Comments on: Acquis fiction

By: Wren

Wren — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 17:42:15 +0000

Boring Schmoring, I don’t care. If Bush wins here in the States in November, I am signing up.

By: mona

mona — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:52:08 +0000

giles – I don’t quite get your last points, but you did say: When I think of states using the Arts to “propagate/sell” their message, I think of the Nazi’s and Soviets. Which is why I’m a bit worried that EU that wants to use arts to sell its self.. Well, giles, the nazis and soviets directly commissioned art for regime propaganda, hence there was surely a lot of “editorial control”! I was objecting to your comparing dictatorial propaganda with government funding/subsidies for the arts, it’s totally ludicrous. It’s ludicrous to even think of the Nazi and Soviet regimes in the same breath as the EU, no matter how many votes the UKIP got by doing just that. Most European nations already have their own arts councils, boards, film councils, ministries or departments of culture, etc. the EU just pumps even more money into the same kind of stuff that’s been government-funded like that for years, together with funding from the private sector. What’s so worrying about it to warrant such a parallel with genocidal regimes?

By: mona

mona — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:22:34 +0000

henry: believe me, I believe you :) I’ve dealt with EU institutions too, for work, even if not as directly as you. I have no argument at all with the description of the EU as dull, as a burocratic institution, but the EU as the whole of its nation members is another thing, and the EU as institution funding and supporting projects including those of an artistic or cultural nature, yet another… I couldn’t say whether the EU is a Good or Bad thing as a whole, it so depends on what we mean by it. I was arguing with the idea that the EU is inimical to art, it’s not, if you actually consider the funding aspect for independent projects, and not just what the EU commissions as official art to represent the institution. I’ve never seen that official art, I don’t expect it to be anything impressive, but I’ve come across a lot of instances of EU funding for unequivocally good things (if you’re not the kind of person who objects to public funding of arts in the first place, of course), like art and design institutes and independent projects in a lot of artistic fields. I was being a bit sarcastic about the comparison with the UKIP views, of course, didn’t mean it literally. But you know, for many people, the way the debate is so taken to extremes especially in the tabloids and the like, the distrust for the EU often starts simply from the idea that it’s this weird thing whose reason for existence is incomprehensible and unjustified, and from there it’s rather easy to exploit that distrust to make it into full blown paranoia, like UKIP and the like do. I’m not a Europhile, I really don’t have one single opinion on the EU as such, I just got bored by stuff like the tabloids mocking of European regulations, as if there was no point at all to regulating industries, or as if it was a peculiar EU invention (these people must have never dealt with the FDA!), or as if there was something really that weird about the idea of harmonising pre-existing national regulations once there is a common market (a little detail the tabloids tend to forget about). So I’m just a bit skeptical of the usual discourse about the EU as this mindboggingly kafkian thing, because that view is so often exploited by demagogues.

By: dc

dc — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 03:05:35 +0000

“There’s something about the EU that seems completely inimical to lively cultural expression.” Yet they chose ‘Ode to Joy’ as an anthem.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 00:18:56 +0000

more gripping than EU-mediated disputes over protected designations of varieties of cheese (and other foodstuffs, but especially cheese)? Ah! The feta wars! Still gives me goosebumps.

By: DVH

DVH — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:56:01 +0000

even conveyed sense of geographic location, would probably offend somebody in one or another of the member states. The iconography and corporate colour scheme of Kakania is expressly designed to be void of regional or national iconography. When you enter the Berlaymont building, you leave your national sympathies with the barman. The possibility of the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben ever appearing in any EU brochure or picture would represent a failure of the bureaucracy as catastrophic as full scale war.

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:13:36 +0000

“is there a state in the world that doesn’t and hasn’t tried to produce official art of some sort or another?” Probably not – but it is a question of extremes; the british government funds films but is pretty liberal in its prescriptions because the objective is clear(ish) maintain the industry and promote the “local culture”. The pathology of the EU system is that, as you mention, it is somehow constrained from standing for anything too particular which is why it just pays for star circles to be plastered everywhere – so it looks a bit like a plain brand. The problem is that if its not rooted any particular value, the Art may make the EU take on a personality of its own – that where the Reich analogies come in – I’m speculating here but I’m sure a large part of the Nazi’s support came from people who had never even read a précis of Mein Kampf but rather associated the Nazi’s with the powerful images they’d been feed. And the power of art to imprint a personality on a instution then instills a certain blind loyalty. So once you start treating the Acquis Communautaire as a brand as opposed to a set of values/laws etc I think it becomes hard to know where you’re going to end up.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:26:36 +0000

Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t that more or less the thoughtful view of the Sun, the Daily Mail, and UKIP? :) Hardly, I would have thought. Their attitude seems to me to be more that the EU is a wicked plot to destroy nation states. And I should note that my own “thoughtful view” is informed by having worked in various capacities for the Commission over the years, as well as having devoted a substantial chunk of my adult life to studying and writing on the EU. I’m quite happy to argue that the EU is a Good Thing overall, but it is dull, trust me – try teaching the Common Agricultural Policy to a class of undergraduates, and you’ll see what I mean. Giles – is there a state in the world that doesn’t and hasn’t tried to produce official art of some sort or another? And indeed, some of the output has been quite remarkably good – say Florence and the Papal States in the Renaissance. All of this was quite political in its intent and effects. The fact that the EU tries to sponsor ‘European’ art is not in itself a bad thing – it’s just that (for a variety of reasons) it tends not to be good art (under any reasonable definition of ‘good’). And in fairness, in addition to the junk that I criticize, the EU does help fund some good local stuff on the sly. Mind you, I’m sure that thirty years down the line the naff paintings lining the corridors of power will be highly collectible for its kitsch value – now’s the time to stock up if you ask me.

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 21:09:06 +0000

since when has government funding/subsidies carried any editorial control mona? Henry’s post points out that the EU seems to want to be seen everywhere so people know about it. By contrast most people know who their state government is and hence the, say British government has no incentive to publish its ubiquity (infact it has alot of incentive to publish its smallness). And the “Acquis Communautaire” isnt a brand – its 80,000 pages, some of which presumably mean something to someone.

By: mona

mona — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 19:33:03 +0000

Ah yeah, the nazis and soviets, famous above all for their sponsorship and funding of independent art… Millions of people today are exactly in the same situation in that respect, they have been so brainwashed that when, at the end of a film they liked, they see a mention of the Irish Film Board, British Film council, European Commission, the French or Dutch or whatever equivalent, or a combination of any of those, they immediately think “we will now worship and obey without questions the genocidal dictatorial regime that enslaved these filmmakers and actors to produce such triumphant celebration of our great fearless leaders!”, even if it’s just Bridget Jones! To think that Hugh Grant and Colin Firth are responsible for selling government propaganda, it’s sad, really, sad…

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 18:29:25 +0000

When I think of states using the Arts to “propagate/sell” their message, I think of the Nazi’s and Soviets. Which is why I’m a bit worried that EU that wants to use arts to sell its self. Sure alot of what it wants to do is “boring” but so is most of government so that no excuse. Rather I think that this illustrates that things are just not quite right about the EU - If it now thinks that its just a brand than god help us. The last brand war between two identical products with different labels was in 1941-45 – any wasnt much fun for anyone (expcept perhaps artists).

By: mona

mona — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:47:59 +0000

“There’s something about the EU that seems completely inimical to lively cultural expression.” When has cultural expression ever lived on the walls of corridors of parliaments and burocratic centres? The EU has been funding a huge amount of art and culture projects, exhibitons, institutes, films, schools, scolarships, etc. It’s one of the good things the EU actually does, let’s acknoweldge it at least. “It’s incredibly boring on the face of it (partly because most of the regulation concerns dull matters like phytosanitary standards), but there’s something quirky and strange about the fact that it exists at all, and that it operates in the way that it does. ” Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t that more or less the thoughtful view of the Sun, the Daily Mail, and UKIP? :)

By: Des von Bladet

Des von Bladet — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:45:10 +0000

Boring is the new interesting! But could anything possibly be more gripping than EU-mediated disputes over protected designations of varieties of cheese (and other foodstuffs, but especially cheese)?

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:35:42 +0000

Ah, I meant John Burnheim. At least I knew it began with a “B”.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 16:27:27 +0000

There was a guy in the 80s putting forward a similar concept. I can’t think of his name right now – Berkstein or Berkshire maybe? – anyway, he was an Aussie and I think a Jesuit with a professorship somewhere. He had some radical notions about non-geographic governance. He wanted to see government activities divided up on a function-driven basis. He also had this notion about running government through oversight committees drawn randomly from the constituency. I ought to write a post on it. I’ve got his book at home.