In the innermost strata of a nation’s foundation, culture is often the last element to reveal itself. It is incapable of being discerned and appraised like GDP figures, nor does it parade its presence like military strengths at a national day celebration.
Culture pulses gently beneath the surface of the everyday — in the lilt of conversation, the sculptures perched on street corners, the melodic rhythm of a song, the rallying words echoing through resistance. Suppose a nation was a body: The economy would be its blood, the military its muscle and culture its soul.
So, if a nation loses its soul, could it still claim to be alive?
It is precisely because culture eludes concise definition that constitutes its vulnerability for political expediency. Budget slashes are simple enough to justify, just paint the arts as wasteful, and characterize artists and cultural workers as unproductive liabilities dependent on subsidies. Nevertheless, this rhetoric is more than a matter of austerity; it is a deliberate erosion of the nation’s vitality.
History has proven to us that incursions on culture rarely remain surface-level. The Cultural Revolution in China stands as a brutal testament: The first to fall were not those who bore arms, but those who wielded pens — not top officials, but poets, painters, professors and thinkers.
When thought becomes silenced, society loses its ability to question and revive. When intellectuals become branded as conspiracists and the classics are dismissed as relics of a passe past, what is left is a suffocated homogeneity.
Although Taiwan has not experienced such overt repression, when lawmakers relegate cultural resources to be expendable — or worse, as mere mooching — they are engaging in a slow-burn cultural revolution. It might not immediately shutter out libraries, concert halls or theaters, but it would bleed them dry until they are simply stamped out from neglect.
Culture is not a frivolous luxury; it is a means of resisting erasure. Without it, Taiwan would be reduced to a mere geographical descriptor — stripped barren of stories, faces or memory.
The “soft power” that we speak of is not in reference to competing missile numbers, but about demonstrating to the world that Taiwan is a distinct, creative and soulful community. This kind of power defies quantification, but in critical moments, it determines whether Taiwan is understood by the world, and, furthermore, if it would be impressionable in human history.
Politicians carve away at cultural budgets in pursuit of fleeting political advantage — whether to bend fiscal narratives to their will or to appease those unmoved by the arts.
Furthermore, the deeper danger lies in how such a mindset gradually seeps into society: Do we begin to believe that watching a play is unimportant? Do we come to regard the works of literature as less valuable than the works of labor?
Once these beliefs take root, the voice of the cultured are suffocated into silence and society itself would lose the very capacity to imagine.
A nation’s culture is its soul not because it is merely leisure, but because it is our self-realization. A song has the ability to ignite passion and unite thousands in a baseball stadium. A film could reframe how the world perceives and understands the social dynamics of society. A novel wields the potential to plant philosophical revelations into the mind of young people, sparking themselves to ask the question: Who am I?
These ideological unveilings remain priceless in essence, yet they declare whether a nation can stand its ground and resist being overtaken as if it never were.
The critical conflict is not whether to cut a budget, but the underlying problem of how we see culture itself.
Culture is not confined to the perimeters of an exhibit or monetary grants; it is the lifeblood of daily existence, language and thought. If lawmakers fail to recognize this, the problem does not lie with the Ministry of Culture, it is with the cultural poverty of the ruling class.
To cut cultural funding is to boast: We need no soul, only numbers; no memory, only efficiency; no beliefs, only compliance.
Perhaps such a society could function in the short term, but braced against the currents of history, it would lose its voice.
Taiwan must not fall into such a trap. We already understand that culture is not mere recreation — it is our last line of defense against erasure. Without it, we are dots of population on a map. Bearing culture — bearing our soul — we are Taiwan.
So, when a politician blithely calls for a cut in the cultural budget, we must question: Is it just a few billion dollars being saved, or is it the price to pay for Taiwan’s future?
Liu Che-ting is a writer.
Translated by Lenna Veronica Suminski
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