Abstract
On 3 December 2013, a federal judge approved the bankruptcy filing for Detroit, MI, the largest municipality to seek such protection in US history. The bankruptcy forced those overseeing the city to determine the economic value of Detroit’s assets, including the art collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts. These efforts led to debates over the moral commitments to art, on the one hand, and paying the city’s debts, including pensions owned to retired city workers, on the other. We analyze newspaper coverage of this situation from US newspapers as well as Detroit Free Press between 1 January 2013 and 31 January 2014 to investigate how these moral commitments became moral orders during an economic crisis that has been argued is symptomatic of neoliberalism.
Introduction
On 3 December 2013, a federal judge approved the bankruptcy filing for Detroit, MI, the largest municipality to seek such protection in US history. During the months leading up to this decision, as well as after, Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s state appointed emergency manager, was asked to evaluate the city’s assets, including the art collection held by the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) to determine the economic value of these assets so as to pay creditors. These discussions led others to argue that art had to be protected as it would be at the heart of the city’s resurrection, especially the downtown area where the DIA is located. Our focus is to investigate the moral commitments and orders that arose at this time in a situation some have argued is symptomatic of neoliberalism in urban spaces (e.g. Peck, 2012).
We begin with a discussion of Detroit’s financial collapse and the DIA before turning to the concept of morality, drawing on Wuthnow’s (1987) work on moral orders. Our aim is to offer insights into how cultural artifacts are (or are not) morally valued beyond financial gain in a market-driven society. As Coombe (2005) contends, “[a]s cities and regions compete for capital investment and for ‘knowledge workers’ their cultural attributes have become ‘resources’ ripe for marketing and integral to urban development” (p. 42). This leads to questions of whether the moral values of these same “resources” are also ripe for (re)ordering.
Detroit and bankruptcy
Detroit has been and continues to be a city of contrasts. Even in its heyday when Henry Ford and other car manufacturers were reaping the benefits of a national and global obsession with the automobile, the city housed thousands of people hoping to pursue the American Dream by working the assembly lines, many of whom were turned away at the factory gates which forced the city to create services for the unemployed (Kenyon, 2004). In addition to the chronically unemployed, automobile manufacturing is cyclical in nature making layoffs common, leading to the need for large civic bureaucracies within the city to service this population as well as provide other city services. New assembly lines and models would eventually create new manufacturing jobs, though the intermittent layoffs became long term for many as manufacturing became automated or moved overseas. This led Herron (1993) to state, “Detroit used to stand for success, and now it stands for failure. In that sense, the city is not just a physical location; it is also a project of imaginary fears and desires” (p. 9).
The shifting employment situation and racial tensions sparked a riot in 1967 that lasted over a week and took more than 40 lives (Bergesen, 1982). In addition to jobs and race, the city was rife with political and social conditions of oppression that included few, if any, exit or voice options for the city’s citizens. Many had migrated to Detroit from the US South with few resources, adding to an urban setting that was already suffering from financial difficulties fueled by white flight into the suburbs (Fine, 2007).
The disinvestment of the Motor City that had started prior to 1967 continues. According to Kenyon (2004), this disregard for the urban poor can be seen in “[t]he lack of a cohesive metropolitan-wide transportation system combined with discriminatory employment practices to limit the chances of Detroit residents seeking work in suburban locations” (p. 157). Sugrue (2014), in prefacing his work on the origins of Detroit’s decline, noted that the 2013 bankruptcy stemmed from a history of inadequate and mismanaged funding that included city, state, and federal level officials, as well as Wall Street. Even messages coming out of neighborhoods trying to engage in contemporary community activities such as urban agriculture are that the impact of these efforts is ambiguous at best (Draus et al., 2014).
