New York Times article review

The article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/arts/artsspecial/18SCIENCE.html?scp=11&sq=history%20museum&st=cse.

In this class we have invested a great deal of time and energy into picking apart just what constitutes a museum, and well as what the role of a museum is (or should be), and what influence museums have on contemporary society. Edward Rothstein’s The New York Times article of 13 March 2010 entitled “The Thrill of Science, Tamed by Agendas” discusses just such important issues. The article serves primarily as an editorial, and is moderately critical of the contemporary trend of using museums as a tool to sway public perception of political and social issues, generally with a liberal slant. Though on the whole the article is a fairly valid critique of today’s museum culture, Rothstein’s incompleteness and editorializing can be slightly abrasive at times and limit the overall success of the article.

Deep schisms have been developing in Western society over the past few decades, and in recent years that that the rate of that separation appears to have increased significantly. It seems to be increasingly difficult to find an issue that fervent liberals and conservatives alike do not boast polar opposite opinions on. Compounded upon this issue is the fact that hardliners from both ends of the political spectrum are constantly working to co-opt the moderates and independents from the middle, using all tools at their disposal. Museums, unfortunately, have not been able to escape this disturbing trend. While Rothstein focuses largely on popular science museums, this movement runs the gamut on popular museums of many disciplines, including hard science, natural history, history, and anthropology, just to name a few.

Rothstein does a good job in citing specific examples of exhibits that, if not scientifically inaccurate, per se, may not be entirely on the level with regards to science. For example, he recalls an exhibit at the American Museum of natural History that included “a scary model showing southern Manhattan smothered by a five-meter rise in sea level turned out to be — if you read the label — something that ‘experts consider unlikely anytime soon’ but could take place ‘thousands of years in the future.’” He bemoans the appropriation of museums as a tool to “cultivate apocalyptic fears” and ponders that: “Learning is guided by a political judgment; it is also limited by it. Couldn’t an intriguing exhibition be mounted, for example, showing the inevitability and importance of prejudice?”

As a reviewer, I will admit that I agree with many of Rothstein’s ideas. I believe that science and the accompanying museums have been inappropriately twisted into a political tool, and in many ways this article was successful in highlighting the ways in which that has occurred in recent years. I feel, however, that this article was rather lopsided, which significantly limits my praise for it. Rothschild criticizes the use of museums to raise awareness of environmentalism and cultural sensitivity—traditionally liberal causes—but never does he note ways in which conservative groups strive to influence the content of museums. For instance, a Canadian anti-gay group lobbied against the construction of Winnipeg’s Human Rights Museum, on multiple occasions conservative groups have been successful in having “obscene” or “offensive” art (such as Andres Serrano’s photograph, “Piss Christ”) taken down from galleries, and in Kentucky an entire museum exists devoted to bolstering the idea of Creationism in the public consciousness (“NATURAL SELECTION IS NOT EVOLUTION” their website loudly proclaims).

This subject is far too complex to attempt to explicate fully for my purposes here. In some cases, perhaps museums should be used as a political or social tool; in other cases, perhaps not. In any case, this article puts forward a good effort to bring this issue to the attention of the public, and for the most part what is included is accurate and reasonable. However, that does not excuse Rothstein’s lopsided treatment of the issue, especially when he chooses to editorialize the issue so heavily.