A Surviving Facts Blog
When I was an adolescent, I struggled with learning. In the third grade- the year I moved to a new school system and first became chubby- I began in the most advanced class and was pushed down lower and lower until the school wanted to place me in special education.
This was a time when ugly, degrading words were used for children in special education classes. Learning disabilities were equivalent to “slow” or “stupid.” We know now, of course, that many learning disabilities do not reflect intelligence. We also know that intelligence is not the fixed measurement we once thought it was. Our brains’ plasticity enables us to raise our IQ. We’ve also learned to look at IQ through various prisms- emotional acuity, for example, conveys as much as mathematical abilities, but in a different way. Kindness requires a level of self awareness and self control that automatic talent or other abilities cannot or don’t. The IQ test delivered today is flawed, unreliable and limited.
Going back to my elementary years, I am glad my mother fought against pushing me down. I was a child struggling with change (my family had just moved), new (the move forced me into a new school), and loneliness (I had to make all new friends). This complexity of emotion affected my mechanics of learning. The school didn’t see that. They saw a student who wasn’t smart.
This period set for me years of believing I wasn’t smart. To offset people realizing how dumb I was, I found dramatic arts- dancing, acting, writing, playing music. These areas aligned me with other misfits. I may not have been able to ace fractions, but I could memorize the entire Violet Beauregarde chewing gum monologue from Willy Wonka and perform it in front of my fourth grade class. I A-plus-plussed this assignment.
The re-enforcement from this small success encouraged me to journey further in that direction. My best friend was tall and thin compared to my short and meatier frame (I will not call myself “fat.” When I look at pictures of myself at that age, I was a petite little girl). We developed a clever series of skits called Ingrid and Irma, a female version of Laurel and Hardy, which we also emulated. Dressed in grandma’s shifts from the moth ball-smelling box in the attic, we performed comedies for our families. I recently found one of our scripts. If we’d kept at it, we may have ended up on the comedy circuit. We were on to something.
The arts provided me with possibility, discipline and self-esteem for many years. Without the arts, I would have been a dangerously depressed child during a time when depression wasn’t yet considered real. The arts saved me-literally.
This is why I am concerned about two threads I see in Project 2025. Project 2025 attacks support for the arts, especially government support of the arts. It also looks at mental illness as weakness, supporting, instead, over-masculine male-oriented culture that positions emotions as female and weak.
Attacks on the arts aren’t new. Republicans had begun fighting against the arts as early as the 1960s. In the 80s, Reagan took a multi-pronged approach. He initially tried to reduce federal funding for the arts and to cut tax breaks for charitable giving to the arts. During the AIDS epidemic, the far right rallied against the populist self-expression of the gay community. By the time Reagan had left office, however, he had increased arts funding and developed the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the National Medal of the Arts. It seems his Hollywood roots won out.
Since Reagan, however, Republicans, and the far right in particular, have continued their attacks on the arts. Now, Project 2025 supports ending all funding for the arts. In the past week alone, a White House official has told NPR that the Trump administration has prepared a memo for Congress that would almost entirely eliminate funding for NPR and PBS. In addition, Doge cuts for the arts are already impacting arts projects across the United States. The primary reason for these cuts is the “woke” agenda- including any art created by someone from the LGBTQ+ community or expressing ideas conflicting with far right ideals. In fact, the White House recently called a 2020 Sesame Street program discussing racism as “trash.”
Project 2025 also attacks mental healthcare in numerous ways. It recommends cutting funding for disabled services for children and adults, an umbrella under which many receive mental health services. It seeks to reduce access to Medicare and Medicaid, over-inflating fraud claims. It seeks to restructure the 340B Drug Pricing program that provides discounts to the uninsured and disabled, which the chronically mentally ill usually are. This drug program also supports the LGBTQ+ community through HIV-drug support.
The proposed Project 2025 cuts, additionally, would reduce access to substance use treatment. As it is, only 1 in 5 of Americans with opioid use disorder receive medication to prevent overdoses and promote recovery. Likewise, fewer Americans will have access to drugs for severe mental illness at a time when more and more people are needing treatment. Already 40% of these Americans receive no treatment at all. It’s a vicious cycle. With these threats, fewer health care practitioners are choosing to enter the mental health or substance abuse field. Not enough money for practitioners or patients.
In a civilized world, don’t we care for those who cannot care for themselves? Don’t we allow expression for those who may most threaten the way we see the world? When did lack of compassion and intolerance for difference become a sign of weakness? The answer is easy. The far right started this pressure 6 decades ago and are now moving toward a homogenous, Christian-conservative, autocratic, billionaire-run, nationalist society.
I genuinely would like to know how these cuts make America greater. Cost savings? Au contraire. What about the trillions in donations given to billionaires and corporations for tax breaks? Or what about the food and milk dumped daily? Or the reduction in OSHA and other protections so corporations can make even more money, which they will not pass down to the everyday worker?
Project 2025 and far right concerns about the arts have more to do with the way our brains are activated by art. Art engages our brain at very deep levels. It improves our brains’ neuroplasticity- meaning art can heal brain damage and make us smarter. Art creates cognitive flexibility. In other words, it helps us be less fixed in dogmatic belief systems. Art also enhances emotional regulation. We can be less emotionally reactive through experiencing art. All of this is true whether one is creating art or viewing it. Art heals trauma and mental illness. That’s how powerful art is.
Is this why Projecting 2025 attacks both the arts and mental illness? Humans exposed to art are less likely to support the fixed beliefs Project 2025 represents. Art threatens ultra conservative dogma.
As for me, I personally found respite in arts programs. They showed me I was/am smart and gave me a purpose for living. As a child, my mother placed me in music, writing and arts seminars that helped me find “those like me,” which then helped me find mental health support, which then prevented me from “unaliving,” as it’s now called. I am deeply grateful I grew up in a time when access to arts and growing awareness of the need for mental health support were seen as features of a healthy and progressing society. Let’s make sure our children grow up in a society that believes the same. The consequences of doing otherwise is deadly.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate.
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