Help, the saviours are coming
The self-proclaimed saviours of the classical culture industry have been appearing more frequently lately. Instead, they are launching a fundamental critique that identifies the state-funded cultural institutions as the refuge in which everything that refuses to recognise the signs of the times is brewing: Along voyeur-like, pleasurably spread out case studies, stories are told of outdated undemocratic hierarchies being upheld, where discrimination and misogyny dominate unabated, where technological achievements are steadfastly denied and where, at best, the crisis-ridden state of the world is anticipated in a tokenistic manner, thereby seeking to maintain the appearance of a bygone era that no longer has anything to say to us today.
On the basis of such devastating assessments, catalogues of demands and instructions for action are often added at the end, which, if followed, should succeed in moving the (state-funded) cultural sector back into the centre of social dynamics. This is how they should be read in the words of cultural manager Fabian Burstein, who attempted to shake up the cultural sector a year ago with his “Conquest of the Ivory Tower – A polemic for a better culture”. Cultural journalist and cultural consultant Axel Brüggemann, who has set out to turn the tide once again with his critique “Die Zwei-Klassik-Gesellschaft”, is probably also acting in this spirit.
The contrast between a “dying” and a “last” generation serves as his theoretical underpinning. While the former is doing everything in its power to keep the cultural sector exactly as it has supposedly always been, the latter has arrived in a reality that has itself become so dramatic in its all-encompassing crisis that it no longer requires artistic exaggeration. At best, set pieces could still be used to attract attention in the short term. But overall, according to Brüggemann’s thesis in its current state, the cultural sector is no longer able to contribute anything to solving the problems at hand.
And so the image that emerges is of an outdated, increasingly corporate culture that, in its stubborn pursuit of interests, does not want to recognise that the world has moved on. And as I read, an association from the world of business comes to mind. After all, the car industry with its central product, the combustion engine, was for a long time a guarantor of prosperity. This attribution had to be defended at all costs, against all the prophecies of doom from environmentalists, even at a time when alternative forms of propulsion had long been ready for the market, but their use would have led to fundamental changes in production (and probably also consumption). The desire to savour the production profits that could be made from the old technologies to the bitter end was too great.
And this is precisely the behaviour of a cultural sector that still derives its raison d’être from the representational logic of a bourgeoisie pushing for power at the end of the 19th century and refuses to acknowledge that the social balance of power has changed so much in the last 30 years at the latest that a continuation of the claim to supremacy of a small self-appointed elite threatens to degenerate into a caricature.
When assessing shifts in power in this regard, I always find it helpful to take a look at Panajotis Kondylis’ “The Decline of the Bourgeois Form of Thought and Life – Liberal Modernity and Mass Democratic Postmodernity”. According to him, the western industrialised nations are undergoing a comprehensive transformation process, at the latest with the neoliberal penetration of social life. The end of class affiliations due to universal market forces also meant the end of clearly attributable cultural values. Formerly clearly defined hierarchies were replaced by a – today one would add diverse – consumer society. The vast majority of its members would have practised a new cultural behaviour in line with the diverse technological innovations, which would prove to be largely incompatible with the logic of the classic cultural sector (no matter how much right-wing populist demagogues call for a fight of the little man against a detached elite. Cultural differences can no longer be drawn on this basis; instead, they are being defined to an increasingly aggressive audience along ethnic or religious lines).
This social analysis makes it clear that the cultural sector as the epitome of the representation of bourgeois society has lost its right to exist. Attempts such as those by Oliver Scheytt, who a few years ago attempted to fight against the end of the “cultural citizen” with a programme paper entitled “Der Kulturstaat – Plädoyer für einen aktivierenden Kulturstaat”, can at best be compared to the temporary offer of a “hybrid engine”, which makes it all too clear that such fundamental transformation processes – at least within the framework of a market economy – can at best be delayed but not stopped, and will soon lead to the comprehensive electrification of private transport.
And there is another association that springs to mind when it comes to the epochal break: Yes, a number of medieval cathedrals are still standing today. And people still visit them today. And yet the visitors have changed fundamentally; very few are still familiar with the liturgical forms of transport; they are no longer able to follow the programme, they marvel at an outer shell whose content is no longer accessible to them.
