Last week, the cultural managers of the four major newspapers met in P1 to discuss cultural policy. Everyone roughly thought that culture should receive more tax money, that children must learn to read, that the Minister of Culture should not be as uptight as Parisa Liljestrand was, and that culture today is in decline. In the end, Expressen's Victor Malm exclaimed in a fit of self-awareness: "God, what products of a long consensus on Swedish cultural policy we are".
Mm, that's right. When a not inconsiderable part of Cultural Sweden heads to Gothenburg and the Book Fair this week, it will sound much the same there: Everyone wants to "upgrade the culture".
And sure, but there is a danger in that. Consensus paves the way for laxity in thought. The world of culture needs more arguments, about what is the task of culture - and what it actually means to "upgrade" it. Otherwise, the next minister of culture risks being embraced as long as he increases the contributions to folk high schools a little, goes to galas and pays tribute to cultural creators.
You can criticize Liljestrand too much, but she has actually opened a path for the next minister of culture to make a real difference. Not least when it comes to that central thing that culture creators are often not interested enough in making themselves worthy of: steals. Partly by having solved partial private financing of the Opera's renovation. Partly with the inquiry into expanded cultural funding that was presented in May, which put forward proposals for expanded opportunities for donations and sponsorship. The investigator pointed out that this would require increased and stable public funding of culture. This is exactly what has been requested by the industry organizations Sweden's museums and Swedish performing arts.
At the same time, the Social Democrats' cultural policy spokesperson Björn Wiechel has repeatedly dismissed the proposal as a way to reduce public investments. It's wrong: the Tidö government reduced cultural funding without first broadening it, but because we have so little private funding, it hit harder than it would have in other countries. If the Social Democrats get what the party wants, and the inquiry's proposals are not realized, we risk missing out on large revenues for the cultural and artistic life, due to ideological blinders.
Should art risk being captured by Carl-Oskar Bohlin's good will and, let's call it, Lars Trägårdh's national romanticism?
Cultural managers, writers, politicians like to compete for who can say the most times that they want to increase the value of culture. But the consensus on that matter has apparently failed to stop cuts. Rather, the result has been that important dividing lines have been blurred. At the same time, all means are used to try to justify cultural support, which comes with risks. Now, in line with today's focus areas, culture's contribution to national cohesion and preparedness is often highlighted. But should art risk being captured by Carl-Oskar Bohlin's good will and, let's call it, Lars Trägårdh's national romanticism?
Expressen's Victor Malm was so depressed by how much he agreed with the other cultural managers that after the P1 conversation he condemned cultural politics as "boring" and wrote that they should argue about aesthetic issues more instead. But backing away from the political debate now would be a shame. It has been four years that Culture Sweden has criticized Parisa Liljestrand in unison. It must have been easy. Now the more difficult discussion should take place: Time to admit and follow through on what she did right.
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