In a short Current Affairs article titled “Don’t Expect Art to Save Us,” RS Benedict argues that artistic or cultural expression cannot meaningfully substitute for concrete political action.
It’s not a new claim. Nor, in my view, is it a very controversial claim, though, as with even most accurate claims, it draws its detractors.
However, I think we can learn a few lessons from the very first reason Benedict gives in favor of the claim.
Being Attacked Doesn’t Mean You’re a Threat
What does Benedict say? They point out that authoritarian governments attack artists. That’s what authoritarians do. That’s what they all do.
However, many people draw the conclusion that artists, therefore, threaten authoritarian governments. They conclude that governments attack artists specifically because they’re a threat. The threat, on this line of thought, drives the response.
The problem? This doesn’t appear to be true. We have quite little evidence of artists presenting a genuine threat to authoritarian governments. Or any government, beyond perhaps a rare example or two in history. And so, that’s quite likely not why authoritarians attack artists. We have to look for other reasons.
Authoritarian governments probably attack artists for completely different reasons. Perhaps the art offends them. Perhaps they have cultural issues with the artists. Or some other reason. There are plenty of reasons why a government might target people who don’t present an actual threat to it.
But What About Academics?
I’ll add to Benedict’s case that analogous reasoning applies to academics. The far right in the U.S. repeatedly targets humanities departments, professors who take part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and so on. And many bright, skilled academics draw from this the conclusion that the professors are therefore a threat to Trumpism.
But they’re not. The far right doesn’t attack academics because they’re worried about the rise of a politics inspired by your favorite rhetorician, political scientist, or English professor. In fact, academics hold little power or influence these days.
They attack academics because academics stand overwhelmingly on the other side of the culture war that the far right wants to fight. Professors are highly educated members of a ‘cultural elite’ that the far right hates. That’s why they attack professors.
That they attack professors certainly isn’t evidence that the professors are a threat to them. In fact, professors irk the far right and make for a politically convenient punching bag.
It’s nothing more than that. And certainly the professors won’t save us.
