Category: issues

“Last year, when Ruth Mackenzie was appointed director of the Cultural Olympiad, the very concept was at a low ebb. No one seemed to know exactly what it meant.” With the launch this week of the London 2012 Festival, the Cultural Olympiad’s flagship, Mackenzie seems to be sorting things out.

“The leaders’ approach to building a world-class culture is not all that different from the one that powered China’s economic miracle: set a long-term goal, adopt rigid specifications, pour in copious amounts of public money, monitor closely to ensure the desired result.”

“The new millennium is only 11 years old, but we at Slate became curious – as a thought experiment – about which cultural artifacts since 2000 will speak to future eras. What are the timeless expressions being forged in our noisy moment? … To that end, we asked Slate contributors to name the new classics in the fields they know best.” Let the arguments begin!

“Is the higher education bubble about to pop? I don’t know. The more thoughtful writers warn against monocausal explanations.”

“The way most cities are run has not caught up with reality,” says Slate. “More than one-fifth of the world’s population live in just 600 cities, which together generate half of global output. Yet many of these have little sway over their own budgets, planning or policy.”

Occupy movements could do worse than look at the way one Canadian farmer took on serious injustice – and drastically altered the political conversation.

“Maybe the EU has served its purpose. Maybe its task of reconciling states after the destruction of the Third Reich, the USSR and Yugoslavia has been fulfilled. Maybe we don’t actually need an EU any more.”

About 55 percent of children under the age of 13 have Facebook accounts, with the permission and support (and maybe control) of their parents. If preteens want to use the internet, should federal law stop them?

Small solutions and small thinking won’t work anymore, says an economics historian. Time to return to big ideas about capitalism – in order to save it.

“The report published research that shows learning through culture improves attainment in all school subjects and that participation in structured arts activities increases cognitive abilities. The study also shows that students who take arts subjects have a higher rate of employability and those from low-income families who participate in arts activities at school are three times more likely to get a degree.”