Yet, the idea of the cultural omnivore has mostly been taken up in support of instrumental uses of culture. The assumptions underlying this are often benign and care-oriented. They are motivated by notions of human improvement. The cultural values on which the notion of cultural sustainability are built stem from a shared consensus of ‘core’ or ‘universal’ values that include a wide range of human concerns: participation and democratic rights; tolerance, compassion and inclusion; freedom, justice and equality; peace, safety and security; health, wellbeing and vitality; creativity, imagination and innovation; and even love and respect for the environment (cf. Hawkes 2001: 7). In a similar argument, Jowell (2004) stresses the importance of what she calls complex culture and cultural engagement (as opposed to simple culture and entertainment) as the means of developing ‘personal value’ that opens up a ‘personal heartland’ that enables a person to engage with new ideas, creative forms and cultural possibilities. While this has presented as a new approach to representing the value of culture as a tangible value that governments should recognise and support, her arguments, in many respects, go back to traditional arguments about the value of the arts as a strategy of civility. Indicatively she has argued:

Assumptions that link arts and cultural policy to excellence have persistently underpinned post-WW2 democratic governments (at least rhetorically). Since the 1960s, a second argument about cultural diversity has infiltrated arguments about the arts, yet has played second fiddle and generally referred to benign and non-threatening forms of culture. It is arguable that such assumptions have been challenged by the onslaught of security concerns, terrorism and non-Western ideologies that have dominated recent preoccupations about culture and humanity. Unquestioned regard for western forms of democratic rights and human rights has been severely tested, especially by Islamic extremism. Diversity, most spectacularly in the form of multiculturalism, is under threat from cultural assumptions that challenge the belief that tolerance and inclusive policies can iron out clashes between radically different values, norms and behaviours. Has the clamour for universal rights and international declarations faded? Are they relevant in this new cultural climate? There has been a shift from the late twentieth century approach to cultural policy and its tenets of diversity and development to recognition of the perceived ‘threat’ of cultural difference, separatism and forceful rejection of the idea of cultural and inclusive and multi-dimensional. The question we need to ask is ‘how should governments respond to this new cultural agenda and the fallout from the ongoing re-alignment of power and culture?’

One response to this situation has, paradoxically, been increased insularity of traditional ‘arts’ policy — restrictive, elitist and clientelist. This is partly because the lobbyists for cultural policy have largely come from the arts sector and focused on familiar arts forms as strategies to enhance cultural development. At the same time, the re-definition of cultural policy as cultural (or creative) industry policy and the emphasis on economic benefits and potential of culture to be sustainable — even profitable — has shaped emergent forms of cultural policy. Culture, usually arts and heritage, become implicated in the quest for sustainability although the bulk of support still is directed towards high end capital ‘C’ culture.

Despite the development of new approaches to cultural policy and arts funding through the twentieth century, the persistence of an artistic hierarchy^[2] underpinning the policy sector has meant that at times of crisis and change, culture has reverted to ‘Art’ at each phase while culture has been given a broadbrush treatment as a panacea for insoluble social itches and uncomfortable truths. Rather than embracing major changes in cultural participation, education and consumption as the cornerstone of arts and cultural policy, the sector remains on the backburner of subsidy.