Sheltering Each Other from the Storms to Come. Why We Need to Become Allies Rather Than Critics of Liberal Cultural Institutions

This polemic chapter reflects on strategic conundrums and blind spots in the discourses and practices of activist and academic critique of powerful liberal cultural institutions. Why do we mostly censure those who already want to listen to us? Why do we shame mainly those who can at all be shamed into reactions? Are we not neglecting possible and necessary effects of our demands for diversity, equity and inclusion when we only focus on those who already see such issues as their concern, even if they have not yet been able to implement them within their institutions? What, in turn, do we do about cultural institutions and artistic traditions in authoritarian, homo- and transphobic, misogynist, xenophobic societies—not only those in Europe and North America, but everywhere? Do we have activist strategies and cogent arguments for those contexts? And should we not stand closer with and more emphatically support our allies within the liberal cultural institutions in operating in liberal democracies.