a poor player

Dunkirk NY – About two days ago I finished reading 20Under40, the collection of 20 essays on the topic of creating change in the arts sector written by people under 40 years of age. It was a very interesting read; sometimes exciting, sometimes dull, sometimes provocative. I would not want to categorize what I am about to write about the book as any sort of “review,” but rather a reaction, or perhaps a collection of thoughts I had as I was reading the book. It’s an important contribution to the conversation about where the arts are going, and I don’t think anyone should question that. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things that passed through my mind while reading the book.

My first thoughts were centered on the notion of time. I thought of time in three ways: generational, longitudinal, and technological. Time as a generational matter had to do with thinking about reading the thoughts of these people who were all at least 20 years younger than myself. Because of the fact that people live longer, I think there is much more generational intersection than there used to be in human history. To put it in stark terms, the “baby boomers” are simply clogging the pipelines, much like cholesterol in an artery, and not giving GenXers or Millenials the opportunity to move forward. If we had the health standards today of, say, 150 years ago, no doubt I would simply be dead, and the problem on the whole would be handled by people simply dying (e.g. I had a health incident at age 48 that probably would have killed me if it occurred, say, 75 years ago) and allowing younger people to move into positions carrying more possibility to change things. Additionally, given the state of the American economy and unsureness about the future, baby boomers are working longer, and in fact are being encouraged to work longer. My full social security retirement age is 66, so I could literally be hanging on to my position for another seven years, thus denying a younger person the opportunity to have my job. And in New York State, there is no “mandatory retirement” age, so I could continue to do this until I did, in fact, die.

This concept of generations now living longer and thus clogging the natural pipeline of succession intersects with the notion of time as longitudinal – there is only so much of it for everyone, and it takes time to be able to build projects and see ideas through to conclusion. I found some first-rate ideas in the book, but I began to question if those with the ideas will ever get the time to accomplish them, given that baby boomers will continue to be in the way for some time to come. This is particularly acute in academia, because based on my experience it appears that the current generation of academic leadership is more concerned with preserving – and in some cases downright enforcing – its own perceptions on younger faculty, who must jump through these academic hoops before they can ever hope to have the chance to implement change. Young faculty cannot get a running start on their ideas; they are stalled for up to seven years while they await tenure. I presume it’s similar in non-academic settings as well, where young people, out of concern for job security (the book itself speaks to this idea of “self doubt” and “fear of professional consequences”), must wait for the right circumstances to open up so as to be in a position to implement new ideas. In short, will all the people who wrote essays in this book already be 50 before they ever have a chance to effect their ideas, and what will be the result of that? And what will the 30-somethings behind them be saying by that time? Change takes time, and I wonder if the essayists will ever have the time to effect their ideas, particularly those asking for change in education.

The technological aspect of time is also important. Technology changes fast, and many of the essays I read seemed to indicate that technology is an important tool to the majority of the essayists. But will the technology they know today be the technology that will be in place once they have the opportunity to put their plans into action? Example: I have an iPad 1, bought last summer. The iPad 2 is now out, less than a year after iPad 1 made its debut. Blogging is becoming passé; Twitter and Facebook are rapidly succeeding it. What will supplant these two current powerhouses? How will two-tiered access to the internet (the so-called “net neutrality” issue that cable and telephone corporations are trying mightily to defeat) change their plans? How will the continued commercial corroding of the internet as a marketplace affect their plans? I had the thought that, given the speed at which technology changes, and also given the fact that it may be awhile before all these ideas can be realized, the technology they are talking about today may not be the technology that an even younger generation will be dealing with tomorrow.

Also, in terms of time, people will feel the need to have time to talk these ideas over – and a lot of time. These days you can hardly put an idea out into the marketplace before it is questioned, attacked, defended, questioned again, refined, etc. etc. The marketplace of ideas has become loud, contentious and at the very least takes place at a national, if not global level. Sometimes I think it’s best these days not to write at all about anything you intend to do – simply do it. Get it done. If you put it out there, you may end up spending too much time defending your position. I found myself being concerned that all the ideas in the book will be “discussed” to the point of discouragement, or at least to the point where time will be wasted. We live in a culture where things change fast, and it seems to be that too much time talking about things is time not spent implementing them.

Another thought I had while reading the book had to do with the “law of unintended consequences.” I find myself thinking a lot about that these days. Whenever you have plans or make plans to accomplish a goal, the hardest thing to do is figure out what the unintended consequences might be. Talking about this idea in terms of the regional theatre movement, I am sure that those people who founded the movement and went on to create the regional theatre system we have today had no idea that so many forces would come into play to bankrupt the system. I am quite sure they wanted a system that would provide high-quality theatre to everyone. What we see today is that human nature, cultural circumstances, changing values, politics, the economy and other forces produced many unintended consequences that has led to present circumstances in regional theatre. 20Under40 contains many good ideas, but what, I found myself wondering, will be the unintended consequences of these ideas? Will that be part of the discussion?

A final thought I had occurred while reading the chapter containing an analysis of the submitters. This analysis appears at the end of the book, and it’s a good enough analysis as it stands, but it does leave out one question I thought was important – the question of diversity of contribution. Now I do want to say that I applaud the editor for choosing ideas based on their appeal and merit, but as in most things in the arts, one has to take in the question of diversity, because it’s an immense problem. The analysis chapter does state that the call was quite open-ended in terms of author biographies, and apparently not much demographic information was collected, so none was presented. But the 800-pound “thought gorilla” in my mind would not leave me: is this book a collection of essays written by well-educated white, urban people? The circumstantial evidence seems to indicate that this might be the case.

The names and biographies of each contributor are listed at the end. Not including Eric Booth (the “old guy” mentor of the series), the biographies of the contributors indicate that 25 of them have at least a BA degree, and several of them have MFAs and PhDs (not all in arts-related areas). Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Boston University and the University of Iowa are some of the colleges represented (Harvard, Yale and MIT receive multiple mentions). I am assuming, because of the digital nature of the web site, its creation of discussion forums, and the general tendency of the essays to address the nature of technology and the arts, that the “call for proposals” was sent out digitally (the “call” apparently “generated buzz throughout the internet”). This would lead one to assume that you had to have internet access to receive the call, and despite gains in broadband access it still remains a matter of economic status as to whether you have easy access to broadband (again, see the net neutrality war being fought). Leaving off the sensitive issue of racial/ethnic profiling by name, when you look at educational background, universities attended, and access to technology, using inductive reasoning (which, of course, has its problems) we might reach theories about the demographic nature of the essayists, and this in turn might lead to a discussion of to whom the essays are aimed, and what problems they are trying to solve. To put it in the form of a question: are we trying to solve the problems of the arts sector as they relate to upper-middle-class urban white practitioners and patrons, or are we trying to solve the problem of access to the arts for all our citizens regardless of geographic location, ethnic origin, or economic circumstances?

I’m truly pleased to see that people under 40 are getting their say in this book. I was never in the least concerned that people over 40 were not invited; that’s a good thing. If I could financially swing retirement tomorrow, I would gladly step aside for these people (ah, there’s the rub). They would then have the time they need to effect their changes. And I do recognize that the editor and the writers recognize that their collection has its limitations – it’s a start at the very least. Dissemination of these ideas across demographic boundaries will be key. I only hope they will have the time it takes in this fast-paced society we have created to achieve their goals.  -twl