, Sam Kruger at United Neighborhood Houses of New York, New York University Bobst Library, the New York Public Library, the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, the American Council for the Arts Library and the Henry Street Settlement; in London, the Arts Council Library, the Independent Television Council Library, the British American Arts Association Library, Alan Tomkins at Interchange Studios; at Warwick my fellow research students at the Centre for the Study of Cultural Policy, Adrian Palka, Joy Parry, and students and staff attending the graduate research seminars organised by Dr.
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