Sedition, Complacency, and the Role of Today's Museums

My Esteemed Readers, one recent morning I found myself taking a detour through the Hirshhorn Museum while finding a new route from Constitution Avenue. Once inside, I decided to peruse the galleries in order to make certain these pop culture images are keeping the button-down ranks of society sufficiently distracted and complacent, thereby dissuading them from scrutinizing our time-honored American Traditions®, Social Myths®, and established Political Processes®.

As I milled about, I eavesdropped upon a young couple examining a Nam Jun Paik video installation. I was disturbed by the critical insight and reflective thought expressed in their exchange: 

 

Woman: This transcends postmodernism. It’s about process, not finished form, yet it returns to a centrist conception of reality by being grounded and dependent upon a technological medium.

Man: I still say it’s a postmodern critique of today’s technologically dependent existence.   Although its medium is grounded and centrist, its fleeting images convey chance and anarchy.

Woman: True, but I believe the artist is cleverly using postmodern vocabulary to critique postmodern existence. In any case, we agree that this work underscores the data-centered, impersonal, unfulfilled lives we lead in this modern world.

Man: Absolutely. Wow, this place has really got me thinking about the ways we’re forced to live today. I’m outraged!

A few minutes later I encountered this same couple in the museum gift shop. I was relieved to find that they had abandoned their trespassing in critical thought and had regained their Consumerist Outlook®, the prescribed perspective for those of common cultivation and origins:

Man: This Nam Jun Paik necktie is awesome! What a noose this will make at the office!

Woman: Check out these Giacometti earrings! These will be a hit at work!

My friends, nothing soothes the savage breast as does a consumerist opportunity. Let us applaud our nation’s museum gift shops for their valiant efforts in keeping the public appropriately complacent, Pavlovian, and willing to spend.

However, the same commendation cannot be granted today’s museum curators, a Treasonous Bunch bent on leading our once Malleable, Obedient Public® toward reflective thinking. They succeed in this nefariousness despite the valiant efforts of corporate sponsors to keep museum exhibitions dumbed down.

Sirs, although today some of you oppose the federal museum system altogether on the grounds that it is capable of encouraging the common strata of society to participate in the political process, I recall similar fears being leveled in 1846 when the Smithsonian was founded. I suggest we recognize the valuable role these institutions can play in keeping our public patriotic, gloating, and focused upon our nation’s Heroic Entrepreneurs. I recommend the following solutions be applied: 

Promote patriotic themes through a postmodern vocabulary

A few short years ago patriotism was the cat’s pajamas, and all the Cool Kids were posting flags in their windows and automobiles. But today, a treasonous society of Alarmists and Duds is increasingly scrutinizing Foreign Policy®, corporate management, and Human Rights Abuses®. The consequent unwillingness to spend, which lurks in the seditionist roots of such audacity, is dragging down the retail sector and prompting the masses to flock to museums instead of enjoying a more expensive and intellectually sluggish evening at the Talkies. Sirs, this must be remedied.

While today’s snooty, pseudo-intellectual public is programmed to turn up their noses at Norman Rockwell paintings, let us not give up on encouraging patriotism and apathy toward our nation’s political process. Let us harness the postmodern vocabulary to facilitate these goals. The public’s delightful distraction with video games, DVDs, and other trendy new technologies is a welcome indicator they will be responsive toward any medium involving a digital device, a price tag, and the lack of need to contemplate a fixed image or concept 

Decrease government funding and increase corporate sponsorship

Although some contend patriotic themes will be refused by the seditious museum-going public, let us not forget that it is our cherished private sector that determines and molds public tastes and predilections. Decreased federal funding to our nation’s museums will make these institutions increasingly and appropriately reliant upon our great corporations. (Must I remind my Esteemed Readers to think “Public Radio”?) The sage leadership and guidance of our vigilant, well-cultivated Captains of Industry will ensure that appointed artists and themes are selected to be the new up-and-coming personality, the cutting-edge show of the moment, the latest must-have coffee-table book. Sirs, in the near future, while the Ordinary Joe pops open a beer and props himself up in front of the television, the Bold, Patriotic Freethinker® will be snatching up a ticket to a federal exhibition.

Keep the public divided and distracted through Science® exhibitions

Although complacency and consumerism are the goals of any good art exhibition, let us not overlook the value of Engineered Social Outrage®. I suggest, sirs, that Science® exhibitions stand keenly positioned to accomplish this. I speak, of course, of Evolution. While the wearisome masses tear at one another’s throats in indignation about this unique and indispensable social distraction, they delightfully overlook key issues such as Foreign Policy® and the economy. If Evolution ever ceases to divide and distract our voting populace, it could be of grave consequence should they choose to surface on Election Day®.

My friends, let me conclude by stating that although today we reluctantly face a postmodern world filled with Multiple Narratives®, let us take solace in the fact that it is the privilege of our distinguished Captains of Industry to decide what these narratives will be. Our nation’s museums will be of pivotal importance in imparting these carefully selected themes. Just as the turf of yesterday’s Seditionists—coffee shops and bookstores–are now under the erudite control of Heroic Chain Corporations, so will be the case with museums, the chosen stomping grounds of today’s Mutineers. The treasonous banter of 1960s coffee shops is today palliated by consumerist distractions at Starbucks®, and Corporate-Sanctioned Bestsellers placate a renegade public cheekily insistent on burrowing into the printed page. So will be the course for tomorrow’s Museums®, sirs, so will be the course.