William Kennicott has a searing article in the Washington Post (3/15/06) on right-wing pundit William Safire's recent lecture sponsored by Americans for the Arts in D.C. Safire, says Kennicott, espoused the current mainstream view (apparently held by the NEA) that art is primarily instrumental, useful for making children better at more crucial things, like math and reading. But, Kennicott says, "there is also a view of art as instrumentally radical, meaning it helps people question assumptions and challenge authority, but that view is now quietly encased in the past." By capitulating to the mainstream, he says, "the arts world disengages from a more epic battle with forces in our society that prefer a world closed to questioning, impatient with the new or threatening, and comfortable only with certainties passed down from authority figures. Perhaps that's why these forces have recently taken on such prominence in our cultural discourse." (Thanks, Jan Williamson.) [LINK]