Sunday, 15 September 2024
The nurseryfication of culture
Nina Welsch has a fine Critic piece on what she calls the nurseryfication of culture.
The nurseryfication of culture
Alienation has encouraged the normalisation of childishness
An “educational” video released by the Manchester Museum went semi-viral recently. I’ll give you the highlights to get it over with it. In it, a young female employee introduces herself as “using they/them pronouns” (sigh) and that “today, we’re finding Pride in our collection” (sigh). Their focus is the museum’s collection of taxidermic birds from the Victorian era. The Victoria era, they explain, was run by “cis, white, straight men” (sigh) and that is why there are more male birds than female ones in the collection. The way the birds are positioned, with the handsome males standing over the more submissive-seeming, plain-plumaged females is indicative of these patriarchal norms (sigh). They then point out the way bird families are grouped together with their chicks and how this reflects the implicitly oppressive “nuclear family” (are you drinking yet?).
There’s too much wrong with it to highlight everything — from the cynical anthropomorphising of non-human animals to the fact that the “nuclear family” wasn’t really coined until the 1950s and in the USA, nothing to do with Victorian Britain. It is just one of countless examples of ideological dumbed-down, virtue-signalling historical revisionism that leaves us all culturally poorer.
The whole piece is well worth reading as another aspect of the wider infantilisation of adulthood, particularly this point in the final paragraph.
When nursery children adorn badges, it is a way of grounding themselves in their surroundings and place in it, making sense of their little story in a vast picture interweaving countless. With adults who work in the heritage sector who cover themselves in pins and badges, it seems to be the opposite — a way of standing out from the history, artefacts or knowledge their workplace is steeped in. At a push, I’d call it almost disrespectful. What is missing in the cultural soul of so many people that they can play a privileged part in maintaining the legacies of such valuable institutions and still feel the need to signal to all that enter: Look At Me?
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7 comments:
Let's just resolve the problem by plonking a statue of Boadicea (as she now isn't) outside every museum. Or, in England, Bloody Mary - representative of the smack of firm government, eh? In Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots: exemplar of women letting their heads rule their hearts. Or not, as the case may be.
Actually, it would be simpler just to have a statue of Mrs Thatcher.
If nurseryfication of culture is to be deplored, then the taming of nursery tales is also worth reflecting upon.
In my youth we had an old book of Victorian Nursery Tales - and they were bloody and grim (no pun). The scissorman would come and cut off the thumbs of children who sucked their thumbs and so on. Some of the grimmest tales have been Disneyfied and are much 'nicer' than the originals.
So all the furore about Museums and Art Galleries going woke is just another turn of the 'nice' screw. Best thing to do is to ignore it and not patronise those places (or films or cartoons) until the people pushing the woke element get the hint or go bankrupt.
Anon - that would be too scary for many, almost as bad as having a large notice saying "Climate Change Is Nothing To Worry About".
DJ - I remember reading the original version of The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids to our granddaughter. She was fine with it, but no doubt it would be Disneyfied and much 'nicer' today.
It's a pity about museums going woke because they may end up being ignored and could have trouble building a more scholarly image.
It's got so that discovering a proper old-fashioned museum is a real joy. Typed labels, dusty cabinets, collections that have grown accretionally, and no axes to grind. Apart from those in the "Agricultural Tools" section, obviously.
Maybe we need a museum of museums, to exhibit fine old specimens of the amateur curator's art.
Sam - I agree. Some museums have old-fashioned sections which seem to be curated by different staff members, or maybe just older staff members who actually know what's in the cabinets and what the labels refer to.
Infantilisation … yes. Another word for such a person is retarded … emotionally and morally.
James - as Kamala has been described, with good reason.
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