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Candidates lacking cultural vision

Recently, the fire at the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) rehearsal space and warehouse has incited public concern over the government's cultural policies. As the troupe's leader Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) criticized politicians for paying lip service to supporting culture but lacking any long-term vision, various civic bodies correspondingly expressed their concern and support.

While criticizing the meagerness of the government's cultural budget, the argument also emerged that funding is not the only issue involved. With the presidential election moving into the debate phase, we feel that whether the candidates hold the typical politician's narrow and mistaken attitudes toward cultural policy is an issue of concern to the public.

Cultural policy cannot be sustained by only ideologies of efficiency and utilitarianism. In recent years, the government has repeatedly put forth slogan-style cultural and education policies, such as: "50 billion in five years," "The culture and creative industry development act" and "The digital content industry development act," which easily turn culture into a target to be achieved in a few short years, or use "culture and creativity" as a selling point for rapidly increasing the GDP and increasing employment opportunities.

Obviously, cultural policy has been dominated by the logic of utilitarianism and efficiency. Judging by the platforms put forward by the two presidential candidates, they have yet to abandon the idea that culture is something to be used to achieve political results.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) promises to increase the cultural budget if he is elected, or to reduce the taxation on sponsoring arts and cultural events. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) advocates making culture a priority in the nation's development strategy to increase the power of the nation as a whole.

Unfortunately, culture is still relegated to being a means to an end, without putting forth the depth of vision that a strong cultural policy requires.

Cultural policy should be severed from the sterile mathematics of economic language. Hsieh's "happiness economy" and Ma's suggestion of elevating the Council of Cultural Affairs (文建會) to a ministry of culture and tourism are both suffused with economic conceptions, being industrial and economic rather than cultural policies.

The nurturing of arts groups relies on the establishment of long-term policy rather than dishing out money and awards and dealing with cases on an individual basis when the opportunity arises. In addition to the plan to reuse vacant space for long-term rental by arts groups that has gained popularity following the Cloud Gate incident, the government should also consider more proactively instating a subsidy system, so that artists who find it difficult to obtain social resources can still maintain their creative livelihoods.

In addition, artistic and cultural creativity require a media platform for circulating, preserving and displaying information. Currently, Taiwan's commercial media only cater to viewer ratings and the advertising market, and there is a serious media shortage of space for non-mainstream and avant-garde culture for smaller audiences. The importance of public media resources devoted to promoting culture is self-evident.

On one hand, such a policy could work to ensure that cultural promotion is not curbed by political or economic forces and introduce the public to domestic and international cultural news and activities.

On the other hand, public media can provide a greater variety of cultural groups with a media platform to show their creations to audiences. Sufficient resources for a good public media system are fundamental for a cultural policy.

We call on the two presidential candidates to abandon their vague, shortsighted campaign promises and rethink the core values necessary for a real cultural policy. Returning to a visionary view of culture would promote a more dynamic political democracy and advance culture's economic value.

In addition to encouraging the valuable creation of art and culture and increasing the "output value" of culture, a cultural policy should be linked with the education system, the media structure and cultural history.

One can tell if a government has cultural vision by observing the extent to which it leads society -- unbiased, strategically and systematically -- toward cultural values that are more democratic, diversified and capable of acknowledging differences. In the current environment of political slogans, the public should pay close attention to the presidential candidates' thoughts on cultural policy.

Jian Miao-ju is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at National Chung Cheng University. Tang Shih-che is an associate professor at the same department. Both are members of the Campaign for Media Reform.

Translated by Angela Hong and Anna Stiggelbout
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