Towards voluntary evaluation of cultural projects

The subsidized cultural sector is going through a crisis of legitimacy after betraying its democratic values. I believe that a refoundation through sincere evaluation is necessary.

A sector in crisis that refuses to see its contradictions

In the middle of this year 2025, we readily assert that culture is threatened in France, and this is a reality, as we can see on the Crisis Map offered by the Observatory of Cultural Policies) Yet, it is not culture itself that is “in danger,” but rather a specific professional sector: that of cultural actors subsidized by public money. Private culture, on the other hand, is doing remarkably well, as evidenced by the ever-flourishing consumption on digital platforms.

The subsidized sector is indeed suffering from political choices of morbid condescension. Cultural professionals are outraged by this treatment, they who proclaim themselves bearers of humanist and democratic values. But their indignation rings false when we remember their behavior during the Covid crisis (2020-2022): when democracy was attacked, through the establishment of an exceptional legal regime, as in wartime, while we were absolutely not at war, what did these self-proclaimed defenders of democracy, freedom, and humanism do? They obeyed without flinching the most liberticidal measures, the most destructive for physical and mental health, docilely relaying the hypocritical discourse of mainstream media subservient to a villainous capitalism, which had seized the opportunity of fear, waving it as strongly as possible, to obtain this blind obedience, which increased the wealth of the richest at a speed never seen in History and produced major divisions and wounds in society and in souls.

The collusion between the extreme center power in France and capitalist forces, generators of social violence, domination and exclusion, that is to say the exact opposite of democratic values, who in the artistic and cultural field dared to take the risk of denouncing it? How many were there, among cultural professionals, to refuse guilty obedience? How many resisted the stigmatization of the “unvaccinated,” when no evidence established their supposed dangerousness, the scientific consensus having moreover been forced to admit after the fact that decision-makers knew from the start that these vaccines did not protect against transmission? After such submission to absurd and unconstitutional decisions, how can they still claim to defend respect for others, inclusion and democracy?

The signing of a pact of submission

The rare protesters, those “dangerous anarchists” who were labeled conspiracy theorists but who were actually resisters, were ostracized by their peers, all anxious to preserve their subsidies and not to offend the power in place, even if it was despotic, brutal and incoherent (these are the classic techniques for obscuring judgment and setting up totalitarianisms, as Victor Klemperer documents so clearly in LTI, the Language of the Third Reich, 1947). Faced with this servile obedience to the most aberrant orders, this abdication of all critical political thought, I had realized at the time a cruel reality: if this sector, which should be at the forefront of attention to others and democratic care, capitulates so easily in the face of arbitrariness, then it saws off the branch on which we all rest. It endorses its voluntary submission to any future diktat. And... “nobody cares.”

Culture was declared “non-essential.” A few voices were raised, certainly, but where were the actions? Who took the risk of keeping venues open, faced with the incoherence of closure decisions, to continue to serve the public by applying, if necessary, reasonable sanitary measures, as was the case in Belgium collectively for Cultural Centers and for the bookstore sector in France? Collectively, we are politically strong. There was no one or almost no one in France, and those who risked it were most often stigmatized as “far-right conspiracy theorists,” which was absolutely not the case. Servitude is only voluntary, let us not forget (La Boétie, 1577). The cultural sector thus signed its act of submission, refusing to mobilize against the political and intellectual totalitarianism at work. Its collective political consciousness was simply absent, out of fear of sanctions I think, because apart from a few extremists convinced of the merits of these liberticidal measures, most didn’t think any less, but didn’t take the risk of their intuitions, remaining in the comfort of their fear to justify their inaction and avoid too great cognitive dissonance between their values and their actions.

Political leaders perfectly understood the lesson: this pact of obedience signed in blood gave them carte blanche to transform the cultural milieu into a simple political and budgetary adjustment variable, which could only be at their command, or else not be.

Despite the harshness of my observation, I do not judge anyone individually. Fear remains the worst advisor, and many, animated by good intentions, betrayed their values, blinded as they were by maintained fear, by submitting unconditionally to health totalitarianism, this biopower that Michel Foucault had so well analyzed forty years earlier. The first struggle is the struggle against fear; it is not unconsciousness, it is self-anchoring and lucid power to act. And it is also much better for public health, thanks to empowerment and not infantilization, whatever the capitalist despots say!

