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In an interview on May 22, Undersecretary for Home Affairs Florence Hui Hiu-fai likened cultural policy to a tree growing out of the ground. It is a poor metaphor in two ways. First, it fails to address the current state of health of the soil; it assumes it is still good for growing. Second, it assumes that human deeds are comparable to nature\u2019s deeds.<\/p>\n
To free up our thinking so that the relevant and perennial contexts for such a thing as cultural policy can be\u00a0introduced, let\u2019s stop pretend that our current institutions of a bureaucratic kind could suddenly be vital, bountiful,\u00a0and all-embracing the way trees can be. Let\u2019s not pretend that the damage we have done to nature can suddenly\u00a0heal like nature does to itself. Let\u2019s start examining our culture as matters of human devising, be it for creation or\u00a0destruction.<\/p>\n
We already have and are in culture. We were born not an isolated self, but into communities of fellow beings and\u00a0fellow species. Together we develop habits and ways of life. Therefore, the idea that one has to wait to be\u00a0cultured is absurd. Culture is to do with meaning making. When everyone does it freely and in communities of\u00a0others who are equally free, patterns take shape. Culture is constantly created and re-created. To make meaning\u00a0alone in the reciprocal presence of others is an ordinary but transformative act. In the essay \u201cThe Fight for\u00a0Culture\u201d (The Times, jeanettewinterson.com, accessed May 24, 2012), British writer Jeanette Winterson says that\u00a0\u201cmeaning is much more than a bank of information.\u201d Something as basic as language, she says, is information at\u00a0first but we quickly move beyond information into the realm of meaning \u2013 employing pattern, form, image,\u00a0metaphor. We can do so as long as we are not interrupted. \u201cAll individuals share this instinct for meaning \u2013 that\u00a0doesn\u2019t make us all artists and poets, but it does make us all receptive to art and poetry \u2013 unless interrupted<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Culture gets interrupted a lot these days, the way public spaces get interrupted and discontinued. Corporate\u00a0culture interrupts culture. Consumerist culture that makes surplus production predictably obsolete interrupts\u00a0culture. This is called compulsory obsolescence, sometimes known as expiry dates or lifetime warranty.\u00a0Eradicating crowds and hawkers on the streets while letting in salespersons of property, cable tv, and internet\u00a0companies interrupts culture. Bureaucratic culture that serves inertia and the status quo interrupts culture. The\u00a0cult of instant gratification and instant disposal interrupts culture. Apathy interrupts culture.<\/p>\n However, when culture is recognized to be about meaning-making, we can start asking questions like what it is in\u00a0our culture that has created conditions for those meanings we value, and those we do not. We can start asking\u00a0questions about how culture could be free from those interruptions and free to create. To situate culture in the\u00a0pursuit of freedom is to embrace everything on the principle of justice, not on the slogan of diversity that glosses\u00a0over routine power hierarchies. The latter has generated an apathetic kind of tolerance that has corrupted the\u00a0original idea of tolerance as a condition of living together, just as plurality is a condition of human life, not a social\u00a0status, not an added value, and not a cultural capital. When Hui talks about cultural policy as finding a place for\u00a0Hong Kong culture in the \u201cinternational stage\u201d, we see culture being interrupted precisely because it is confined to\u00a0particular ways of producing, exporting, and distributing culture. Whether she knows this directly contradicts with\u00a0the idea of letting the tree take root, and whether she knows that without much help from the government,\u00a0numerous art and culture practitioners have already established vital, stable, continuous, and dynamic\u00a0international connections with organizations on various levels in the world, we may never know. But for sure, we\u00a0need no reminding that roots grow by penetrating, intertwining, stretching and reaching deep. They do not grow\u00a0by marking territories, nor do they fly on airplanes. Roots grow freely, if they have adequate access to sunlight,\u00a0fresh air, nutritious soil, and an occasional massage by earth worms. Internationalization on an institutional and\u00a0policy level deliberately channels the roots in a slanted way. This is not a cultural vision. This is not a principle\u00a0that articulates a value. This is merely a management of resources based on received conventions that are\u00a0disguised as principles, clothed as economic, even cultural inevitability and (therefore) priority. Culture is about\u00a0ensuring there are the widest available options for everyone to express who she is and how she is, not just one\u00a0model of distributing resources. Culture is about everyone\u2019s right to flourish and to attain a kind of well-being she\u00a0autonomously chooses. Culture understood in this way can only be sustained as an explicit and visible, not\u00a0metaphoric or fetishized relationship with nature.