that? is that something that you think will have value and hope you do a better job at the neh? >> not necessarily at all. cultural agencies are very different from how congress works and congress is an ever- changing institution. there are a lot of hills and valleys that are yet to be seen. i think that everybody knows that we are in difficult times and dealing with issues that are truly oppressive. this is the first generation that has the capacity to destroy the entire planet with nuclear weaponry then we have all of

these analogies about the [unintelligible] in which we are moving closer together and rubbing elbows and having less happy relations. . . >> we are having to learn to deal with it.

>> coming out of a couple of years in higher education, where you were at two of the leading institutions of the united states, are you bringing specific goals to the nea right now? -- to the neh right now? are there particular goals you want to accomplish? >> a lot of people do not understand these two endowments, the arts and humanities. let me make a distinction. the arts are all about supporting the creative processes, particularly living arts. the humanities are all about perspective -- history, philosophy, literature, and related disciplines. each operates a uniquely with basically only to other institutions in america -- the international institute of health in the national science foundation, where we allocate

federal funds based on peer review. we believe -- we bring the best and brightest in various fields to assess projects or grants of one kind or another. so when you ask about goals one is to preserve the institution as it has come into being. it has developed a wonderful track record. beyond that, there are challenges of the time. i have made to initiatives that are not exactly goals, but there is a thin line between a goal and an initiative. one i call putting a greater emphasis on what it is that makes a people a people and what it is that makes people differentiated. we are a society that has a wondrous national culture but we

are also a mosaic of subcultures. so understanding ourselves is very important. we are looking at a world in which there are huge numbers of cultures, some widely disparate. most of these large cultures have many subcultures. so one of the great questions is -- can we understand better? one might say, does that matter? i sometimes suggest that it is always hard to put numbers on programs and their importance. but one can say almost definitively that there is a huge cost of not understanding other cultures. and by huge -- it is how you interrelate with the world commercially as well as whether you have a war or peace. you asked me about congress. i will tell you. one of the things i find absolutely astonishing is that the united states of america was involved in the first gulf war

under the first president bush, but as we have led up to the second war that we did not know was coming i do not think there were many members of congress that have the foggiest idea that there is a difference between sunni and shia. i do not think there were that many in the united states government that did. what that means is that we as a country have to think more. if you go internally, we have become, in many ways, a much richer culture, in terms of people from more and more lands who have come here, people that interrelate with their past experience. they do it differently in alabama than they do in new jersey or iowa. every year we see differentiation is of a different kind. this we can look at as wonderful or we can say "people

that are different, we do not like." there is that instinct in all of us, on both sides. you try to get people to think or positively about each other. i will tell you, as someone who has travelled this country, talking about this concept of civility -- it is astonishing what the new american rhetoric is. we have people that are saying to other people "you are communist. you are a fascist." or maybe both at the same time. [laughter] there are people using words we have not used in this century. the word secession is now in the mind of the united states of america. the word nullification is starting to be altered -- to be uttered. from the humanities point of view i am saying we have to understand our own history and our own philosophy and how

history and philosophy conjoin. if we do not, our society is going to have a hard time hanging together. have you initiated any programs that are either for broader international exchange or -- understanding of those principles and experiences in american history that would help build that? >> we have a number of things working internationally. we will be announcing in the near future small exchanges with italy, a major program with china. but much of our research goes very esoteric play. we have done work with museums in afghanistan. we have done work with aspects of chinese culture.

there are new fields of research. they did not exist 10 years ago. one is called the digital humanities. we have just done a series of explorations with great opportunities for what we call "bridging disciplines," where we are having people apply for the grants from more than one discipline, from more than one university, from more than one country, as a mandate, together. we are working with the british equivalent of the neh as well as the national science foundation to do kinds of research of a very different nature. >> if you go to educational organizations, historical organizations, organizations in the humanities or the arts, and you ask them what they want from the neh or the n e a i think

unanimously they will say "more money." they want the money more than the ideas or the strategies or whatever. the u.s. government is entering an extremely tough. of budgetary demands -- an extremely tough period of budgetary demands and constraints. what do you think is the prospect for the cultural agencies right now, facing these new economic realities? >> let me say a comment about money, in the sense of -- money is something new transfer for a purpose. one of the fabulous aspect of the united states is that we transfer money for individuals to do things around the country. in other words, the national endowment of arts and the national endowment for the humanities are not institutions which in and of themselves are producing great art and

humanities projects. they are precipitating the great american citizens to do great art and great humanities research, and great humanities translation of research to the public themself. from a money perspective, there is a macro economic dilemma that faces every discipline of any kind in every community of any kind. that is that in the last few years we have seen, at a minimum, a 20% erosion in the real wealth of the united states of america, and of the average american family. and that is -- it could be a little higher than 20%. that means every governmental agency and every government unit, from a city to the federal government, has less to draw upon, just as the american family has less to draw upon.