Towards a democratic refoundation of cultural action

However, it is never too late to question ourselves and work to restore the democratic meaning of arts and culture. I remain optimistic, and that is the meaning of my speaking out here. Faced with political leaders now uninhibited and certain of their absolute domination, only one path is open to us: to question ourselves, and be educators towards these same political leaders, work to dialogue with them rather than insult them, seek to put ourselves in their place. Because we may well criticize them, we have a large share of responsibility in their actions, which are indeed unjust today, just as those of 5 years ago were. If we had resisted the manifest inconsistencies during the Covid period, if we had collectively fought against our fears to be able to stand together, they would have known that we were strong, and ready to do anything to ensure respect for human rights, which is the mission for which we are accountable not to elected officials, but to citizens themselves.

We must refound a truly democratic perspective for our actions. This implies radically rethinking our cultural projects, deconstructing systems of privilege and the symbolic domination exercised by artists over spectators reduced to silence. Let us think particularly of these young audiences, these children forced to attend moralizing shows that don’t concern them, where they are bored and see themselves stigmatized if they have any divergent idea or manifest their disinterest.

Cultural rights require that we recognize through our actions the full dignity of each person, that we rethink their place in the encounter with works. This is what must be evaluated: not our self-glorified actions, but the real respect for the dignity of audiences. This evaluation must be sincere, shared among peers, nourished by deep reflection on the refoundation of cultural action. Founding texts like Art as Experience by John Dewey (1934) can enlighten and support this approach.

Let us also recognize that popular cultural practices are massive and legitimate. To speak of “cultural citizenship forfeiture” for “audiences” not reached by public cultural institutions is an imposture: these citizens consume Netflix and Spotify, frequent TikTok and YouTube, all private cultural spaces, certainly, but cultural nonetheless. They participate in many cultural rituals in their territories, which are not legitimized by cultural “professionals.” Why would these practices be qualitatively inferior to those offered in subsidized cultural spaces? According to what criteria? This hierarchization reveals an untenable position of domination. We are not better than private actors and autonomous practices; we are simply different.

Instead of despising these practices, let us integrate them into our reflection. Let us invent other forms of encounter, without condescending judgment, in authentic respect for everyone’s cultural rights. During the Covid crisis, digital cultural practices exploded, but subsidized actors participated little. A few laudable initiatives certainly emerged, but without fundamental political work or anthropological differentiation from private proposals. And unfortunately, since the end of the crisis, these digital experiments have almost disappeared from the subsidized cultural landscape.

Evaluation as a path of transformation

Serious evaluation of our projects becomes crucial. Let us document the processes, let us be interested in individual pathways, no longer of abstract audiences but of singular persons. Let us tell these journeys, identify what fundamentally distinguishes what we offer from private and autonomous cultural practices, what processes of singular encounters around art we propose. Let us make a narrative of this, sincerely, also integrating our learning, our errors, our paths and questioning, in service of citizens. Only then will political leaders understand the value of our actions and stop dismissing them with the back of their hand. Let us be educators with them, open dialogue, and if they don’t want to listen to us, let us persevere.

Let us strive to understand the logic of those who make these destructive decisions, rather than “resisting” in a disorderly way that validates our powerlessness and fragility. Let us work with our “audiences” and no longer for them, let us refound true democratic spaces around creation, let us allow ourselves to be enriched by others, to reweave connections. Let us reopen ourselves, truly. And as in all care, whether medical, psychological or artistic, let us be interested in causes rather than symptoms, let us work preventively, if we can say so. It is up to us, who feel excluded and stigmatized by these political leaders, to show tolerance and reconnect dialogue with our aggressors. Since they are obviously incapable of it, let us accomplish this work in their place, let us work for two and even for three, by including “audiences” in our evaluation approaches, thus deepening our connection with all the stakeholders involved in the subject, including elected officials. Because culture, in its anthropological sense, will never disappear, it is what weaves the fabric of our lives.

This crisis represents, as many recognize, an opportunity for refoundation. Let us place voluntary and sincere evaluation at the heart of all our projects. Let us take the necessary time and space to question ourselves, in order to authentically serve democracy rather than perpetuate the bourgeois reproduction of a system of domination in which artists fully participate. Michel Schneider had brilliantly demonstrated this in The Comedy of Culture (1993): the cultural milieu too often defends everything except democracy, while claiming the opposite. Without a profound transformation of its methods and its democratic posture, the subsidized cultural sector will pay an exorbitant price for its blindness.