Ducking under the animal thread, to revisit, briefly, the question of Epcot:


From a 1989 Speech by Neil Postman at the Fifteenth General Conference of
ICOM:

(On being summoned to consult on recommendations to "enhance EPCOT's
educational functions.")

"From my point of view, the task was hopeless.  The problem is not that EPCOT
has become more amusement park than museum; the problem is that EPCOT is a
museum providing a mistimed truth to a people in desperate need of moral and
civic guidance. . . the theme of EPCOT is "technology uber alles." In every
exhibit, in every conceivable way, EPCOT proclaims that paradise is to be
achieved through technological progress, and only through technological
progress. . . For a society that has now totally committed itself to the idea
that technology is divine, there couldn't be a more mistimed vision of the
future than this.

What can EPCOT teach Americans, or inspire us to think?  We have already
organized our society to accomodate every possible technological innovation.
 We have deliriously, willingly, mindlessly ignored all the consequences of
our actions.  And have, because technology seemed to require it, turned our
back on religion, family, children, history and education.  As a result of
what we have done, American civilization is collapsing.  Everyone knows this
to be true but seems powerless in the face of it."

Postman goes on to suggest that "useful" museums presents *alternative
visions*.  "For as I see it, that museum is best that helps to free a society
from the tyranny of a redundant and conventional vision; that is to say, from
the tyranny of the present. . . .The most vital function of museums is to
balance, to regulate what we might call the symbolic ecology of cultures, by
putting forward alternative views and thus keeping choice, and critical
dialogue, alive. . . .What we require are museums that tell us what we once
were, and what is wrong with what we are, and what new directions are
possible."

Apart from the somewhat breathless prose, I find this an extraordinary plea
for humanity in the museum profession.  Anybody know where this kind of work
is going on?

Mary Worthington