Dana Gioia

Poet and chairman, National Endowment for the Arts

Dana Gioia argues that American culture increasingly ignores artists, intellectuals, and scientists in favor of celebrity and commercial entertainment, and that this shift impoverishes public life and offers fewer meaningful role models to the young. He contends that education, especially arts education in public schools, is the primary social force that can counterbalance the market's reduction of everything to price, and that its true purpose is to create complete human beings rather than merely more artists. He also faults artists and intellectuals for losing their ability to converse with the broader public, and cites studies linking arts participation and reading to greater civic engagement.