Steven Friedman
worm’s eye view
We can’t let the poor run this country politics would become far too sophisticated for the middle classes. Sometimes a barely noticed event may tell us more about our society than the most dramatic headlines. One example may be a recent poll on attitudes to the arts conducted by Markinor on behalf of the Western Cape’s Spier Estate.
The survey found that support for public funding of the arts outweighed opposition by six to one about four of every five respondents said more public money should be used to fund the arts. Fully 93% want their children to take part in plays or to be given the opportunity to learn a musical instrument and poetry; three-quarters think more effort should be made to make the arts more accessible. All this shows support for the arts which crosses racial and economic barriers and which extends to the grassroots poor. But perhaps the most interesting finding was the composition of those who felt that the arts are more important than sport in creating a balanced society: those who agree most strongly are black (46%) and people who earn less than R2 500 a month (45%); those who disagree most strongly are whites (44%), Indians (42%) and middle-income earners.
This seems to turn middle-class mythology on its head: it is not the suburban classes who most value the arts but the black poor. The widespread belief that only those of us who have a particular level of income and education are interested in needs other than the material is, the poll suggests, the opposite of the truth. But it also, in important ways, challenges the assumptions of those who govern us. A theme underlying many government deeds and strategies is the view that our society’s overwhelming demand is for material goodies jobs, water and houses. The clear implication is that needs we cannot see or touch are a luxury nurtured by the largely white middle classes. Debate on who we are and what sort of people we want to become is stilled by the proclaimed need to “deliver” things. Inevitably, the poor are invoked in support of this view. Why should people who lack basics care about the sorts of concerns that fill the heads of middle-class eggheads? Official attitudes to funding the arts illustrate this. We might expect a government elected by the majority in a society like ours to insist that it is taking money from the arts favoured by white suburbanites and devoting it to those which speak to the cultural needs and aspirations of the majority. In reality that is not what has happened. Instead, the idea that some sorts of artistic expression are middle class or “Eurocentric” has been used not to change priorities but to provide an excuse for more budget cutting or for diverting funds to “more important” line items which address material needs.
The survey suggests that this may well express the priorities of the affluent middle classes but not of the black poor.
Most grassroots people, it seems, are bright enough to understand what many in our elite seem to have forgotten that societies do not achieve anything of worth, economically as well as in other spheres, if they do not give serious attention to meeting those needs whose fulfilment make people proud and happy to be members of a society, as well to the economy and to material issues.
Current economic policy and governance fads seem to have forgotten some common sense truths foremost among them the obvious point that people are not machines and that they do not derive satisfaction or happiness purely from the extent to which fuel is poured into them.
It seems unlikely that the poor who responded to the survey are against running water, electricity and a decent job; but they, unlike many in the middle class, know that there is more to being human than maximising our material goods. If our politicians and other opinion-makers understood that, we would have a more sensible set of national priorities which recognise all the facets which make for successful groups of people as well as individuals.
The survey also, indirectly, forces us to look at another issue the extent to which our leaders are out of touch with the opinion of the grassroots they claim to represent. This is not the only issue on which the elite misguesses voters’ attitudes and priorities. Back in 1993 we were told, at the Kempton Park negotiations, that most black people would stay away from the polls because they were afraid to vote. The next year we were told that they needed “voter education” if they were to know how to cast a ballot. But new black voters were prepared to queue to vote and 99 out of 100 knew exactly what to do despite the fact that direct “voter education” reached only 9%. After the election, we were told that most voters had “high and unrealistic expectations” and did not understand that the new government could not deliver them suburban lifestyles in a couple of years. Similarly we were told, from 1995 onwards, that voters had become so angry at the “lack of delivery” that they were rejecting democracy in droves. By 1999 the disaffection had reached such heights that 89% of registered voters cast ballots and two-thirds of those supported the ruling party. Far more is at stake here than the failure of some politicians to pick up the public mood on a particular issue. The problem is, rather, that the elite repeatedly under-estimates the sophistication of grassroots voters. And the result is that self-serving or wrong-headed policies are justified by a resort to “mass opinion” about which the speaker knows absolutely nothing.
The two flaws uncovered by the survey come together in a myth which has underpinned much of what the government has done since mid-1999. In essence, the story goes, we do not have to worry about deepening democracy because we know what the people want. In the second election, we are told, the majority voted overwhelmingly for “material delivery”. Instead of worrying whether people have a voice, or about the type of society we are trying to build, we need to devote our attention to ensuring that the government is efficient enough to give the people that for which they asked. The survey is only the latest evidence that our elite needs far more than an election every five years to know what the majority wants. And that contrary to the claims of their “betters”, people at the grassroots have a far more balanced and well-rounded view of where we ought to be going than those who presume to speak on their behalf.