<\/p>\n The last point I will make here regards the demand from the culture sector that the position of Secretary of\u00a0Culture be taken up by a professional. Head of the Chief Executive-Elect’s Office Mrs Fanny Law says, \u201cNo one\u00a0can know everything; no one can be the expert of everything in culture because its definition is very broad.\u201d What\u00a0she says cannot be truer, but it applies not just to culture, but life. No one can start to claim she knows how to live.\u00a0In other words, the question on the professional is evaded. I would like to take it up here because it is important. I\u00a0propose that to be professional isn\u2019t to earn one\u2019s living being in a certain profession. To be professional is to be\u00a0fully aware at all times the potential and limits of the knowledge that informs and substantiates the relevant field,\u00a0constituted by many other professionals. To be professional is to know where one stands, and how far one may\u00a0go. A professional knows what she knows and what she doesn’t. She knows her line of responsibility and the\u00a0conditions that govern her code of conduct. In this sense, a professional is truly so only when she is not\u00a0stagnated by a fixation on specialized knowledge, so much so that she becomes prejudiced towards her own\u00a0expertise. Instead, she has a sense of the meaning of her expertise in the larger context, with a vision of the\u00a0common good. Any doctor, for instance, who is an expert in her field, cannot be called a professional if she\u00a0cannot ground her knowledge on the value of human life. A professional in culture cannot be called professional if\u00a0she cannot see culture as an issue of justice, as an issue about recognizing everyone\u2019s right to cultural\u00a0expression. A professional is a specialist, but she knows where this specialization is situated. A professional may\u00a0or may not have the relevant qualifications granted by some institutions. A professional may or may not be\u00a0financially rewarded for her work. But for sure, a professional abides by principles, not routines.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do we know how to talk about vision these days? Do we know how to engage in discussions about values and\u00a0virtues?<\/p>\n Cultural policies with a vision are not about making exhibitions or producing full-house concerts. They are about\u00a0making way for values to be nurtured. They are to do with what kind of life is worth living. We need a Secretary\u00a0who is committed to protecting the right for everyone to be able to make meaning of their lives uninterrupted.\u00a0When our everyday surrounding is over-spilling with advertisements pushing the property-owning dream, ideal\u00a0homes articulated as hotels, and perfection articulated as slimmed bodies, our right to pursuing a life well lived is\u00a0violated. To be able to defend this right despite social isolation, she needs to be informed by knowledge that is\u00a0active, not stagnated. She needs to be aware of its limits and able to transform it into the desire and capacity to A cultural policy respects plurality because it is a condition of human life. From the position of culture, plurality is\u00a0not the strategy of pluralism employed as an incentive for economic growth. It is the condition for the expression\u00a0of everyone\u2019s individuality. As humans, we flourish in plurality.<\/p>\n A cultural policy ought to commit to the continuity of public space. It is principled not on segregation but facilitating\u00a0human locomotion. As humans, we walk; our bodies meet.<\/p>\n I would like to end with Joseph Beuys\u2019 utopian dream that \u201cEveryone can be an artist.\u201d It is a dream carried on\u00a0from Karl Marx, who believes in equality. Scholar Boris Groys argues this is implausible, and it is only because it\u00a0is implausible that it could be a dream. Groys says, \u201cthe de-professionalization of art undertaken by the\u00a0avant-garde should not be misunderstood as a simple return to nonprofessionality. The de-professionalization of\u00a0art is an artistic operation that transforms art practice in general, rather than merely causes an individual artist to\u00a0revert back to an original state of non-professionality. Thus the deprofessionalization of art is in itself a highly\u00a0professional operation.\u201d Now, if there is any suggestion from the Chief Executive-Elect’s Office that \u201cEveryone\u00a0can be a minister, as long as she goes to the exhibition once in a while,\u201d we ought to demand that it be done\u00a0professionally, in the spirit of the avant-garde.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yeung Yang <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1 Asking the right questions In an interview on May 22, Undersecretary for Home Affairs Florence Hui Hiu-fai likened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2018,"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artappraisalclub.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2 Doing the right thing<\/h3>\n
\nkeep learning. She needs to be educated in the sense not as having degrees and qualifications, but who thinks\u00a0about thinking and enjoys thinking.<\/p>\n
\nMay 25, 2012<\/p>\nabridged version first published in SCMP,\u00a0May 30, 2012<\/h5>\n