Whose Culture?

by April Lidinsky

I just returned from four days in New York City, at the very hip Cultural Studies Association national conference, where university professors from many fields – literature, political science, religious studies, history, film and theater, and cultural and urban geography – met to discuss the ways we study and understand American culture in the past and present.

Two things struck me – beyond the super-coolness of the participants (More tattoos, fishnet hose, dark red lipstick, and men with rings in their ears and black leather jackets than I’ve seen in one place in a long time. I am quite certain I was the only conference attendee wearing khaki pants purchased from the sales rack at Kohl’s!).

1) In a few panels there was a clear sense of superiority over the poor benighted “public” – reinforcing every bad stereotype about smug Ivory Tower types who can’t believe what dupes average citizens are. This depressed me.

But … better news next!

2) In many more panels there was an interesting theme developing – that of academics recognizing that THEY have failed to engage meaningfully with policy-makers, and failed to put their research to the test of “How might this help others?” Folks remarked how successfully Right-wing “think”-tanks have managed to shape public debates and policy-making. Why hasn’t this happened on the Left?

After all, academics, when they are not busy studying their own navels, cultivate skills every citizen needs – and most folks are hungry for: How to ask good questions; how to begin to seek answers; how to value complexity over simplicity; how to seek multiple perspectives; how to challenge arguments and definitions that might hang on faulty premises, etc. Also – how to tell a good story, a story hung on facts that could persuade folks who don’t already agree. (This last one made my English-major heart sing.)

The conclusion I came away with was that THIS is the moment when even citizens who have supported the Bush-Cheney view of the world are starting to see the limits of simplistic claims. The Orwellian names this administration has cultivated (Homeland Security, Clear Skies, etc) are by now so transparently bankrupt that most citizens are hungering for a new approach, and perhaps educators are just the folks to remind everyone of these critical thinking skills that are essential to engaged citizenship.

Much has been written about the anti-intellectual bent in contemporary American culture. How has it come to be that while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are Harvard and Yale-educated, they seem to have to pander for our votes by proving themselves to be “average Joes (and Janes),” by bowling and tossing back Crown whiskey? Don’t we want our leaders to be smart?

And: don’t we have faith that our citizenry could come to value our own smarts, once again?

If not now, when?