I woke up Saturday morning blown away by Charles Blow. His witty defense of PBS in his column is perfect. PBS as the enactment of the ideal of a democratic culture: refined, enlightening, open, inclusive, transforming. Blow presents not only illuminating personal reflections gleaned from the one gaffe of the Presidential debate on Wednesday, the dissing of Big Bird and PBS, as Aron Hsiao’s post yesterday analyzed, Blow also significantly addresses one of the crucial fields of contestation in American history: the perils to and promise of cultural excellence in a democracy. I have been thinking about this issue for much of my career. It was at the center of my book The Cynical Society: The Culture of Politics and the Politics of Culture in American Life. Blow shows how Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends, along with much else in PBS programing, contribute in a significant way to the health of the republic and its citizens.
Blow celebrates the character of Big Bird as it contributed to his own character. “I’m down with Big Bird.” Being black and poor in rural America, in the absence of good schools, PBS became his top quality primary and secondary schools. His uncle daily cared for him and permitted only one hour of PBS TV each day. (The same regime, I used with my kids. I wonder: how many millions were so raised?)
Blows imagination was sparked. His thirst for knowledge was quenched. He learned about science through nature programs, to his mind his SAT prep. He devoured arts programs, which he believes enabled him, a college English major without formal art training, to work as the design director of The New York Times and the art director of National Geographic magazine.
“I don’t really expect Mitt Romney to understand the value of something like PBS to people, like me, who grew up in poor, rural areas and went to small schools. These are places with no museums or preschools or after-school educational programs. There wasn’t money for travel or to pay tutors.
I honestly don’t know where I would be in the world without PBS.”
In the debate about what is the impact of democracy on cultural excellence, there are essentially two radically opposing positions, each unsatisfying: the elitist and the populist.
Elitists see a danger. Democracy weakens cultural excellence. If the majority rules in cultural affairs, mediocrity results. Distinguishing the good from the bad, the important from the insignificant and the creative from the formulaic involves hierarchical judgment. Elitists, such as Alexis de Tocqueville, want to preserve excellence in the face of the merely popular. The broad public be damned.
Populists have a problem with this. They rebel against elitism, while they defend the popular. Hierarchical judgment is seen as a defense of privilege. The tastes of the folk and the people are celebrated. The folk music coming out of the popular front in the thirties and forties, of the Weavers and Pete Seeger, express this position. It is also embraced by Seeger’s musicologist father, and the distinguished sociologist of the arts, Howard Becker. In the praise of the popular, concern for and support of “high art” is questioned.
Most of course try to square the circle, including the aforementioned, and try to figure out how the pursuit of cultural excellence and the pursuit of democracy involve a creative tension that supports both democracy and excellence. They further recognize that democracy and cultural excellence are mutually supportive, not only in tension.
Cultural work beyond elites is enriched by the insights and creativity of more diverse perspectives and cultivated capacities. In The Cynical Society I highlight the accomplishments of the American literary renaissance of the mid 19th century, something that Tocqueville did not perceive or anticipate.
On the other hand, the rule of the people cannot be wise unless they are well informed and well educated. Excellence has to reach not only the privileged. Thus, Blow’s demand to not mess with Big Bird.
Romney made a cute comment, highlighting his antipathy towards government, shared with his fellow Republicans, in favor of minimal government. In contrast, in the view of Obama and the Democrats, the government can and should facilitate the development not only of the economy but also the society and American democracy. It is the government of the people, for the people, by the people, Obama emphasizes, not an alien force. It supports public goods, such as Big Bird and his friends. The stakes of the election for Obama are personified by Big Bird.
P.S.
As I was writing this post, I received Aron Hsiao’s “Romney’s Big Bird Moment” and decided to publish it immediately. He first brought to my attention the importance of the Big Bird gaffe in a response to my earlier post on the debate. I was pleased he expanded his at first tentative speculations into illuminating analysis tied to Chinese – U.S. history and the Republican approach to the political economy.
