A recent book review gave a fascinating look at how the value of ideas has declined in post-communist Czechoslovakia. In the wake of the Velvet Revolution, playwright Václav Havel became President of Czechoslovakia. He, along with other intellectuals and artists in Eastern Europe found themselves in governing roles as their countries transitioned away from communism.
And then they found themselves unwanted.
“The artistic and literary scene that flourished paradoxically under censorship and repression has died off. The public intellectual is, for the most part, no longer invited to the most important parties. Anna Porter writes, “Now that everyone can publish what they want, what is the role of the intellectuals?” and she can’t find an answer. It’s no longer the police state that’s attacking the intelligentsia — it’s disinterest and boredom. It’s distraction. It’s a trade off. And it’s one that we should be able to acknowledge and be allowed to mourn. When the historian Timothy Garton Ash visited Poland in the 1980s, he admitted to an envy for the environment there. “Here is a place where people care, passionately, about ideas.” The people of Central Europe traded in ideas for groceries and for not being beaten to death by the police. No one could possibly blame them, but at the same time, Havel and the other leaders had no sense of the true cost of democracy.”
There have been many books written about the decline of the public intellectual in the United States so it is pretty futile for me to attempt to address the causes here. It bears noting that the decline in the U.S. didn’t proceed from a point of censorship and repression. Back in the 1950s, artists like Salvador Dali and Random House publisher Bennett Cerf appeared on television game shows like “What’s My Line?” Now you would be hard pressed to name a visual artist or publisher with the same wide spread name recognition.
It clearly isn’t a matter of ideas are only important and valued when you are told you can’t have them. I do think there may be some truth in the question of the value of the value of intellectuals and artists in a time when anyone can publish or create. At one time people had many demands on their attention with farming and family but big ideas were still valued. Now while people have many draws on their attention, less of it is as compelling as seeing to your daily survival (or avoiding censorship/dealing with repression). With the leisure to decide what to focus on, you have the option to ignore big ideas that may take 30 minutes to process in favor of 30 different ideas that you can process in a minute each.
While the arts can have a role in emphasizing that big ideas matter and that we should invest the time to consider them, this isn’t a problem the arts community is going to be able to solve itself because the decline is a result of greater societal practice. The arts can deliver the message, but every strata of society has to value it– which may require valuing the arts as a valid messenger.
I don’t have any ready answers. I just offer this as something to think about– if you can allow it the time for proper consideration.