I'm sort of disturbed, as an artist & designer, why Arts & Culture is the only section not considered as a Ministry. I have written a proposal to invite others to develop an Arts & Culture Council, however now that the forums are open and the Ministries listed, it seems clear that Arts & Culture have been taken down a notch when compared to things like Science, Justice, Education, etc.

I believe Arts & Culture deserve the same respect and I would like to see that happen. I will be posting my proposal here with some changes, however it is this exact concept, a Ministry of Arts & Culture (which I refer to as a 'Council') that would oversee creative projects, develop a repository for and plan programs for arts, music, culture & various alternative forms of creativity. I believe the creative arts and resulting culture will be integral to the foundation of any nation, in space or otherwise, and will need attention, guidance and respect from visual and non-visual artists, educators and historians to be successful.

Am I the only one who noticed this anomaly?

[Admin] moving to Culture for relevancy

No, I concur with your viewpoint. We should rally support and push this initiative.

I agree with your viewpoint. I believe that arts and culture is just as the others, but then I've also dabbled with various art forms before myself and is currently an archaeology student.

The importance of Arts and Culture will rise to new heights once mankind, administrators legislators and economists realize that it is the foundation of an orderely progressive pleasant peaceful, polite and low crime society and all the cost savings and issues that resolves.

Japan teaches or rather focuses on manners and culture to all children until they are 10 yrs old. I think Finland is similar. Go to japan and you are pleasantly startled by the difference.

Also as work time in traditional employment to provide for life's necessities continues to shrink Art and Culture is probably the most popular alternative to fill those hours of our extended active lives.

Just because Art and Culture are essential to a society does not mean they should have a ministry. It is not a disrespect to the concept of culture to not regulate it. When it comes to the creation of a ministry, it is a question of politics, not respect. Politically, we do not need a ministry of Arts and Culture and I will argue that having one would actually be a bad thing.

First, we have to ask, what will a ministry do? Primarily, it will regulate. This means it will enforce rules. It will restrict. It will limit. It will have the potential to censor. I imagine most artists would not consider this a good thing. The only positive I can see here is copy writing and patents, however, this does not require the resources of an entire ministry. Also, copy write laws are arguably overabundant and sometimes harmful currently, so it's unlikely creating a larger and more complicated system than ones currently used in many countries would benefit us. Regardless, this only really applies to Art.

So what is culture? Google defines it as "the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively." So culture is the collective manifestations of human achievement. In other words, our culture is just what we naturally do over time as a collective, This can be directly influenced by a government of course, but only in the manner of mass manipulation. Is that what we want from our ministry of culture? What else would it do? The regulation of culture is nothing but censorship. If we are hoping for the preservation of culture, then we are devoting an entire ministry to the management of a museum, an incredible inefficiency. Lastly, an official system for judging the merit of a cultural or artistic creation would be a dangerous monster. There are few things more dangerous then a political institution with the authority to tell it's citizens which thoughts are better than others.

Art and culture will happen on their own. We cannot artificially create them through a ministry. They do not need regulation. Of course they are important, but importance does not create political need. It is the job of individual Asgardians to manage our culture collectively. It will happen on it's own. A ministry is a very large use of resources with the purpose of regulating something. Art and culture are supremely important, but they do not need regulation.

I think that Bluenose's argument has a point. We don't need a ministry to take care of Asgardian culture. I just looked through the topics in Literature thread and there is already an initiative to create a writer's guild.

I was hoping it would be the human resources kind of ministry. You know Asgardian commercials tv movies heck laws arnt just about restrictions there also about protection. A minister of arts job would be to make sure the laws being made dont attempt to stifle or cencer the people.

We cannot have a ministry dedicated to the promotion of free expression. This is no different from having a ministry that promotes a certain political party. Regarding the management of cultural institutions, this assumes that all of these institutions will be publicly funded, as well as having enough of them to merit their own ministry. Regarding the international exchange of cultural information, I can't recall seeing much of that anywhere specifically funded by governments, though that might be my own ignorance. As for promoting and supporting various cultural expressions, this seems like something either should simply not be done (regarding major media such as movies and top musicians) or would be much better served at a local level. Towns do not need a centralized government agency to tell them how to properly knit or write.