Big Bird went to China as educator and diplomat, showing an alternative to cold war antagonisms then and thoughtless self-destructive anti-China sentiments now. Hsiao concludes that Romney and the Republicans attempted “to liquidate Big Bird for their own gain—a startling parallel to the Bain Capital narrative that has dogged the campaign now for some time.” Hsiao thinks that “The moment may help to solidify the notion that Romney remains (perhaps intentionally) the quintessential private equity CEO, despite his presidential aspirations—a “one percenter” disdainful of publics. One who knows and exploits the prices of things without having any particular interest in their value.”
As a Democrat and strong Obama supporter, I hope he is right about the potential political impact of the Big Bird gaffe, though I am not sure. As a sociologist, on the other hand, I marvel at the power of democratic culture as revealed in a yellow muppet. As individual citizens such as Charles Blow have greatly benefited from the broad array of programing on PBS, American political culture has been enriched by the creativity that PBS has made possible.
“The stakes of the election for Obama are personified by Big Bird.”
I think that you have captured the crux of the issue, Jeff, and the reason for the reactions that we’ve seen since the debate. The sudden emergence of Big Bird as an object public discourse embodies your larger discussion: not everyone is able (no matter the reasons) to follow stump speeches and platforms closely or to make head or tails of the details (often with minimal context to support them) that overwhelm debates like the one that we saw. The Big Bird statement, however (and the endless string of memes that have followed it) acted as a monad: it encapsulated the larger realities and inherent tensions of the moment in ways that were able to convey the stakes of the election to the widest possible audience, without the need for reliance on exposition or debate, or the parsing of words in an attempt to alienate neither elites nor the rank-and-file.
My guess is that for all of Obama’s efforts at the convention, the question of where one stands on Big Bird is among the most economical of possible ways to bring the public to consciousness about the nature of their vote in this election cycle.
My bet is that the greater portion of the American public stands with Big Bird.
Great insight and post.
Romney has been going around saying that Big Bird will survive under his administration, only that he will have to learn to get along with Kellogg’s Cornflakes. Not only did Jeff and I raise our kids allowing only very limited TV, the only channel they could watch was PBS. Especially after our experience living in Poland in the early 70’s and traveling around Eastern Europe at that time, we became very incensed against propaganda. When we returned home, we noticed that children were singing the jingles of the commercials they heard, and we vowed not to let that happen to our kids. Even if parents aren’t so sensitive to the ill effects commercials can have upon their children, everyone should cherish a place where anyone, no matter how old, can go for learning and entertainment without being bombarded by advertizing. Even though technology has changed, and prerecording is now possible, it comes at extra cost that many can’t afford. And how many parents would be monitoring the zapping of commercials, anyway? The loss of PBS would be a tragedy for our society. Romney is just daft to think Big Bird can get along with Kellogg’s Cornflakes and who knows what else and maintain his integrity.
An update: This morning word is out about a new Obama campaign ad featuring Big Bird. I worry that the Obama campaign has made a misstep here—they’ve now committed a similar sin to Romney’s sin (though a less egregious one). To my eye they would have been better to simply leave Big Bird and discussion of him to the public, or to run a straightforward ad (rather than an over-the-top attack ad juxtaposing Big Bird and Bernie Madoff, etc.) expressing support for Big Bird and PBS. It would appear that the Obama campaign didn’t quite understand the meaning of Big Bird either, and are sliding down from the high ground that Romney ceded to them.
I see your point. It is aesthetically elegant and perhaps politically
wise. But I am not sure. The ad has punch and Obama needs to do some
punching now.
Now the Obama campaign is considering the request from the Sesame Workshop to pull the ad, and I believe it likely will. I look at it as a sad aspect to our democracy that there are such low information voters where TV ads can make a difference, and a debate performance, no matter what the content, can make a difference. It’s true that the chattering classes are talking about Big Bird as are the candidates on the campaign trail, but most people are not paying attention. The ad has punch as Jeff says, but clearly the best opportunity to draw this stark contrast in policy will be at the next debate. I have hope that Biden will be direct and to the point, and expose Ryan if he starts to sound all warm and fuzzy. They say Vice-Presidential debates don’t matter, but I suspect that this one will have a big audience, especially since Ryan has the reputation he does as being “the big thinker” of the Republican Party.