This ambiguity is at the heart of a city “so cash-strapped that public services for residents and business are now severely inadequate” (Chung, 2015: 775). According to Chung’s account, pictures of the physical infrastructure of Detroit prior to the city filing for bankruptcy look like New Orleans after Katrina, “except that in Detroit, the waters of decay and decline have been seeping into the city for the past fifty years” (p. 775). Much like New Orleans and other cities, Detroit must find funds to maintain streets, utilities, and other services including paying its pensioners, efforts that have become difficult under austerity urbanism programs stemming from neoliberal policies and tactics that inform corporate balance sheets at the expense of the financial well-being of workers (Tabb, 2014). The growing gap between the taxes coming in and the services going out, according to Chung (2015), is what has turned Detroit into Zombieland.
The Detroit Institute of Arts
Situated amidst Zombieland’s unemployment rates of nearly 25% (2009 estimates), struggles with poverty faced by over a third of its citizens, and an average of 90 foreclosures per square mile (Sugrue, 2014) is one of the country’s largest collections of art. The DIA opened in 1885 (the first painting was donated in 1883), and moved to its current location on Woodward Avenue in 1927, expanding in the 1960s and 1970s. According to the DIA website (DIA, 2016), the current collection consists of over 60,000 pieces, placing the DIA as one of the top 10 art museums in the United States in terms of the collection’s size. The museum’s entrance is embellished by a Diego Rivera mural (1932–1933) portraying the labor foundations of Detroit. The artworks held include paintings from European masters such as Bruegel, Van Gogh, Klee, and Poussin, American masterpieces such as Whistler’s “Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket,” Copley’s “Watson and the Shark,” and Hopkins “Graveyard by the Sea,” as well as Asian sculpture and African wood carvings.
To maintain the collection and provide a modern aesthetic experience, the DIA underwent a major renovation project that took place between 1999 and 2007. Current funding comes from donors, members, and a tax millage passed in 2012 in Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne counties (the DIA is located in Wayne county). The millage was expected to raise US$23 million for the DIA, funds that museum officials said were necessary to keep the DIA open. Less than a year after that millage had been approved, Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection (the case was presented on 18 July 2013, and protection granted on 3 December 2013). This began a debate on the value and necessity of maintaining an art museum during a major economic crisis, as well as what to do about the millage, including past collections, if some or all of the artwork was sold. The DIA became a central target for debates concerning morality as it relates to art v. debts to creditors and promises made to those who had retired from city services jobs.
Wuthnow’s moral order
Morality as a topic of study dates back to Socrates and Aristotle who sought to understand how human relationships were shaped, with contemporary scholars such as Krishna (2016) using the classics to make sense of contemporary ethics. Given our interest in how art was discussed during an economic crisis in an age of neoliberalism, we sought out a conceptual framework that included art and financial markets. Wuthnow (1987) provides this by contrasting the morality of art which, along with religious rituals, is “recognized as means by which faith in the existence of wholistic meanings can be inspired and communicated,” to the market that leads to a fragmented existence as individuals and groups are pitted against each other (p. 41). For Wuthnow, capitalist markets challenge traditional models of morality that were tied to a sense of community or common good.
Variations in the determination of moral obligations—for example, obligations to the market v. obligations to aesthetics—lead to the triaging of action based on power and control both within and between groups. Wuthnow argues that these values are created and maintained in ways that diminish agency due to the embeddedness of institutions in societal structures where moral codes are defined as “cultural elements that define the nature of commitment to a particular course of behavior” (p. 66). Competing groups seek to control these institutions so as to legitimate their sense of meaning and moral order that are to be followed by those subordinate to the institutions. An economic crisis such as a bankruptcy could be viewed as a delegitimizing event, but those in control of the institutions that led to the crisis may hold power over the meanings of economics and markets so competing views are not allowed to be heard. A bankruptcy becomes an isolated problem for some while symptomatic of larger issues for others. These competing views cause gaps between those who hold various moral perspectives.
