Indeed--or as my sister puts it, don't engage in a battle of wits with the unarmed. I suspect that most curators have more interaction with the public than they used to, given recent trends in museum work, but even if they don't, what they present is going to have at least a heavy influence on what the public takes away from an exhibit from the collection--not least because they have a major role in selecting what is in that collection. That of course is less true in some cases than others; if you are the curator of ship models at the NMM, well, that ship has sailed in terms of what's collected, but you do have a big role to play in interpreting it and in selecting what is presented to the public and to scholarship. We do indeed live in a world where elite gatekeepers have lost much control; we are well aware of the dangers of that right now, for obvious reasons, but perhaps not as well aware of the opportunities it presents if we pursue them wisely.
The analogy of curation is interesting. I was once a curator myself. Perhaps things have changed but my experience of curation is that one selects, interprets and displays things hoping that what one does is interesting and informative, but one has very little interaction with the public who view the displays. One has very little knowledge of the information, if any, that is absorbed and taken away by the public.
Arguably we live in a world where the elite gatekeepers have less control over the transmission of information and the public are more able to broadcast their opinions and what they regard as truths.
There seems to be no point in entering into debate with the malign and the idiotic. It has always been a truism that if you argue with a halfwit you have to descend to their level of argument.
Indeed--or as my sister puts it, don't engage in a battle of wits with the unarmed. I suspect that most curators have more interaction with the public than they used to, given recent trends in museum work, but even if they don't, what they present is going to have at least a heavy influence on what the public takes away from an exhibit from the collection--not least because they have a major role in selecting what is in that collection. That of course is less true in some cases than others; if you are the curator of ship models at the NMM, well, that ship has sailed in terms of what's collected, but you do have a big role to play in interpreting it and in selecting what is presented to the public and to scholarship. We do indeed live in a world where elite gatekeepers have lost much control; we are well aware of the dangers of that right now, for obvious reasons, but perhaps not as well aware of the opportunities it presents if we pursue them wisely.
The analogy of curation is interesting. I was once a curator myself. Perhaps things have changed but my experience of curation is that one selects, interprets and displays things hoping that what one does is interesting and informative, but one has very little interaction with the public who view the displays. One has very little knowledge of the information, if any, that is absorbed and taken away by the public.
Arguably we live in a world where the elite gatekeepers have less control over the transmission of information and the public are more able to broadcast their opinions and what they regard as truths.
There seems to be no point in entering into debate with the malign and the idiotic. It has always been a truism that if you argue with a halfwit you have to descend to their level of argument.