ABSTRACT
Dumont’s standpoint on cultural policy began to take shape during the Quiet Revolution, but was more proximately related to his direct involvement with the world of policy as well as his longstanding engagement with policy issues. He identified what he called les politiques des cultures, which referred to various efforts by the state to support the work or artists and creators. Dumont largely supported initiatives of this kind. However, he was much less sanguine about what he termed la politique de la culture – namely the state’s project of incorporating the masses through its support for cultural initiatives. Indeed, as Dumont points out, state projects by their very nature had this cultural dimension.15 What concerned him most of all was the tendency of les politiques des cultures to develop into la politique de la culture. This involved an instrumentalization of culture and its removal from public control and local expression. Given his views on cultural policy, where did Dumont then locate the creation and preservation of culture? Consistent with his commitment to popular culture, he put his faith in democratically organized social organizations that would serve as leading groups for cultural growth and preservation. Taking his cue from E. P. Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class (Thompson 1964), Dumont felt that there were groups with similar predispositions and tendencies in Québec, such as the Catholic Workers Organization and the Association of Adult Education. In this regard he took issue with an official report on cultural policy (Québec 1991), which he felt did not adequately address the question of access to culture or of the role of popular groups in creating culture (Dumont 1995, pp. 116-123).
