Appalachia, Democracy, and Cultural Equity (cont'd)

Democracy's Cultural Correlative: 
Cultural Equity

To move toward a paradigm of cultural equity, those in the dominant order--and I suspect that there is a part of all of us here in that--those of us with one foot in the dominant order can help move us toward such a paradigm by giving up the terms of domination.  What are some of these terms?  Domination's definitions are linear, hierarchical, top down, trickle down, done to.  Equity's terms are circular, nonhierarchical, all around, done by.  Domination calls for exclusion; equity values inclusion.  Domination creates dependence; equity independence and self-reliance.  Listen to their respective educational terms:  to train him, to teach her; in contrast to building and sharpening one another--the South African concepts expressed in the Bantu uakana and uglolana.  The paradigm of domination places efficiency (profit) before participation, product before process, mobility before attachment to place, the man-made order before the natural (and spiritual) worlds.  It makes claims of objectivity, criticizing others for being too subjective.  In the arts, it pretends to value formalistic concerns before concerns of content, because it takes its content of domination as a given.  This has the effect of placing beauty (the beauty of domination) before issues of morality (leading directly to art for art's sake).

Finally, the paradigm of domination causes a hardship for the individual, because the paradigm doesn't really value most individuals.  (To different degrees, this has proven true in both capitalist and socialist systems.)  At best, within this paradigm of domination most individuals experience mild and regular disorientation, a sense of dislocation; at worst, a feeling of invisibility, in which they finally may be unable to perceive even themselves--a kind of walking death.  Always, the paradigm of domination puts us at some (evolutionary) distance from being full human beings.

Let me emphasize that a new paradigm of equity would not rely on the either/or quality of my description.  The desired synthesis, in dialectical terms, will be characterized by both/and.  Thus, in our new paradigm we will not lose the usefulness of the straight line to the circle, objectivity to subjectivity, beauty to morality, disorientation as a way toward orientation.  What will have changed is our conception of these terms, because our conception of ourselves and the world will have changed to make a new pattern of meaning.  A paradigm that values neighborliness and peace and restores the primacy of the common good is what I believe we should be working for. If we could but see it, this is in our self-interest.

Appalshop and Roadside Theater, where I work in Appalachia, attempt to operate out of something like this kind of paradigm.  This effort is reflected in our collective organizational structure and in our goal to make films, television, music recording, radio, and theater that are relative to the region's daily life. 

Exactly how do we, then, make our work?  Most all of Appalshop's people were born in the region; all have an allegiance to the working class.  Roadside has developed both an indigenous performance style and an indigenous body of plays by drawing on its heritages of storytelling, balladry, oral histories, and church.  The community participates in the creation of new plays first as resource for the script and later as respondent and critic during the various stages of play development.  Some of our productions incorporate local talent in the performance event.  When completed, the production is performed throughout the region--in churches, community centers, outdoor amphitheaters, wherever people come together.  The play is often the occasion for community discussion.

Likewise, if we are making a half-hour television show about the high cancer rate of those drinking the water from Yellow Creek, Kentucky, we make the show as a coproduction with that part of the Yellow Creek community concerned with the problem.  Thus the television show not only informs broad, five-state regional audience (and sometimes a national audience) through broadcast, it also provides the host community with an organizing tool.

And what, then, when the work travels out, as it very often does?  We are constantly devising ways for our context to travel out with us.  Poet Marianne Moore remarked that people don't like what they don't understand.  Roadside believes that it must provide the opportunities, in as many ways as it can, to that understanding.  Wherever we go, we make a special effort to invite working-class and rural people to our events.

Crossing cultural boundaries is not like attending a cocktail party with strangers.  It is more like being brought into a family circle.  It is an intimate experience that requires patience and respect.  It takes time.  Fifteen or so years ago, an internationally famous folksinger from California came to the mountains to perform in the county's high-school auditorium.  A big crowd was on hand as a local sting band opened the concert.  The band held the audience's rapt attention.  The famous folksinger followed with some success.  Backstage, she made a point to congratulate the local band on their performance, noting that she, too, often sang from the same Appalachian repertoire.  She went on to say how keenly the audience had been listening to their music and wondered what their secret was.  "What is that little something extra you seem to have?" she asked emphatically.  She pressed for an answer.  Finally the fiddle player spoke up,  "Well ma'am, the only difference that I could tell was that you were playing out front of them ol' songs, and we were right behind them."

The final measure for Appalshop's work is the health of our community, the well-being of our people.  Appalshop's role is to nurture a creative discourse with its tradition.  In such a way we hope to help our community meet the challenge of the present and prepare for the future.

Culture, and art as one of its potent expressions, is fundamental to our we-ness.  Without our stories and songs, paintings and sculpture, we have difficulty recognizing ourselves.  To deny a people their cultural expression is to deny them their existence.  This is why oppressed people cling so tenaciously to their cultural practices.  It is why their art is often encoded, its power and meaning hidden behind screens through which only those in solidarity can pass.  One fears loss, dilution, cooptation.  Culture carries a people's profound expression of their self-hood.  Only when peoples can meet as equals, without the threat of domination, can they risk their art and culture.  Cultural equity, then, is integral to democracy and the making of an American people from our many diverse strands.

Appalachia's culture, like the majority of North American's more than one hundred identifiable cultures, is not now accorded this equity, respect, and right to self-determination.  A large tangle of Appalachia's roots reach back to western Europe, and especially to the British Isles.  There, too, it is the grand tradition, what has become the art of the few, that presently rules.  The fact that most American cultures have living links with artistic traditions in other parts of the world is a compelling argument for international exchange--and a reason for most of us to offer ourselves as students before our continent's Native peoples, whose roots here have the benefit of ten thousand years of cultivation.

(This article is based on presentations given in 1989, 1990, and 1991 at a series of Cultural Diversity Based on Cultural Grounding conferences and follow-up meetings.)

 

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