we are looking at a federal government that has announced a freeze on domestic-level spending for a three-year period. that is something we in the humanities and arts will have to cope with. i must say my perspective -- the peak year for both of these endowments was the year 1979. we are at about 37% in inflation-adjusted terms to where we are -- to where we were then. there has been a slippage over time. congress has been committed to repaying these endowments. the president has been committed in the same way. where we go in the future is anybody's guess. having said that about the endowments -- we are a small part of the american art scene and humanities scene. i was visited this week in what

i considered to be a stunning circumstance. president sarkozy of france sent a representative to find out how america does its culture. the french were looking at how we do things. [laughter] i made it clear to him that in the united states how we operate, in levels of government and types of institutions -- which are principally, in the arts and humanities, a private citizen oriented circumstance. many european countries are much more governmental in their systems. that does not mean one system is better or worse than another. it is how these societies fit their traditions and cultures and whatever. but if you take the humanities -- at every level, there is great restraint. state governments are now pulling back their support for

higher education dramatically. the average state university use to get a third of its budget from the states. now, it is far less than 1/6. if you take, within the university communities, the humanities subjects, they are being dumped in favor of things considered more job-centric. when you serve the corporate leaders in america, they want more people educated in the arts and humanities. they also want them to study business, but they first want them to have a background in other cultures, other languages, and capacity to think. in terms of dealing with the world, the arts and humanities are unique in the sense of allowing people to learn some perspective and learn how to think imaginatively. this is a world of change, where imagination is going to be the key. if you look at the issues that new corporations -- when the

business company looks for new hires, their top complaints are "can't write, can't read," which are skills one hopes are learned in the humanities. >> if i can ask a question that comes out of what you just said -- if you are talking about the state universities, which are under absolute budget pressure, and then pressure within those universities to penalize the humanities budget disproportionately to other fields, does the neh have a public role in terms of articulating the rationale for the humanities? >> it is hard to say, with regard to a specific university -- one has to be careful. but in terms of the role of the humanities itself, absolutely. sometimes, in higher education today, people look at what can lose the least amount of money

or make money. but education is supposed to be education and there is supposed to be a cost to it. if you give incentives to go in one direction and you do not in another, it matters to where people are going to land. i am speaking very strongly to the humanities community that we have to stand up and make it clear that our particular disciplines matter. they matter a great deal. if the american university community wants to back off of teaching the humanities it is going to be a real cost to american society. a very unfortunate circumstance. >> when i was chairman of the national endowment for the arts, about two months after i took the job, i had to deal with the first of what became a recurring issue, which was that a state was in the process of taking its

arts council out of existence. i had the very fun task of talking to governors and lieutenant governors and majority and minority leaders about the fact that we would withhold federal funds if they got rid of their arts agency. do you see any similar trend happening in terms of state humanities? >> my background in the arts has the same phenomenon. there is a state humanities council in all 50 states, precipitated by national statute. there is a state's arts council in all 50 states, as well as in the territories that we control. the neh and neli are all -- and nea are organized like a mini state department. we have organizations in every state. in the state department, washington sends it direct to

you and the investor snaps to. when we suggest something, we are in danger of a yawn. you never know. but what i am saying is our state councils are independent institutions. i am joking about a yawn because it is astonishing what work the state humanities councils do. people in washington are unaware of it, but they do programs throughout their states that fit their states. people talk differently in south carolina than they do in iowa. programs are tailored differently. they are wonderful, what the state humanities councils do. for example, they will have programs in literature, programs in history in which they reach out to the smallest towns in the state. we have a program in oregon that is called "think and drink." we have programs that are in

barbershops. it is really a fabulous out reach under the assumption -- this is a bit of an exaggeration. it is not good enough to have a month commentating in a cave if no one can hear the thoughts. somehow, you have to get a public engaged in such a way that the great books of our time and the great thoughts of our time can be translated in a public venue. that is what the council's do and they do it extremely well. having said that, every state council i know of is looking at a smaller budget than last year. they also receive some private funds, as well as the received about half their resources from the national office. so there is pressure out there.