Moral orders
The potential use of art to create a holistic meaning for humanity becomes more complex when it is discussed in market terms, as art and art collections like those held by the DIA are often defined by their economic worth (Ten Eyck and Christensen, 2012). Competing meanings of art—for example, art as a reflection of society (Dewey, 1934) v. art’s economic value—become particularly relevant in a crisis in which actors must determine the economic value of holdings to meet debt obligations, all of which are overseen by a justice system that determines the appropriateness of decisions coming from competing arenas. In the Detroit crisis, this included pensions that have been promised to those who worked within the city, promises that contain moral commitments to those who are beyond retirement age and may have few if any other options in gaining access to financial resources.
Situating Detroit’s pensioners as recipients of a moral commitment means extending morality beyond the actions of individuals that are deemed either good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, (Hitlin and Vaisey, 2010) to include claims about how an action or decision will impact a community or group of people. This often begins with a moral commitment that involves an organization or institution promising resources to protect or promote some group or cause (Wuthnow, 1987). Moving from moral commitments to moral orders signifies a refocusing from singular action to triage as institutions are forced to determine what is appropriate action when faced with competing value systems (Hall, 1997). As stated by Jordan (2012), “institutions … consolidate the standards according to which value is produced and distributed, and give legitimacy to the moral claims made by members on each other” (p. 633). Institutions, however, are not treated equally in all situations. The legitimacy of any given institution claiming a particular moral order may be questioned—for example, art can be used to foster urban revitalization—so efforts are made to control other legitimizing institutions such as religious organizations and media outlets that could influence opinion. Wuthnow (1987) argues that these links are necessary for understanding ties between cultural shifts and shifts in moral orders at a systemic level. This sheds light on the growth of capitalist principles (e.g. Levy, 2005), principles further exacerbated under neoliberalist market conditions that Peck et al. (2009) contend are at the root of contemporary economic crises (see also Spector, 2013) that underscore efforts in determining the value of any given cultural product or human group. Economic shifts are likely to cause cultural shifts which will call into question traditional moral orders while creating new ones (Wuthnow, 1987).
Efforts to control moral orders are readily found in modern culture (Hitlin and Vaisey, 2010), though sustainable triaging of moral commitments into orders must move from policy and discourse into public ritual (Durkheim, 1965), as “[m]odern society cries out for a sense of community, for an enlivened spirit of commitment to moral obligations” (Wuthnow, 1987: 97). As mentioned, Wuthnow argues that art can provide a holistic sense of the human experience, celebrated through grand openings, dedications of new collections, critical reviews in newspapers and magazines, and museum visits of schoolchildren (Becker, 2008). Market economies challenge this conception of art as its consumption is used as a form of distinction based on rituals of knowledge (Bourdieu, 1984), and high-end art is discussed in terms of the thousands or millions of dollars it can bring on the market, adding a layer of opacity to what could be meaningful symbolic exchanges between art producers and consumers (Dewey, 1934). Few publicly accessible rituals exist for pensioners and city debt, which would lead one to contend that there is very little cultural meaning in experiences that involve these individuals and activities, much like Wuthnow’s (1987) comparison of attending a wedding (consuming and discussing art) and fixing a flat tire (receiving a welfare or pension check). This lack of legitimizing rituals for the elderly and others in need of assistance can lead to cultural violence in the form of neglect (Galtung, 1990) as moral authorities place them lower during triage. However, one can find portrayals of the elderly and others suffering during a budget crisis in the media, one of the more ubiquitous moral authorities in contemporary society (Tamborini, 2011). Where they are situated in contemporary moral orders leads to questions about whether art and its companion rituals are still of sufficient cultural value to be held in higher regard than pensioners or others who have been promised financial rewards and payment. While we will not pretend to know which of these groups or products needs the most protection, we do think there is a place for an investigation of moral commitments and orders within newspaper coverage of Detroit’s bankruptcy.