For a different argument as well, most of these things could fall under the other ministries such as the ministries of youth and education and of equity and resources.

Again I am not saying that art and culture are not important to a country, instead I am saying that they do not need a dedicated ministry and that having one might one day lead to greater censorship and unnecessary regulation.

A Ministry of Arts & Culture (or a named equivalent) is not only needed, it is essential. I think we have to see the larger picture of what would fall under such a Ministry. No where else is there a Ministry that concerns itself with the "off work" portion of an Asgardian citizen's day and making sure appropriate amounts of resources and space are devoted to making sure there are diverse recreational activities to keep the population happy over an extended period. This isn't a simple shuttle mission we are conceiving of here, this is a nation in space. Even the simplest activities we take for granted on Earth may and many times will require resources and space devoted specifically to fulfilling it. If those needs are relegated to a "back-burner" priority under another Ministry, who stands for the happiness of the people and their right to live full, complete and fulfilling lives? What about the problems that arise that are social but are not medical, where a simple peer councilor to talk to would help? Problems that are not security concerns yet and could be handled with a Ministry solely concerned with the smoothing out the little wrinkles that living in space will surely present as a new type of culture. Art, music, and literature is but a small portion of what a Cultural Ministry could handle and it would free the remaining eleven Ministries to focus on what they are meant to. I do hope you can see this is by no means an unneeded Ministry, as in the end it could actually be one that lets us flourish instead of watching us wither on the vine.

Instead of setting up a department, it is better to set up an association

You know, I was previously in favor of a Ministry of Culture, but after reading some of the posts here, I don't think I am anymore. As long as censorship and intellectual property laws are set up in a way to protect the artist and free expression in general, then there is no benefit to the culture to have a ministry dedicated to it. That will be the people at large.

One of what I call "the Natural Laws of Government" that I've seen over time is that bureaucrats, politicians and other state agents are generally unimaginative conformists. That's a necessary personality type for the workings of government, but they shouldn't be in a position of leadership when it comes to interpreting art and expression. They never get it right!

If Asgardia turns into something real, a place where you can visit and be on "Asgardian land" so to speak, then its culture cannot be governed by any one person or group. The citizenry will be made of many groups who have been traditionally separated from each other by geography or political difference and allowing any one or small contingency control the direction of the emerging culture will stunt its growth and limit its potential. 

We need to guard especially against Eurocentricity. Earth already has that and Asgardia is already being shaped by it with its name and dominant language of English.

That's my opinion, anyway.

I am 100% agree the important of this Ministry to be implement as part of the Governmental list of Asgardia. I sent an email through the volunteer messages about it, and replied my resume for.  

Through this Ministry will can connect as a perfect link with another cultures, traditions and legacies of the most than 200 countries and 12 languages that conform the Asgardians citizens right now. Also, through the Ministry of Culture will help to strengthening the local economy of the nation and bring together with another nations out of space connecting with the countries in the Earth.

I have been presenting 3 international conferences in more than 52 countries as result of more than 17 years of research and implementing the new two models proposal and conferences either:

1. Conference: The Intangible and Tangible  Cultural Heritage,  Resource for the Strengthening of Local Economies Globally. Involving more than 48 industries from all sectors.
2. Economic Model of Culture Sector of XXI Century. In this moment implementing into an emergent country to demonstrate how the culture sector can be sustainable to make revenue and not expense money as another lucrative sectors.
3. Pedagogic Model of XXI Century through Sustainable Cultural Entrepreneurship- to strengthen innate knowledge from early childhood through high school. Also implementing into an emergent country to change the obsolete pedagogical system that mutilate the innate knowledge that every person born with, and with this model we are helping to develop it through their first 12 years of live to get new generations more updated and developed mentally, professionally, spiritually and technologically with the time.

By Eliyahu Munoz C Peretz.