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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
3 8 July 2016
W
e need to address the future
through a new lens, that of citi-
zenship, if arts and culture are to
play their necessary role in
improving the quality of life for
all. In looking forward we have, firstly, to under-
stand that we are not just dealing with a
recession and its aftershocks. There is a reset-
ting of expectations. There has been a
dismantling of a consensus based on princi
-
ples, that: poverty should be attacked and not
just managed; full employment is a legitimate
goal of Government; access to health care
should be free at point of use; access to third
level education is a right; and the arts should
be resourced and provided for at arm’s length
from government.
The retreat from these principles is because
they are rooted in a vision that demands a role
for the State and civil society in modifying capi-
talism. It is this role, for the State in particular,
which is now under attack. These principles
were understood as the means of creating a
‘whole’ society. But it is clear now that neither
our model of party politics, nor the model of
globalised economics, can be relied upon to
create a ‘whole’ society. In fact, the opposite is
true.
My working definition of culture is “what we
make and do to add value to the quality of our
lives”. It involves the arts but also education
and health and well-being. If our party-political
and economic models are not fit for purpose,
then arts and culture must consciously pick up
this challenge. This is an ethical and not merely
aesthetic issue.
Culture has a necessary role to play in the
creation and validation of another narrative.
This requires the arts, education, and health
and well-being to be understood as forms of
emancipation, for individuals and for
communities. This other narrative, articulated
and developed around a re-purposed culture
and re-prioritised education, must then be
transferred to the political space. Political dis-
course must be engaged because change has
to be effective in driving policy.
The argument in which the arts sector regu-
larly gets trapped, and therefore ignored, is the
argument about funding the forms of delivery.
This is easily sidestepped as an argument for
and about ‘us’, the producers and providers.
What should be happening is an argument for
purpose, out of which new necessary forms of
delivery and practice for the arts will inevitably
emerge. This would take us to questions of what
for and who for?
What for? I would argue that the role of art in
the history of human society has always been
to create empathy. Empathy is about seeing the
self in others. Without empathy, there is no
society. Who for? I would argue that it is for
‘them’, not ‘us’, for the citizens or people, who-
ever and wherever they are. This proposition
represents as much a challenge for the arts and
cultural sector as for the State.
This change starts with a shift in thinking and
understanding. This must take us from a model
based on exchange value to a model based on
use value. It must take us from a model of value
based on the idea of the solo genius producer
and the signature model, to the participatory
model. This is needed if we are to bridge to a
civil culture, a culture belonging to citizens and
centred on and driven by citizenship.
Citizenship means full participation in the
economy, in society as well as in culture. This
ambition amounts to a civil society, an ecology,
based on the interdependence and interaction
of economic, social and cultural capital. This is
a civil society set to act as a counterbalance to
the narrowing consumerist model that serves
as the basis of social relations.
Momentum towards this understanding is
already underway in the most dynamic areas of
arts practice. Artists or practitioners and pro-
viders are seeking to reconnect to lived
experience. This search is based on reciprocal
communication, negotiation, shared agency,
and situated practice. It is not just about indi-
vidualised rhetorical self-expression and
production. This model of artist or practitioner
as negotiator, as much as producer, has much
to offer the economic and social domains of
knowledge.
The core idea is the shift to participation from
consumption as the basis of our social rela-
tions. Without a re-purposed participatory
culture, we cannot have a full participatory
democracy and we will not have a civil society
either. The stakes could not be higher.
Declan McGonagle is former director of the
National College of Art and Design. This article
is drawn from a presentation to Claiming Our
Future’s Broken Politics event.
Culture is ethics
not just aesthetics
Arts and culture supplement the
deficits of politics and economics,
should be relevant, participatory not
consumerist, and generate empathy
by Declan McGonagle
Neither our model of
party politics, nor the
model of globalised
economics can be
relied upon to create
a ‘whole’ society
OPINION
July 2016 3 9
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