National Press Club Speech, Smithsonian Secretary David Skorton

Note to editors: Smithsonian Secretary David Skorton was the featured speaker at the National Press Club luncheon Dec. 8, 2015. Below is the text of his speech, “What Do We Value?”:

National Press Club
Washington, D.C.
Smithsonian Secretary David Skorton
8 December 2015

[As written for delivery.]

Thanks to the National Press Club for the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon and thanks to John Hughes for your kind introduction. 

What Do We Value? What do we value as individuals? What do we value as communities? And what do we value as a nation? I believe the answer to these questions is increasingly important in our current time—a time not only of uncertainty, but also of shifting frames of reference and other fundamental and increasingly rapid changes that leave each of us and all of us feeling less and less secure.

Of course, there are obvious things we “value” as individuals—family, safety, friends, and, for many of us, faith. And our nation was founded on a set of values: that all are created equal, that we possess certain rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and that government derives its powers from the consent of the people. More than two centuries later, according to an Atlantic survey conducted in 2012, almost two-thirds of Americans view freedom of speech and of the press as the top examples of superior American values, with half also considering free enterprise, principles of equality, and the American constitutional system as likewise critical to our national character.

But the question “What Do We Value?” is much deeper and more complex—not only what we actually value, but how we, as a people, identify what things are valuable to us and how we defend and support them.

Asking—and answering—these questions could be more critical today than ever before. As individuals and as a country, our core values—how they are identified, shared, applied, and supported—are being debated on college campuses, on the streets of our cities, here in our nation’s capital, and in fact around the world as traditional democratic and humanistic ideals seem to be under siege.

Given my background, I am not in a position to offer formal policy solutions. I can, however, help identify the tools to enable us as individuals and as a society to address the challenges of the day—and preserve and nurture what we value. If we employ these tools, I believe that we will not only be more engaged and even more fulfilled as individuals, but collectively we will be prepared to be more creative and flexible in solving society’s most intractable problems.

As Albert Einstein observed, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” But what kind of thinking is demanded today?

Fresh, nimble thinking. Thinking alone, thinking in groups. Active, engaged thinking. Thinking that includes the courage to go where the observations and conclusions take us, uninhibited by dogma or prior bias. Easy to say, hard to achieve.

So, how do we get there?

The first step is to look at problems with what has been referred to as “beginner’s eye and mind.” Problems are unsolvable only if we start out believing that to be the case. Too often we avoid thinking about important and complex issues not because they are actually unsolvable, but because the “experts have already spoken,” and we assume that as individuals we have nothing to add. We do ourselves and our community a disservice by retreating to that position.

Instead, we need to learn and to teach the skills necessary to be open minded, to have the ability to approach problems without prior bias, and, therefore, to see the problems clearly. Abdicating the responsibility to solve problems ourselves should not be our default posture. We need to frame the questions and arrive at the answers by having the courage to make discoveries on our own and by seeing things as they really are.

You may be familiar with the Zen notion of the “beginner’s eye and mind” as a foundation for approaching life. As Zen master Shunryu Suzuki described it: “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.”

Of course, I’m not suggesting that we ignore expert opinion and analysis; rather, I believe that there is a liberating and enlightening power to seeing problems and issues with an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions—just as a beginner would. The beginner's perspective allows us to see things as new, to be surprised and delighted, to discover. This openness to observe and reflect upon what actually “is,” that is the basis of the scientific method: observe a phenomenon, posit an explanation for the phenomenon—a hypothesis, test the hypothesis with further observations, and then assess the accuracy and usefulness of the formulation.

Our culture, our economy, and our individual well-being will benefit from “active thinkers”—those who can think both independently and together as a member of a larger community.

And a second step to our goal of active, effective thinking and problem solving is the realization that to solve community issues, we must learn to think as a community. The traditional scientific method has been wonderfully successful. Modern life is indebted to it.

However, the method has proven less successful on its own in solving some of society’s more complex, multifactorial, and seemingly intractable problems like poverty, hunger, lack of education, social injustice, access to health care, and economic inequality—all problems that require close listening, emotional distance, weighing of arguments and counter arguments, and—among the most critical—the direct participation of those most affected by the issues. Communities thrive on intuition, persuasion, give and take, and compromise and demand that interaction be based on respect and acceptance of differing opinions and priorities. And science thrives on precision, curiosity, and dispassionate observation. So we need to couple the wisdom of science with the wisdom found in other disciplines. Science is necessary, but not sufficient, to solve our thorniest problems.