Sampling news articles
We studied early media coverage of the bankruptcy between 1 January 2013, the year in which Detroit filed for bankruptcy, and 31 January 2014, a month after the bankruptcy was approved by a federal judge in December 2013. It was determined this period would capture debates grounded in morals concerning city assets and commitments as these debates were being created. In addition, later coverage of the DIA’s part in the bankruptcy involved a group that put together funds to protect the DIA collection and help with the pension crisis rendering relatively moot discussions of this relationship. 1
Our sample was developed by creating 10 constructed weeks and choosing 10 articles for each day (a total of 70 articles) from local, state, and national newspapers using a Lexis-Nexis search. Constructed weeks are often used in media studies, and have been found to be effective with as few as 6 constructed weeks (Luke et al., 2011). Articles were selected using a random digit generator, with numbers ranging from 1 to 119 (total number of articles that contained the search words “bankruptcy” and “Detroit Institute of Arts” and had been published in a US newspaper), without replacement. If the generator listed 89 for a Friday article, we would go to the 89th article in Lexis-Nexis and see if it was published on a Friday. If so, the next step would be to read and analyze it. If not, we would find the next article (higher number) that was published on a Friday and analyzed that article.
In addition to the Lexis-Nexis search, we created a second sample using Proquest for Detroit Free Press using the same parameters as with the first sample (constructed weeks, 1 January 2013–31 January 2014, etc.). 2 Proquest contained 121 articles from Detroit Free Press for this time period, though we were unable to maintain the same structure given that there were only 2 articles published on Mondays, 4 on Tuesdays, and 9 on Saturdays. This gap was filled by including randomly chosen articles from the other days for a total of 70 articles.
Our analytical goal in these articles was to find instances of how DIA art was morally valued, including parallel discussions about pensions and pensioners. This involved a value judgment aimed at the community, such as something being essential or an appropriate line of behavior, as well as instances of ordering commitments. Not every article offered such comparisons. Some mentioned the DIA collection as on the table while others detailed the economic or cultural value of the art without discussing other issues. In addition, we coded when the article was published, the section and page where it appeared, the sources used, and whether any mention was made of names of artists (e.g. Whistler), the monetary value of the art, and if the art was framed in some way beyond being at the DIA (e.g. treasures, masterpieces). We begin with a quantitative comparison of the two samples to give readers a sense of the overall structure of the sample coverage.
DIA in the news
US newspapers and Detroit Free Press
Table 1 contains descriptive statistics that compare the US and Detroit Free Press samples. Most of the articles coded in the US sample came from newspapers within the United States but outside of Michigan (5 articles appeared in Crain’s Detroit Business, and 3 in Michigan Lawyer’s), with the most appearing in The New York Times (NYT) (15). Articles tended to be written by in-house reporters, the word count ranged from 86 to 3085 (average of 804 words), and 36 of the articles were found in general news sections. A total of 10 of the articles appeared on the front page of the newspaper, another 12 on the front page of a section and a majority (48) ran a neutral headline. State government officials (e.g. Governor Rick Snyder, City Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr) were the most frequently cited sources, followed by business interests and art supporters. It is interesting to note that of these 70 articles, only 7 contained information from DIA officials within the first three sources used. People living in Detroit and visitors to DIA were more often used as sources (10).
Descriptive statistics of general sample and Detroit Free Press.
The themes of these articles, of which we coded up to 2, typically involved Detroit being bankrupt (47 bankruptcy theme codes), or something about the city more generally (38) and 25 discussed art beyond simply mentioning it. The slight majority (38) of the articles had a neutral slant (information was only informative or various sides of a debate were given), as many discussed both the pros and cons of selling the DIA art or the Detroit bankruptcy in general. Of the remaining 32 articles, more were negative toward the DIA or the Detroit situation (20) than positive (e.g. the DIA needed protection; Detroit would be better and stronger after the bankruptcy) (12). 3 In 30 of the articles, names of artists or others tied to the arts were used in ritualistic ways (Ten Eyck and Christensen, 2012), 37 mentioned the monetary value of the art (typically in the millions or billions dollar range), and 41 labeled the art in some positive way (e.g. “the masterpieces at DIA”), while 3 mentioned something negative.