>> american museums have a very complicated relationship with the cultural agencies because the nba finds one type of program and the neh funds a type of program and all of them receive insurance from the federal council. the museums have gone through this enormous. of expansion. during the last 20 years, they have in many cases doubled their exhibition spaces. they have increased their staffs. many of them are undergoing a very drastic financial pressure right now. do you have any perspective, in terms of the damage to public museums and ideas from the neh? >> you have to find the dilemma. there is hardly a museum in america that is not under budget pressure, and many under very intense pressure. we have vastly more museums in america than the american people think about.

no one has ever exactly counted it. we are a state of 40,000 ponds. museums across this country are like pawns. they are everywhere. it is wonderful. but it is also, in difficult economic times, hard to keep up. it tells you, because of the variety of them -- people want to have something to do with their history, or in some cases there is a brand new museum in columbia, south carolina that is largely art from switzerland. if you like jock committee -- if you like giaccometti, it is right there. i am very worried about the state of museums. if you just visualize a museum,

right away you think of something hard to heat and air conditioned. and the cost of energy is driving them nuts. it is one of the reasons we have programs on not only preservation of paper but programs that relate to how people can go and find new ways to heat and air conditioned. >> chase lined, who runs the national building museum, which has the largest lobby in the world, was nodding his head. before we open the round table up for questions from our guests, i wanted to ask you one question. also, i know there is a person you want to honor or mention after that. you are wearing -- i do not think our cameras can pick this up -- a little lapel pin that says "civility."

i know this has become a personal campaign for you. would you like to say more about it? you mentioned it a little bit earlier. >> all i will say is that if americans do not pay attention to civil discourse -- i used to joke that i discovered the fourth newtonian law. by that, i mean that if any of you have studied physics the third law was that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. the fourth law i call social physics, in that in social physics reaction can be greater than action. if i call dana a bum, he is likely to call me something larger. if i ignore him, that is not going to advance relations. you can enlarge that to international affairs. if i called his country "evil,"

he is going to respond. is he going to reform or is he going to snap back? there are aspects of this that happen all the time. i might just conclude with this. i think to be topical, it is important for the supreme court of the united states to protect and civil speech, but it is important for the public to filter it. but it is also important for the supreme court of the united states not to allow corporate speech to drown out citizen views. and i am one of the few that think it is a matter of civility when a court rules that we are going to have an american system that is going to have an enlarged role for corporations rather than citizens. what we have to have is a political system in which citizens can speak their views

with great vigor. argumentation is a social good. you cannot block tierney or dogmatism without argumentation. but how you argue is a civil concern. we're going to have to think this through from a legal system as well as the circumstances of individual citizens talking to each other. >> that is also the power of culture. if culture breaks down, laws themselves cannot entirely fill the gap. >> i know there is a guest at the roundtable today you want to say a few words about. >> i want to recognize albert small. albert has just won the national humanities metal and could not come to the ceremony with ted sorensen. i think he deserves it be noted.

albert, you have been one of the -- [applause] albert stands out uniquely as one of the great benefactors of the humanities. he has put together one of the greatest intellectual collections that i have known of in american history, including several of the original declaration of independence, which are words we are very proud of, and given them to the university of virginia, where there is a center named for albert. thank you, albert. >> with that brief encomium, i would like to open up the table for questions. if you ask a question, either be at a microphone or wait for one of the traveling microphones to get to you. before you ask the question,

introduce yourself and mention your organization. do we have an opening question? >> i am with the hudson institute. i am very interested in your civility campaign. i am in favor of it. one thing i often noticed that contributes to the lack of civility is the sense that when your team makes the argument but when the other team does it you should filibuster. when the republicans are the majority, they think the filibuster is terrible. they switch sides depending on where they stand. i think that contributes. but i am interested in your thoughts about where the breakdown of civility came from and what we can do to make it better. >> first, america has always had issues. walt whitman used to talk about "an athletic democracy."

things were rugged. we debated immigration in the 19th century quite vigorously. we debated slavery and other fundamental things. we had more than a little violence. the vice president of the united states shot dead the secretary of the treasury. that is very similar. what is different today is that new communications technology -- the profoundest of the issues of the day -- some debilitating aspects of american politics. a lot of this relates, to me, very intriguing lead. we think of issues. our founders were probably, of all generations of people other than maybe fifth century b.c. that talked about not just the rights of man but the nature of man. they looked at people with all their foibles. that is why we developed this system of all these checks and

balances in government. but i think that the nature of politics is something that deserves a lot of attention. i like the words come up with a little different meaning, of walt whitman. if you think of our culture, there are very few things more in a lee american and competitive than sports of almost all kinds. very interestingly, in athletics we are seeing this new basketball tournament come out again this year. the teams are all talked to work like mad, to work together, and to respect the opposition. and you do not see that to anything like the degree in american politics. my modest suggestion is that it is kind of a cultural one. can we bring politics up to sports? [laughter]

that is a very interesting thought. the issues are a bit different, and possibly quite deeper. but i think -- i mean, finley was a journalist for a while. as you know, many people, and i would put myself in this category, turned to the sports page before we turn to the news page. there is a reason for it. the other aspect of sports is it inspires these wonderful local loyalties. we all have our team. how terrific that is. we also respect the other's. if you can teach respect, i think we would be a long way down the line. >>