For community-based challenges, sometimes approaching problems as Socrates might—through questions, dialogue, and argument—will prove most effective. Other times, the sort of reasoning learned in law school—choosing between applying precedents or seeing an issue as de novo or one of first impression—may make the most sense. Community issues are complex and problem solvers need flexible approaches from a broad range of disciplines and a wide variety of voices to tackle them.

For example, last week the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History launched a new initiative called “The Power of Giving: Philanthropy’s Impact on American Life.” The program included people from a spectrum of endeavors, from Carla Hayden, CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, to noted philanthropists Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and David Rockefeller Jr.

Carla Hayden and her colleagues from Baltimore gave a powerful and compelling presentation on how community activists have been working to solve some of the city’s problems—poverty, youth alienation, and family support—for many years, and most recently, helping the city respond to the death of Freddie Gray. They were able to do it by understanding the need to listen broadly—“from the ground up”—and to value the arguments and counter-arguments for action. One of their successes is Thread, a community organization that provides mentoring to struggling youth. Students are paired with at least four mentors who follow the student for 10 years. Thread succeeds because its leaders use flexible, inclusive decision-making processes that value input from a variety of stakeholders.

The successes of this sort of creative community-based approach to solving problems raises the question: How do we learn and teach others to think this way?

One way, and my pivotal point today, is to reverse our nation’s seeming disinterest and disinvestment in the arts and humanities, but to do so in a way that does not sacrifice our investment in science. This commitment must be based on an understanding that the arts and humanities complement science and that together they us make better thinkers, better decision makers, and better citizens.

Noted scientist E.O. Wilson once said:

The humanities are like the soul of humanity, the thing we produced that is probably absolutely unique in the universe. The creativity of humanity is guaranteed in the humanities. It is not guaranteed in the sciences.

To understand what it means to be human and to understand the complex problems that the world now faces require us to deploy every technique of understanding at our disposal, including and especially those at the heart of the visual and performing arts, social sciences, and cultural studies. We need only to look to current events to recognize that our national security alone would benefit if we all shared a better understanding of different religions, languages, philosophies, and world history.

Yet, rather than embrace this opportunity from the federal to the local level, we are investing less and less in education and in the arts and humanities. At public colleges and universities, states have cut support by more than 25 percent per full-time student since 2000. Overall spending on public higher education has grown only 5.6 percent from 1986 to 2013, while funding for prisons rose 141 percent in the same period. I believe that investing in education pays more dividends to society in the long run—one of which would be less need for investing in prisons. The programs in prison education show this to be true.

Not surprisingly, when funding cuts in education are made, it is the arts and humanities that suffer disproportionately. As society places more emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math—the STEM disciplines—our schools, at all levels, understandably devote more resources toward them. Particularly during a stubborn recession, it is, of course, more than reasonable to focus on vocational and economic concerns. But, in the long run, failing to invest in the broadest set of disciplines in education, research, and community outreach will cost us dearly. We will be less creative, less competitive, and less productive as individuals and as a society.

Some messages from Washington reinforce this trend toward disinvestment in the arts and humanities. In 1979, funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, when adjusted for inflation, peaked at $504 million and $519 million, respectively, in 2015 dollars. This past fiscal year both endowments received only $146 million each.

We need to move away from approaching issues in ways constrained by traditional and sometimes artificial academic boundaries; what we learn and how we learn impacts how we think and how we approach problems—an education rooted in the liberal arts is not simply exposure to a variety of subjects. Instead, a truly well-rounded education should train us to approach problems freshly, creatively, and flexibly, borrowing from the entire spectrum of human knowledge.

It has been said that science helps us to understand what we can do; the arts and humanities—our culture and values—help us decide what to do. Studying the arts and humanities develops critical-thinking skills and habits of mind, provides historical and cultural perspective, and fosters the ability to analyze, synthesize, and communicate. The source of this sort of perspective may be surprising.

Poetry, for example, provides an unexpected and unconventional lens to view our world in new ways. Author Roger Housden observed:

…for all its magic, poetry uses the common currency of our daily speech. It uses words that are known to all of us, but in a sequence and order that surprises us out of our normal speech rhythms and linear thought processes. Its effect is to illuminate our lives and breathe new life, new seeing, new tasting into the world we thought we knew.

