In search of a new process for producing and managing culture
There still does not seem to be any agreement in Brazilian society on how culture should be produced, using which methods and processes.
How can those of us who are concerned with the production of material goods and of services in general contribute to this debate? Is this a subject only for activists in the field?
At the very least, we are all citizens interested in improving the management of public resources and, therefore, we can and should speak up.
The federal government's recent back-and-forth over keeping an independent Ministry of Culture has generated countless discussions and shed little light on how culture should be managed in Brazil.
More than 20 years ago, the federal government and congress developed specific legislation to encourage culture, known as the Rouanet law. It allows companies to choose cultural projects approved by the Ministry of Culture, invest in those projects and deduct all or part of the amount invested from the taxes they owe the government.
In other words, the central idea is that the State directs investment in culture by approving what should be done. And it finances this effort with public resources, through tax incentives.
But when the Federal Police recently came forward to prove that cultural producers were defrauding the existing legislation, there was concrete evidence that something is deeply wrong at the very basics of culture management.
We are not talking about the essence or results of this policy, about performance indicators, successes and failures. We are talking simply about basic principles of ethics and morality, essential elements of a country's culture.
If culture is part of the country's morals and customs, these recent administrations of the ministry devoted exclusively to culture show a great deal about what we should not want and should not be as a country.
But, looking at the performance of the national system of cultural production over the last 20 years, we can also ask what impact the resulting Brazilian cultural products and projects have had. Museum exhibitions that very few people saw? Plays and films without an audience? Or, on the contrary, multimillion-real shows by hugely popular artists?
Which Brazilian cultural products have had international repercussions in our history? Samba schools? Bossa nova? Sertanejo music? Romero Brito? Globo soap operas? Futebol arte? Jorge Amado? The Museum of Tomorrow? And how many of them came from government support?
Perhaps some of the doubts may stem from the difficulty of clearly defining what culture is, what “cultural products and services” are, and their production and management process.
Definitions of culture are very broad and varied. They range from an understanding of the knowledge, beliefs, values and customs of a society to a narrower view that culture is essentially represented by artistic expressions.
Regardless of the definition chosen, cultural production is carried out by society as a whole. A school play, amateur poetry, a new type of technology in a company, an advertisement, a song, a soccer team: all of these could be seen as cultural products.
The production process, therefore, can and should take place in every sphere of social and economic life.
What should the role of the State be? To directly induce the production of culture, to be its financier and, therefore, to define where the investment will be made?
Raising public resources through taxes and allocating them to certain activities, defined according to a logic that is neither very clear nor transparent, does not seem to be the best way to use public resources.
Nor does taking on responsibility for management, defining priorities and allocating resources, as well as evaluating (or not) the results.
In our view, as outsiders to the cultural production process, it seems reasonable to assume that an essential portion of cultural production should take place in schools, at every level. That is where knowledge is developed in a broad way, including artistic knowledge. And that is where state resources should be allocated, to ensure adequate infrastructure and, above all, to train qualified teachers.
What can be said about the current professional training and the level of arts education in schools? What is taught? Who teaches? What should be taught, and how? If we look at what our students learn in mathematics, as measured by global comparative tests, arts education is possibly not a source of pride in our schools either.
When cultural products are for profit and are “professional,” resources and management should follow the private logic of risk, profit and business in general.
Would anyone imagine a US government agency deciding which Hollywood films or Broadway plays would be eligible for funding? Or some politician deciding the Oscar awards?
Since we are talking about production and management, we have learned from business organizations that it is difficult to improve what we cannot measure.
Would it be different with culture? Would it make sense to evaluate and measure a country's cultural production with more objective and quantitative parameters? How can we know whether our policy and our practices are producing results?
The current political way of producing and managing culture does not seem suited to doing one essential thing a modern State should do: contribute to a country's development and cultural change.
