Abstract

This is a book about the culture wars, particularly those in the U.S. To gain a more complete view of what they are and what is at stake, I examine the relationships between funding, censorship, and democracy by looking closely at particular examples where the government at least wanted to refuse funding (it sometimes in fact succeeded) and to then look at the issues that arise. The main examples I have chosen is Andres Serrano, whose Piss Christ helped many people’s blood pressure rise, and who, along with Robert Mapplethorpe, caused the late 1980s and early 1990s outcry over the National Endowment for the Arts. These are the instances that started the so-called culture wars more than two decades ago and it is in this form that they still exist today. This book is an attempt to rationally and completely examine the issues at hand and to finally set to rest the contentions that underlie the debates, not just in their current specific form in the United States, but in general. These are the philosophical issues, which include not only the obvious political concerns around demands for liberty, free speech, and the compromises inherent in social organizations, but the epistemological issues at the heart of art. What is it that we learn from art and why is the presence of culture so often beloved and a deprivation of it bereaved?