>According to today's Washington Post, not only is the original exhibit
>to be cancelled but the exhibit catalogue will not be published either.
 ...
> Felicia Pickering
 
Thus robbing the American public of any chance of ever being allowed to
judge for itself.  All we're now ever likely to have is other people's word
for it, when the facts could so easily have been laid out for all to see.
 
(BTW, is the WP sure?  I've been told by yet another source -- I called the
Smithsonian Press a week or two ago -- that the catalogue was already in
press.  Given the publicity, it might just end up a runaway bestseller.
 *I* sure would consider buying it, which I might not have before.)
 
Now, I'm not a complete naif -- I know about such things as Realpolitik,
and I do not expect even a great institution to be like Caesar's wife,
above reproach.  Still, when so large and respected an institution as the
Smithsonian can be so compromised ...
 
Worse, it does rather cast a shadow over other institutions, as well.
 
Consider:
 
When a museum -- ANY museum -- editorializes (which seems to have been what
set the whole thing off in the first place -- having a point of view as
opposed to just setting forth the facts as best and as evenhandedly as
humanly possible), it loses credibility -- if it slants one exhibition,
might it not slant others?  And, if so, which ones?  ALL of them?  Subtly
enough that only well informed visitors or experts can spot it?
 
When, moreover, it caves in to a pressure group, a museum also loses
credibility -- if it yields to one, might it yield to others?  And to which
ones?  Has it already done so?  How?  Just at what point does a museum sell
out the truth and objectivity, and for what?  Public funding?  Private
donations?  Good public relations?
 
(At least with corporate sponsorship, openly acknowledged, one knows from
the git-go to be on the qui vive, as one is if the institution is obviously
and openly operating from a certain point of view.)
 
And if even the Smithsonian is perceived to be yielding or editorializing,
what of others?
 
Natural-born cynic that I am, I would begin to wonder now about ALL museums.
 
You can talk about marketplace and having to respond to it all you want,
but when it gets to the point that you feel you cannot trust the museums in
this country because they show and tell only what appeals and is acceptable
to the majority, or the perceived majority, or the squeakiest wheels, and
to perdition with facts and objectivity, it's a very sad state of affairs.
 
Still, I do wonder -- what is better: a biased exhibition, so that the
visitors can still at least see the artifacts and ignore or read with a
grain of salt the labels?  Or no exhibition at all?
 
Mario Rups
[log in to unmask]