All of us in the arts and humanities, including those at museums like the Smithsonian and other cultural institutions, should also be actively and clearly demonstrating how these disciplines help us articulate and appreciate the human experience.

I am cautiously optimistic that this is beginning to happen.

Drew Faust, president of Harvard University, who eloquently described the value of an education in the arts and humanities, noted that:

It is far better to create in students the capacities to confront the circumstances of life with a combination of realism and resilience and with habits of mind and skills of analysis that transcend the present. Students in the humanities learn how to think critically and communicate their ideas clearly, and those transferrable skills lead to rewarding lives and careers in every field of endeavor.

And at West Point, where Brigadier General Timothy Trainor, West Point’s academic dean, explained:

It’s important to develop in young people the ability to think broadly, to operate in the context of other societies and become agile and adaptive thinkers. What you're trying to do is teach them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. They’re having to deal with people from other cultures. They have to think very intuitively to solve problems on the ground.

I have heard many times from many quarters that the private sector can and should shoulder more and more of the support of the arts. I disagree with this assertion. The government must take the lead in reinvesting in the arts and humanities; we cannot count on philanthropy to do this entirely. The arts and humanities must be seen as a national priority, and the government must be seen as leading, both in rhetoric and with resources.

As the Secretary of the Smithsonian and before that a career-long participant in higher education, you can understand my interest in promoting the arts and humanities. As does our government, I recognize that museums in general, and the Smithsonian in particular, have equally heavy responsibilities to bear.

In my new position, I am learning quickly the leading role museums and other cultural institutions can play in our communities—and the country—and how they can impact and stimulate discourse and action. Museums have a great power, but it is softer, more ethereal, power. Political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” 25 years ago to refer to the power of ideas, knowledge, values, and culture to influence rather than the power of military and financial might.

As Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg wrote in “Cities, Museums and Soft Power”:

Museums empower people when they are patrons for artists and thinkers; when they amplify civic discourse, accelerate cultural change, and contribute to cultural intelligence among the great diversity of city dwellers, visitors, policy makers, and leaders….Museums present beautiful, accessible, and meaningful spaces in which communities and individuals can meet, exchange ideas and solve problems.

In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum is serving as a laboratory on how museums can be a cornerstone in successful place making. Besides exhibitions designed to its location, through its programming and outreach, the museum serves a town hall function for the exchange of ideas and the promotion of dialogue on topics particularly meaningful to a community in transition. Just this past weekend, the museum organized a community forum that brought together educators, scholars, parents, students, and community members to explore the impact that Washington, D.C.'s rapidly changing neighborhoods has had on public education in the metropolitan area. Other Smithsonian museums, like the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, are serving as vibrant cultural hubs for creative people to meet and discuss ideas. This month, the museum is partnering with the Washington Project for the Arts to showcase 20 D.C.-area artists as part of a Holiday Art Market project.

And 55 museums and other cultural organizations have partnered in Chicago to create the Chicago Cultural Alliance to promote dialogue and the creation of ideas that lead to lasting social change. Among the Alliance’s successes is the Young Leaders Network that brings together young adults to discuss issues and develop youth-led programming to identify solutions to some of the serious social problems affecting Chicago.

Since I arrived at the Smithsonian five months ago, I have visited our museums, galleries, and research centers, participated in programming, and listened to our historians, anthropologists, scientists, art historians, and educators. We are ready, and we are committed to using the unique power of the Smithsonian and other cultural organizations to make the case to value the arts and humanities more deeply and more vigorously in American life and education and use these disciplines for the greater good.

I hope that I have helped make clear the contributions that the arts and humanities make as instruments to shape and strengthen our society. In doing that, however, I do not want to overlook their intrinsic value. The arts and humanities enrich our lives with joy, beauty, and insights into the human condition that can be gained in no other way.

I am an optimist by nature, but my optimism is based on experience. I have met many talented young people as the president of Cornell and Iowa and in my medical practice, and I meet many others from across America in the museums and galleries of the Smithsonian. Our responsibility is to engage them, to inspire them, to get them excited about all kinds of learning—and to listen and learn from them too. I have faith in them—and us.

Thank you.