As disheartening as this well-meaning, pernicious waste of human capital is in the sciences, it’s even more rampant in the arts. Within that, my field — classical music, the one made up predominantly of dead white guys — is the canary in the coal mine.
Grantmaking in the arts in my state, California, is being cannibalized by social justice/DEI initiatives. In recent months, I’ve seen this impact firsthand on both sides of the grant process: as a panelist reviewing others’ grant applications and as a writer seeking grant funds.
Last Spring, I served as a panelist for LA County arts grants. In doing so, I learned how applications are scored. As a stand-alone category, DEI was given almost equal weight to artistic quality — and even ranked higher than the competence of the organization's management. Worse still, DEI was also an implicit factor in every other category, including artistic quality itself. Beginning our panel review session with a 3-minute land acknowledgment — never mind that there were under 8 of us meeting on Zoom — was a farcically congruent way to set the stage for all that followed.
The arts are saturated with hyper-liberal empaths and evangelists desperate for relevance. This is not new. Before DEI, classical music's moral panic was about the age of its audience: "We won't matter if our audience is DEAD in ten years!!" For decades, the field desperately latched on to trying to woo "younger" audiences. This was ageist and misguided. It also failed spectacularly. I witnessed many pathetic attempts to reverse-engineer classical music programming to attract younger audiences. (It turns out that everyone ages eventually, and when they do, their tastes skew towards the timeless, and they have greater resources of time and money to attend concerts.)
But this current manifestation — an obsession with "decolonizing" the arts — is far more troubling. The field's latest histrionic, shallow, misguided appeal for relevance swapped banal, relatively harmless ageism for racism and cultural Marxism. Organizations and artists are tripping over themselves to prove their fealty to the "right" cause. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the audience just wants to hear Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Bach. Threading the needle between what the audience wants and what grantmakers and fellow artists expect is becoming increasingly difficult and logically inconsistent. As an artist, I can't help but feel like I'm watching the art form I love implode in slow motion.
I often think of Douglas Murray's concept of the social justice warrior as a contemporary "ronin:" people wandering aimlessly without a purpose. You'd think the arts and sciences would provide a powerful antidote to purposelessness. The fact that they're not immune to this crusading phenomenon is the saddest of all.
The effects of our leadership in education are devastating.
Just a few years ago, in one of the most educated cities in the entire country, the public high schools lowered its requirement for chemistry to one-half year and physics to one-half year. Calculus is no longer taught in high school. Gifted/talented programs have been eliminated.
At some point, we will no longer have to worry about the Chinese stealing technology from our universities. All the universities producing anything of value will no longer be on American soil because all American universities will be reduced to day care for adult children.
The grift that keeps on grifting. Just think of how many adults in positions of trust it takes to execute this wealth transfer from American taxpayers to privileged predators & cronies. This is Palace of Versailles-level corruption and contempt for the people.
Rupa, thanks for the heads up. This is the type of government waste that needs to eliminated. With the deficit expanding unsustainably, this is unacceptable.
I am a physicist by education and graduated from one of the best, if not the best, Soviet universities, specializing in STEM sciences. Therefore, seeing here any character suggesting voting for Kamala, Tim and the Democrats in general, I will not delve into his arguments. Goats are not allowed to speak!
This is all just a stealth tax on society, the same way that lawsuit abuse raises costs for everyone, and allowing shoplifting makes stores more expensive and inconvenient. 100% of these DEI grants are at best wasted.
As disheartening as this well-meaning, pernicious waste of human capital is in the sciences, it’s even more rampant in the arts. Within that, my field — classical music, the one made up predominantly of dead white guys — is the canary in the coal mine.
Grantmaking in the arts in my state, California, is being cannibalized by social justice/DEI initiatives. In recent months, I’ve seen this impact firsthand on both sides of the grant process: as a panelist reviewing others’ grant applications and as a writer seeking grant funds.
Last Spring, I served as a panelist for LA County arts grants. In doing so, I learned how applications are scored. As a stand-alone category, DEI was given almost equal weight to artistic quality — and even ranked higher than the competence of the organization's management. Worse still, DEI was also an implicit factor in every other category, including artistic quality itself. Beginning our panel review session with a 3-minute land acknowledgment — never mind that there were under 8 of us meeting on Zoom — was a farcically congruent way to set the stage for all that followed.
The arts are saturated with hyper-liberal empaths and evangelists desperate for relevance. This is not new. Before DEI, classical music's moral panic was about the age of its audience: "We won't matter if our audience is DEAD in ten years!!" For decades, the field desperately latched on to trying to woo "younger" audiences. This was ageist and misguided. It also failed spectacularly. I witnessed many pathetic attempts to reverse-engineer classical music programming to attract younger audiences. (It turns out that everyone ages eventually, and when they do, their tastes skew towards the timeless, and they have greater resources of time and money to attend concerts.)
But this current manifestation — an obsession with "decolonizing" the arts — is far more troubling. The field's latest histrionic, shallow, misguided appeal for relevance swapped banal, relatively harmless ageism for racism and cultural Marxism. Organizations and artists are tripping over themselves to prove their fealty to the "right" cause. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the audience just wants to hear Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Bach. Threading the needle between what the audience wants and what grantmakers and fellow artists expect is becoming increasingly difficult and logically inconsistent. As an artist, I can't help but feel like I'm watching the art form I love implode in slow motion.
I often think of Douglas Murray's concept of the social justice warrior as a contemporary "ronin:" people wandering aimlessly without a purpose. You'd think the arts and sciences would provide a powerful antidote to purposelessness. The fact that they're not immune to this crusading phenomenon is the saddest of all.
And add to that the abandonment of blind auditions as too many of the wrong ethnicities are being hired.
The effects of our leadership in education are devastating.
Just a few years ago, in one of the most educated cities in the entire country, the public high schools lowered its requirement for chemistry to one-half year and physics to one-half year. Calculus is no longer taught in high school. Gifted/talented programs have been eliminated.
At some point, we will no longer have to worry about the Chinese stealing technology from our universities. All the universities producing anything of value will no longer be on American soil because all American universities will be reduced to day care for adult children.
The grift that keeps on grifting. Just think of how many adults in positions of trust it takes to execute this wealth transfer from American taxpayers to privileged predators & cronies. This is Palace of Versailles-level corruption and contempt for the people.
Rupa, thanks for the heads up. This is the type of government waste that needs to eliminated. With the deficit expanding unsustainably, this is unacceptable.
I am a physicist by education and graduated from one of the best, if not the best, Soviet universities, specializing in STEM sciences. Therefore, seeing here any character suggesting voting for Kamala, Tim and the Democrats in general, I will not delve into his arguments. Goats are not allowed to speak!
Fantastic. Learning that my federal taxes dollars are continuing to fund rigorous scientific “research” is the cherry on top for today…
Since the FP cannot reach any of these professors, feel free to contact me for commentary on their non-commentary. 🙄
This is all just a stealth tax on society, the same way that lawsuit abuse raises costs for everyone, and allowing shoplifting makes stores more expensive and inconvenient. 100% of these DEI grants are at best wasted.