The average word count for the Free Press articles was 814 words, all but one were written by in-house reporters or editorial letter writers, and 51 were found in general news sections with 22 appearing on the front page. More of the headlines were positive relative to the US sample (19 v. 8), though a slight majority (37) were neutral. As with the US sample, state government officials (e.g. Snyder, Orr) were the most frequently cited, followed by business interests. US government officials, mainly federal judges, were the third most used sources, and DIA officials were more likely to appear in these articles than the national sample (18 v. 7).
The themes of these articles were much like those of the US sample (47 articles from each sample were focused on bankruptcy), and more of these articles were positive (20 v. 12). An interesting comparison between the two samples is the use of names and the economic value of the art. The Free Press articles were less likely to mention either, and the differences are statistically significant (names used: χ2 = 9.7, df = 1, sig. = .002; monetary mention: χ2 = 10.8, df = 1, sig. = .000). We would argue that Free Press reporters did not view it as necessary to give such details to its readers, while those writing for other audiences felt it more imperative to describe the DIA and its holdings. We turn now to a qualitative analysis of how morality played out in these public forums.
US sample
On 24 July 2013, NYT published an article on the front page of its lifestyle section regarding the closing of museums in the United States, including the possible sale of DIA art. The choice of words to convey facts creates a sense of moral obligation to art without regard for individuals who could benefit from a fire sale: “… a sale would denude [the DIA’s] prestigious collection of its most valuable artworks and compromise its integrity, since nonprofit museums, founded in the public trust, are ethically obligated not to sell pieces except to acquire others …” (Pogrebin, 2013: C1). One can sell art or one can denude a museum. The economic outcome is the same though the perceived morality to the community is not. The same can be said about maintaining a prestigious collection instead of one that is unlabeled. It is also stated that to sell this art would be to compromise the integrity of the DIA and a challenge to moral commitments to similar organizations, while commitments to pensioners and other debts are ignored.
The framing of art museums by using specific words, which is part of the rituals of art (Ten Eyck and Christensen, 2012), can also be found in a 6 October 2013 article appearing in The Washington Post. After talking about how art collections are often built through the spoils of war, the author states, In short, it’s payback time. Because in the course of human events, countries that rise do fall, and the telltale sign of economic woe is when once-flush rulers start selling off the family jewels for bread money. When whispers of such sales begin, ambitious patrons come out of the woodwork and wait for the signal to buy back what they’ve lost or always coveted, sometimes out of love of nation or art, but often for the trophy. (Boyle, 2013: H8)
“[S]elling off the family jewels for bread money” is indicative of a moral order as human sustenance is triaged over cultural treasures, though it is possible that the once-flushed rulers are seeking only to feed themselves and not those they oversee. It should also be noted that collecting art is still the ultimate prize, while buying bread is a lowly survival mechanism for fallen rulers. The appropriate morality on one level may be to divest unneeded luxuries, especially when those treasures were acquired at the end of a gun and there are mouths in need of food, but one gets the sense that it is better to be the big game hunter who can navigate high-end art markets than the once-flushed ruler or those they serve.
