INSTRUMENTAL CULTURAL

POLICY

INTRODUCTION
We looked at specific cases in the previous presentation
s. But we still havent discussed enough
The driving forces behind the phenomenon of museu
ms, media culture, cultural industries, urban regenerati
on
But when we talk of the driving forces, we are implicitly
implies that something else causes culture. Thats why it
is called instrumental culture as means rather tha
n ends

HISTORICIZING CULTURAL POLICY

Since its emergence in 19th century, it is usually used for
political and social ends
But with the rise of neo-liberalism, it is increasingly asso
ciated with economic ends
(But not as neatly distinguished as it seems)

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ENDS

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Emergence of Nation-State
Mass Literacy so that culture has an influence over peo
ple
Crime, disorder, moral decadence and poverty in the e
arly formation of nation-state and capitalism
International unsettlement (Colonialism, Fascism, the C
old War)

NATIONALISM
Language Policy (Suppressing different dialect)
Parental public broadcasting
Construction of monument for
1. Nationhood
2. State Power
. Different nation-based Mega Events such as Olympics, Worl
d Cup and World Exposition
. Selective Cultural Heritage Sites and Museum
. AIM: To bring order to nation-state, to displace social antago
nism due to poverty and power inequality by an illusory unity

IMPERIALISM
Import:
Museums and Exposition displaying primitive objects
collected by anthropologists or loot from colonial war
To justify Social Darwinism
Export:
Cultural Imperialism (especially from US and Japan)
To homogenize other cultures for both political and eco
nomic purposes

IDEOLOGICAL WAR
Different Ideologies supporting different forms of art
E.g. Cold War:
1. US - avant-garde:
A culture of freedom as opposed to a culture of com
mand.
Allowing abstract expression and abstract arts.
2. USSR -(socialist) realism
avant-garde as petit-bourgeois taste that disguise the r
eal worker exploitation.

REGULATION OF SOCIAL CONDUCT

Museum and arts exhibition
To transform the morality of working classmen who indulged in drink
Based on the old Romantic ideal that arts is transcendent
To replace the unruly market square with sites having institutionalized
management so that working class would have proper entertainment
Foucaudian power at work
Not only is different regulating mechanism at work in museum and art
s exhibitions by different instructions, but visitors are self-regulating t
hemselves as they internalized the expected behaviors and visitors scr
utinize each other.

SOCIA EXCLUSION AND INCLUSION

Social Exclusion
Educate citizenry into a set of artistic tastes as class disti
nction through restricted access by means such as ticket
price in museum and arts exhibition
Subsidizing high culture instead of minority and workingclass culture
An identity politics that is exclusive (e.g. using broadcaste
r of certain accent and race in public broadcast)

SOCIA EXCLUSION AND INCLUSION

Social Inclusion
Not necessarily progressive social inclusion
Social inclusion as a policy of corporatist( ) Society:
E.g. Ethnic Diversity as nationalist policy in Singapore; Integra
tion of Eastern European Countries in EU through the shifting a
way from its original Great European Heritage cultural policy
Community Building
To bring back problematic groups (disaffected youth) into ma
instream through cultural training

ECONOMIC ENDS

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The rise of neo-liberalism in 80s
The shift from Fordist production to post-Fordist produc
tion
New technologies such as Internet
Diminishing power of nation-state and increasing power
of transnational corporation

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
Economy dominates culture
Indirect Way
Business Sponsorship:
1. Art gives a sense of distinction upon the corporate spo
nsors
2. Shaping culture according to corporate interests (e.g.
product placement in films, sports events)

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
Direct Way
Production
Commodification of the human intellect: patent and copyrig
hts laws
Consumers can become the content co-creators of the cultur
al products which are audience-oriented Or a theatrical perf
ormance as a cultural product brings production (the on-stag
e performer) and consumption (the off-stage audience) in th
e same time-space dimension.
Post-Fordist organization shifts to improve the turn-over tim
e of capital (the speed of capital flowing from production pol
e to consumption pole and back to production pole)

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
Direct Way
Consumption
Baudrillard supplemented use-value and exchange-value with the c
oncept of sign value. Cultural commodity assumes a status of sign.
E.g. consumers value the status of being a trendy person by using the
mobile phone instead of the concrete functions of the phone.
Sign value itself is abstract and self-referential. For example, in fashio
n, what is regarded as fashionable is cyclical. The outdated can be u
p-to-date and then become outdated again, thereby generating endles
s consumerist desires.
Moreover, signs as images and values are ephemeral and thus they ar
e godlike products in the standpoint of the need of instantaneous con
sumption to speed up capital circulation.

TOURISM
Cultural Heritage Tourism, usually in third world countries
Cultural heritage as a kind of cultural capital for first worlds ne
w middle class
According to Bourdieu , class distinction is no longer determin
ed by hard capitalism but soft capitalism. Cultural symbols
embody interests and function to enhance social distinctions.
Neo-liberal agenda of earning foreign currency through intern
ational trade
Capital is siphoned off by large corporations hotel chains a
nd airlines and returns to its point of origin in rich countries
Laundering money through investment in tourist facilities in th
ird world

URBAN REGENERATION
The importance of symbolic economy for a city
Gentrified creative cities
the use of culture as symbolic economy by developers to lure the new
middle class who emphasizes on personal tastes to consume and settle
down there
According to Zukin, in Manhatten, when the flatted factories are left em
pty, independent artists moved into these areas as they provide a large
multi-purpose space at an affordable rent. But ironically, the lifestyle th
ey advocate in turn drives them out of the area, which has an increasing
rent that these artists can no longer afford because culture as symbolic
economy is used by developers to lure the new middle class who empha
sizes on personal tastes to consume and settle down there
These foot-loose elite managerial class share similar cultures and lifestyl
es and possess decontextualized cultural capital

CONCLUSION AND QUESTION

Culture is instrumental in the sense that it serves other purposes oth
er than its own.
Is it possible to have a pure cultural policy?
Problems with this assumption:
1. A reactionary Romantic conservative ideal of culture as transcende
nce
2. Even arts for arts sake is used for ideological war by US to counte
r the realist arts of USSR
. But if it is impossible to have a pure cultural policy, does it mean that
culture is unimportant?
. My bold answer: Yes.