It is precisely this emptying – I suspect – that is taking place in the successor organisation to the once dominant religious infrastructure, the cultural infrastructure. This is why all the well-intentioned suggestions by Brüggemann and co. to try to transform themselves in line with the new circumstances, to establish contemporary corporate structures, to anticipate the prevailing development criteria such as economic efficiency, diversity, sustainability or digitalisation, in concrete terms, to become more “political” once again and thus bring social reality into the buildings, are largely misleading.
Because they ignore the question of why the traditional cultural sector has repeatedly distanced itself from social reality, especially as this “falling by the wayside” cannot simply be reduced to the misbehaviour of a few narcissistic decision-makers, but as a result of structural changes, with which “culture” is negotiated less and less in the cultural temples of the 19th century, but rather – as a broad concept of culture already pointed out in the 1970s – where people live and work. And today, one would add, where they communicate in a mixture of real and digital mediums.
The vehement criticism of Brüggemann’s polemic shows that there is a real danger for the classical cultural sector. One harsh criticism from an “opera lover” speaks for itself. They see Brüggemann as a traitor who is further accelerating their downward spiral, when the point is precisely to join forces in defence of an intrinsically valid cultural value in a phase of danger. And then there is the acclaimed conductor of the New Year’s Concert, Christian Thielemann, who can afford to insist that C major is and remains C major, regardless of the social circumstances in which the music he reproduces is heard.
In the chapter on music education it becomes clear that even the reformer Brüggemann is arguing a lost cause. Instead of showing interest in the changes in musical behaviour that have led, among other things, to the fact that young people have probably never before engaged so intensively with the whole variety of musical forms of expression, the author limits himself to exhortations that schools should once again – as the grammar schools of the 19th century once did – fulfil the function of a feeder in order to provide the cultural sector with a knowledgeable audience in the future in order to guarantee its continued existence.
Conversely, Brüggemann has a point when he challenges the prevailing forms of cultural communication, which are still based on a deep, uncrossable divide between producers and recipients, and offers a concept of culture that is based on communication, mutual exchange and cooperation. Whether his concluding list of proposals will persuade cultural policy makers to adapt both the form and content of the cultural sector to the requirements of a post-bourgeois society focussed on diversity, and especially how this could happen, I dare to doubt. At least Brüggemann can now walk around with the self-assessment: I know what has to happen, but unfortunately….
A few days ago, I happened to hear a radio programme about the streaming profession. And I suddenly realised how differently “culture” is now negotiated in large parts of the younger generation. And how little we, who have been culturally socialised within the framework of the traditional cultural sector, know about it. For all of you, especially the older ones, who still don’t believe it, I recommend taking a look at Jean Améry’s essay on ageing, which talks about the loss of connection to the current cultural reality as the years go by.
In it, Améry describes how, as he gets older, he forces himself to keep up with the latest literary and philosophical developments, how he reads the new books, watches the new films and how he clearly senses that most of it seems strange and wrong to him, at least as a deviation from the rules that he has considered binding since his youth. And then he re-reads the works of his youth and realises that what he thought were the eternal values, or at least the binding standards, were all just the fashions of his youth, no more wrong and no more right than the fashions he now finds so difficult to follow. And as cruel as this realisation is, the saviours of the West and guardians of the Grail among his contemporaries might do well to understand that what they think they long for in their hours of exasperation with stupid young writers, musicians and theatre people would bore them to death if it really came back.”
So we have to recognise that a synopsis of today’s world is no longer possible in yesterday’s culture industry. The reality into which we have been thrown has also become a different one culturally. To recognise this, we don’t need a manifestation of representatives of the last generation in the museum. Nor do we need well-intentioned advice from insiders in the hope that they can help restore the cultural sector to its former greatness.
But what we need is simply a curious look at what surrounds us. Where “culture” takes place today. And we would realise that Brüggemann’s attempt to shake things up may be well-intentioned, but his attempts to rescue us obscure rather than illuminate the cultural-political view of a changed reality.
Picture: Die zwei Klassik Gesellschaft/Axel Brüggemann©/Michael Wimmer
LATEST POSTS
- Help, the saviours are coming
- Art, Culture and Borders – Why boundaries are necessary for a thriving coexistence
- Hype about Chat GPT
- The Autonomy of Art
- About the Value of Art
- Our Jobs are no Longer Our Lives
- It’s Me, Your Non-Visitor
- Quality in the Cultural Sector
- Another Non-word of the Year: ArtandCulture
- On the creeping deflation of culture