Authority over moral orders rests not only with trophy hunters but also their brokers. The following, which appeared on 10 December 2013 in The Wall Street Journal, echoes Peck et al.’s (2009) argument concerning the global characteristics of neoliberal policies. The value of cultural products is created by experts who pass on art trophies to others and are far removed from the everyday experiences of the city’s residents: … at a panel discussion in New York on the DIA’s plight hosted by the International Foundation for Art Research, Richard Feigen, a well-known New York art dealer, suggested that no one would be so unprincipled as to buy art from the museum. The audience applauded, until David Nash, another well-known New York dealer, broke the spell. Plenty of people in Russia, the Middle East and China would be interested in buying the DIA’s masterpieces, he rightly said. (Dobrzynski, 2013: D6)
The article continues by listing artworks worth millions and collections worth billions, moving the moral order of art from what it could offer to the viewing public in a museum to what it could offer the private collector in the market. These art experts may be expected to maintain the cultural integrity of the organizations that hold these treasures (Becker, 2008), as well as more abstract concepts such as “US” culture (see Rebay, 1982, for insights into how culture is created by one set of individuals and then maintained by others who were not part of the creation process), but their own economic well-being is tied to the trophy hunters. According to Wuthnow’s (1987) approach, this is how the market fragments society. Experts may expound on moral commitments to communities, but this can be trumped by individual economic interests. It should also be noted that we found no articles that covered any similar panel of experts discussing the value of city services or how to sell pension plans to foreigners.
An article published on 14 January 2014 in The Michigan Lawyer’s Weekly did discuss the pension situation, though the bigger issue seems to be the DIA and what it means to a certain group of people: The Detroit pension debt issue is being watched closely from many quarters and will have far-reaching implications into the New Year. And, we’ll see if the bankruptcy mediator, aka U.S. District Court Judge Gerald E. Rosen, can make some magic happen with the Detroit Institute of Arts collection maybe being saved by foundations and other good-hearted rich people. (Gosselin, 2014: News)
This is indicative of Galtung’s (1990) cultural violence, as any magic is to be used to find a way to protect the DIA for the “good-hearted rich people.” There is no magic for those receiving pensions.
A possible escape from such violence does appear on the same day, 14 January 2014, when NYT ran the following on its front page: National and local philanthropic foundations have committed $330 million toward a deal to avoid cuts to Detroit retirees’ pensions and to save the Detroit Institute of Arts’ renowned collection, federal mediators involved in the city’s bankruptcy proceedings announced on Monday. (Kennedy et al., 2014: A1).
The moral order now in play, though it took a year to get to this point, is that both the DIA collection and pensions could be protected by those with the appropriate financial resources, though note that it is the art that is “renowned.” No such ritualistic label is provided for the pensioners. In addition, these talks were being held behind closed doors, as it was possible that secrecy was needed to hide concessions that could spark debates over appropriate resource allocation (De Lazari-Radek and Singer, 2010).
The free press
Our analysis of the national coverage of the DIA and Detroit’s bankruptcy pointed to a moral order that positioned the DIA collection as a common good that was at least equal to the city’s debts and its pensioners (who were often ignored in the coverage) within a moral order often based on exchanges in a market. The coverage is similar in the Free Press, as on 26 October 2013 when Free Press readers learned that the bankruptcy had been discussed months before it went to court and that one of the attorneys involved told the city to have Christie’s Auction House evaluate the DIA’s holdings (Priddle and Baldas, 2013). This was not to determine if the art should be protected but to see what financial resources it could leverage. The actors involved—an international auction house with headquarters in London and a lawyer—were not locals who would have been involved in the everyday rituals of Detroit. One gets the sense from this article that the most important commitment was to the bankruptcy court and those working within market arenas.
Although Wuthnow (1987) argued that the market fragments society, he also noted that it “provides an arena in which some of the moral obligations we incur as members of the society can be fulfilled,” but these particular obligations are not homogeneous among lawyers, DIA officials, and the general public (p. 97). Some argued that economic resources should be used to protect the art, while others saw in the art a way to generate economic resources. These opposing viewpoints can be found in a set of Letters to the Editor published on 26 May 2013, as the following two positions sum up the debate: The selling of these irreplaceable works would provide only short-term relief. I wonder if Orr has even set foot in the DIA? He should pull his head out of his spreadsheets and experience what makes this city breathe.
