Culture Is Not a Character Witness

At the White House on September 25, 2006, Laura Bush presented the Global Cultural Initiative as a way to strengthen international ties through literature, music, film and visual art. Her remarks described private arts institutions joining federal cultural agencies, with State Department support, to make cultural exchanges part of American diplomacy.

There is something worth protecting in that ambition. There is also a distinction worth making before the applause: understanding another society is not the same as approving of it.

More than an export catalogue

The launch remarks contained specific proposals, not merely a salute to the universal language of art. Bush said the National Endowment for the Arts would establish International Literary Exchanges involving the United States, Russia, Mexico, Pakistan and other countries. The American Film Institute would bring foreign films and filmmakers to its Los Angeles festival in November and send American filmmakers overseas. The National Endowment for the Humanities would expand its Landmarks of America workshops to include teachers from abroad.

These were announced plans. The speech does not establish their eventual reach or results.

Importantly, its account was not entirely outward-facing. Bush also described Gift of the Indus, an online initiative sponsored by the Kennedy Center and the Pakistan Council of the Arts, as a means for Americans to discover Pakistani art. Her closing thanks explicitly included helping Americans learn about other cultures.

That makes a simple accusation of one-way cultural promotion too easy. The stated ambition includes exchange. The harder question is what the exchange permits.

A visitor can enjoy an American film and leave with sharper criticisms of American life. An American encountering Pakistani art can discover something that unsettles an existing picture of the country. Neither response would necessarily mean the encounter failed. Both might mean somebody actually paid attention.

The temptation to become a good example

The psychological temptation here is familiar: offer the most attractive part of yourself and hope it settles the argument about the rest.

As a reading of cultural diplomacy, that is a risk to watch, not a motive the launch speech proves. Art can create curiosity where an official statement creates resistance. But curiosity is valuable precisely because its destination is not guaranteed. Ask a work to deliver a predetermined verdict and the encounter begins to resemble a testimonial.

The same problem reaches the artist. Being invited to represent a country can be an opportunity, but it can also become an expectation to make that country look coherent. A culture contains arguments, embarrassment and disagreement as well as accomplishments. A representative selection need not be a flattering one.

The coherenceist test is therefore not whether the programme produces a harmonious picture. It is whether the relationship can accommodate an answer its sponsors did not order. Who helps select the work? Can participants question the national story being offered? Can criticism count as engagement rather than ingratitude? The launch remarks leave those practical tests unresolved.

None of this requires dismissing the pleasure of a film, a book or a performance as disguised propaganda. Pleasure does not need a foreign-policy justification. That is part of what makes these encounters worth having.

The invitation is to let cultural exchange be less obedient than national promotion. Learn enough about someone else to stop needing them to be either an advertisement or an enemy.

An audience owes the work its attention. It does not owe the sponsor a conversion.