Obama would like to increase funding for the Smithsonian.
This is genuinely good news. Granted, I’ve not done the research, but it does seem like quite a while since the Smithsonian has seen an increase in its budget. The arts and culture weren’t exactly a big thing under the previous administration, go figs. I remember back in 2005-2006, during which time I was with my first boyfriend, the Smithsonian had just made a round of cuts to its staff pretty much well across the board. My boyfriend had survived those cuts: his supervisor had not.
It’s this sort of gesture that leads me to believe that there just might be hope for this country yet. I’ve often believed that America really doesn’t have Culture. We have different kinds of cultures, granted, such as sports culture, military culture, the cult of celebrity, but we don’t have Culture. Yes, notice the capital C. I think the reason we don’t is because America, technically, is only a little over two centuries old. Even if one were to count the extra century or two of formative, exploratory years, America still isn’t all that old. We’re not like Italy, or Persia, or China, all countries whose Culture can be traced back thousands of years.
But I think it’s the sort of thing we ought to be aiming for; a supreme goal. Wars will be won and lost, the battles and soldiers forgotten in the wash of time. On the other hand, the ancient Egyptians have been long dead, but everyone knows who the pharaohs were. They were able to place their mark on history and they won’t be forgotten. In a few millennia, will our predecessors be able to say the same about us?