A new, provocative article in the New York Times, "The Thrill of Science, Tammed by Agendas," by Edward Rothstein.
Here's our own provocative take:
Rothstein has (yet again, if you’re familiar with his museum reviews) given us a very poor history lesson. The proposal that museums more than a century ago were apolitical institutions, simply presenting unadorned science, technological progress, and objects of natural wonder is simply false. Museums, as nearly every human endeavor, have always been -- and will always be -- political.
His argument, for example, that the Field Museum in Chicago, by presenting hunters and gathers as a noble lifestyle is somehow more political than emphasizing acts of human suffering (such as human sacrifice) is a tangled untruth. Much, much has been written about how the Western morbid fascination with cannibalism, human sacrifice, etc. is itself a product of Western political concepts of the “Other.” Both presentations have their politics. The question is not whether the museum has politics, but what those politics are and should be.
Here's our own provocative take:
Rothstein has (yet again, if you’re familiar with his museum reviews) given us a very poor history lesson. The proposal that museums more than a century ago were apolitical institutions, simply presenting unadorned science, technological progress, and objects of natural wonder is simply false. Museums, as nearly every human endeavor, have always been -- and will always be -- political.
His argument, for example, that the Field Museum in Chicago, by presenting hunters and gathers as a noble lifestyle is somehow more political than emphasizing acts of human suffering (such as human sacrifice) is a tangled untruth. Much, much has been written about how the Western morbid fascination with cannibalism, human sacrifice, etc. is itself a product of Western political concepts of the “Other.” Both presentations have their politics. The question is not whether the museum has politics, but what those politics are and should be.