Cultural Democracy: The Arts, Community, and the Public Purpose

4. Conservation and Commercialization

Baskets for sale at a folk festival. Photo by the author. 4 Conservation and Commercialization In 1954, Elvis Presley recorded his own rendition of a song that had been written by bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe. “Blue Moon of Kentucky” had been a small-time hit for Monroe, and he used it as his band’s theme music in every performance. Although Monroe’s musical style had been innovative in the 1940s, by the time Elvis got around to reworking the song, it had settled into the well-defined formula that still commands respect among musicians all over the world (one of the biggest annual bluegrass festivals now takes place in Tokyo). Elvis ignored the tradition, appropriated “Blue Moon” to his own purposes, and turned it into one of his first hit rock ’n’ roll records. The Nashville establishment was not unanimous in its enthusiasm. They had not yet adopted Elvis as one of its own, and this rough treatment was more than some could bear. “Blue Moon of Kentucky had been a hit for Bill Monroe in 1946, well before the term ‘bluegrass’ came into popular usage,” writes Presley biographer Peter Guralnick. “In Monroe’s Conservation and Commercialization / 87 version it was a beautiful waltz familiar to anyone who listened to the Grand Ole Opry and revered by every hillbilly musician who ever picked up a stringed instrument.”1 Monroe may have had some reservations himself, but these were quickly disposed of when the royalty checks started arriving. He subsequently became a big supporter of Elvis and even recorded his own up-tempo version of “Blue Moon.” Those checks were a persuasive demonstration of the direction music was headed. Monroe would remain a profoundly conservative defender of tradition throughout his long career, but this would not be the last time his music was appropriated for commercial purposes. Traditionalists recoil, and some look for a way to fight back. Many local communities feel that their customs are in danger of being submerged in the ocean of mass culture, and they reflexively seek the means to protect their legacy. But those royalty checks are extremely hard to turn down. Even the most isolated communities still participate in the mainstream cash economy; often the more isolated they are, the more desperately they need to enhance their bottom line. Many culture professionals have come to view this precarious position of local cultures through the lens of conservation. Borrowing a page from the environmental movement, they declare our cultures to be endangered species. “We recognize the fragility of the California condor; a sea island fishnet [a Georgia fishing tradition being eliminated due to overdevelopment] may symbolize an equally fragile cultural system,” writes Burt Feintuch in The Conservation of Culture. “Connections between the concerns of the environmentalist and the cultural conservationist are obvious. Our ecological stewardship must extend to cultural policy, just as our concern for those intangibles we call the quality of life must direct our thoughts to cultural conservation.”2 Certainly, most public arts professionals feel confident that their work contributes to the quality of life in their communities —but so, too, do executives of steel mills and chemical plants. If environmentalists have a bad reputation in some circles, it is due in part to their well-advertised belief that their idea of the quality of life is the one that really counts. As a social movement, cultural conservation runs a similar risk. Framers of the concept of cultural conservation make strategic use of the ecological referent. A Smithsonian publication repeatedly draws parallels with the field of ecology: “The concept of ecosystem for example, has helped us to understand interrelationships between natural species and to devise strategies for conserving threatened parts of our environment. In the understanding of traditional cultures as well we are learning to look 88 / Cultural Democracy at larger economic, political and social contexts as elements in systems of which traditional cultures are also parts. . . . [W]e have come to understand that it is possible to foster the continued vitality of ‘endangered species’—natural or cultural—without dismantling or derailing national and international economic, political and social institutions. Conservation can be made a part of development plans.”3 The projection of natural science terminology onto the cultural domain immediately places it outside of the realm of the contemporary socioeconomic and political order. Like endangered species, cultural traditions become something one can read about on the inside pages of newspapers...