“Irreplaceable” is, however, a relative term as the second letter states, I think it’s a wonderful idea to sell the assets of the Detroit Institute of Arts to pay down the city’s enormous debt. The art collection is a city asset and in bankruptcy, these assets would surely be sold to pay the liabilities of the city. When you’re broke, you have to sell your gems, and the city has very few of them. This would also close the DIA and end the wasteful regional millage for a business that can’t support itself. It’s a win-win! (Letters to the Editor, 2013: A18)
Much like Jordan’s (2012) argument that priorities of political parties often conflict and eventually influence downstream activities, these writers view the role of the DIA and its commitment to the city and visitors differently, though both use market justifications to support their opinions. As noted by Wuthnow (1987), if conceptions of moral order and meaning are to be followed at a societal level there must be legitimate backing to claims. Neither individual is linked to the legitimating institutions mentioned before (e.g. government, museum, or business interest). These views, however, are found among such actors. This would include financier Derek Donnelly, who, on 27 November 2013, is quoted as saying, “We recognize that this is a very sensitive issue,” said Derek Donnelly, managing director of FGIC. “Whatever process we undertake here, we would hope would create a win-win situation—that ultimately there will be a viable DIA that will survive this process and possibly even thrive. But at the same time there needs to be a construct that addresses the fact that the DIA, or art, is not an essential asset and especially not one that is essential to the delivery of services in the city”. (Stryker and Bomey, 2013: A1)
Donnelly’s triaging offers a moral backing as to why the commitment to city services are superior to cultural products (the latter are not essential), and his position as a managing director of a large financial company provides legitimacy for this perspective. However, actors with opposing viewpoints could also lean on the authority of legitimating institutions, such as the following from a Detroit city council member on 6 December 2013: “If you list (concerns) by priority, art and the DIA probably won’t be in the top three,” [Councilperson Jenkins] said. “Most Detroiters are talking about public safety. They’re talking about streetlights. They’re talking about blight and abandoned houses.” It’s not that they don’t see the DIA as an important asset, but I think many people don’t make the connection between the revitalization and resurgence of Detroit and having one of the top art institutes in the country here. (“Grand plan could mean win for all,” 2013: A1)
Jenkins is using similar tactics of creating a moral order as did Donnelly by showing that he is cognizant of opposing views. Jenkins, however, uses the community aspect of the museum, as opposed to Donnelly’s market justification, to create his triage. Revitalization and resurgence are more imperative to a functioning Detroit than immediate economic needs.
Celebrities were also part of the coverage, and these spoke of the need for maintaining the art collection from the moral standing that art creates opportunities for community and creativity, adding credence to Wuthnow’s (1987) argument that art can create holistic experiences. According to an interview with comedian Cheech Marin published on 15 August 2013, Q: The City of Detroit filing for bankruptcy has got to be comedic gold, sure. But city officials could try and sell off some of our most precious works in the Detroit Institute of Arts in order to down the debt. How important is art to you? A: Vital. Art is the spiritual side, nurturing. It’s essential in life. No matter what. Whenever anyone tries to put art down it’ll always pop up like grass through cement. It raises the spirits of people. Entertainers are motivated by it, work to do it. (Z19)
Both the interviewer’s and Marin’s choice of words is filled with moral value—art is vital, essential, nurturing, spirit-lifting. It motivates and therefore needs to be saved, not because it will be worth even more later, but because it can bring a community together. Marin’s stance as a well-known celebrity will likely position him as an authority on cultural issues such as this though he is not a museum curator, as did Meryl Streep’s celebrity status in the alar debate (Rodgers, 1996).
The issue takes on an added dimension of moral commitment when the millage brought up by the second editorial letter writer mentioned above is discussed by more actors. According to a 14 August 2013 article, At a Tuesday meeting of the Oakland County Art Institute Authority in Pontiac, the board intends to pass a resolution saying it would block collection of the suburban tax that helps support the DIA if art or other DIA assets are seized for Detroit’s creditors. (Laitner, 2013: A4)
This stance was found in a 13 January 2014 article, adding a clause that money being raised to save the DIA’s art collection may influence the millage and vice versa. Both actions can be seen as commitments among those who view the museum as important to the area and a way of life from an economic standpoint: There also is concern, according to sources close to the negotiations, about the implication of a change in DIA ownership on the millages that were passed last year in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties to provide $23 million a year to the museum for the next decade. Negotiators plan to talk soon with county executives to be sure that the deal to save the museum’s art doesn’t wipe out the millage agreements. The foundations’ help is contingent on the millage money staying in place. (Henderson and Egan, 2014: A1)
It should be repeated that the millage was specifically for the DIA, though no one is calling for additional taxes from surrounding counties to help Detroit pensioners and others in need of services in the city. The sources for these articles are not letter writers from the general public, but individuals tied to government agencies and foundations that control large sums of money and see art as important to Detroit’s past, present, and future. That they began trying to raise money to help with the pensioners should not be overlooked, though their initial moral commitment was to save the DIA collection for its role in the community.
It is unsurprising that DIA officials would feel much the same way. On June 5, 2013, Eugene Gargaro, chairman of the DIA board, stated, “We’ve had a terrific history of support for the museum, the opera and the symphony. Those are the rallying points in Detroit, and you build on your strength, not dismantle it. Culture and the arts are building blocks for revitalization of Detroit and the state” (Gray, 2013: A6). One of the more interesting aspects of such statements is that no facts are given to support these claims, though there is a moral order being created around the revitalizing power of the arts.
Finally, this section began with a contention that the outcome of the DIA decisions would have downstream implications. This is an important component to our definition of morality in that it entails a sense of what is good for a community. This was true of the DIA and other museums. In an 18 August 2013 article, the level of moral commitment to art and art institutions is raised to a new level: “This is like the weighing of souls,” said Maxwell Anderson, director of the Dallas Museum of Art. “This is biblical stuff, not the approximations that insurance companies look for. It’s extremely problematic for all museums, because it alters the public’s perception of artworks from being ciphers of public heritage of transcendent value to objects for sale to pay other people’s debts.” (Stryker, 2013: A15).
Anderson goes on to say in a later article that those who subscribe to the idea that pensions are more important than art are “uninitiated.” Readers may be unsurprised by this argument coming from an art supporter, but such a sentiment coming from an expert tied to a distinguishing organization (Zolberg, 1992) could lead some to be uncomfortable with being thought of as among the uninitiated—an outsider—a downstream ritualistic aspect of moral commitments and orders that should not be overlooked.
Conclusion
Wuthnow (1987) argued that art’s morality is situated in its ability to offer holistic experiences, experiences that have been fragmented by the growth of markets. In the case of Detroit’s bankruptcy, news coverage of the art at the DIA provided an opportunity to explore how art was discussed by those who wanted to protect it to help rebuild the city and those who saw it as a way to raise funds to pay off debts including pensions owed to retired city workers. We found that both viewpoints were provided in the news, with both sides offering moral arguments for why they were right. One difference in the coverage was that terms such as “essential,” “vital,” and “treasures” were more likely to be used to situate the art and DIA—both positively and negatively—while few such ritualistic terms were used for outstanding debt or the urban masses who were at risk of suffering further loss—cultural violence—because of the bankruptcy. From this perspective, art would do more to help Detroit become functional and a destination spot for tourists and others than paying the people who had spent their lives working for the city.
Wuthnow does not provide a typology for moral orders in terms of what is most important in a situation such as this, though it is clear that others are willing to make such claims. Some argue that cultural products like art suffer as they become nothing more than economic placeholders under neoliberal principles, while others contend that all assets must play by the same rules. Both camps couch their perspectives in common goods scenarios. This leaves one with the impression that there is no such thing as win–win situation in an economic crisis, though each side will say their way provides the best way to move forward. This is characteristic of a zero-sum game. As power shifts so do the boundaries of culture and morality.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.