The Tortoise and the Hare, Netherlands Museum Congres

The
Tortoise
and
the
Hare

Remarks
to
the

Netherlands
Museum
Congress,

October
3,
2013
plenary
session

—Michael
Edson

This
is
kind
of
surreal.

When
I
took
off
in
my
airplane
Monday
evening
in
Washington,
we
had
a

government
and
I
had
a
job.
And
when
I
arrived
at
Schiphol
airport
on
Tuesday

morning
we
didn’t
have
a
government
and
I
didn’t
have
a
job.

Since
I’ve
been
in
the
Netherlands
I’ve
had
one
offer
of
political
asylum,
two
job

offers,
and
one
marriage
proposal.

And
the
guys
who
play
pan
flute
out
on
the
plaza

asked
me
to
join
them.
Maybe
I
can
earn
enough
money
to
buy
a
plane
ticket
home.

I
can’t
give
a
my
keynote
here
today,
because
of
the
government
shutdown,
but
I
feel

comfortable
saying
a
few
words
from
my
heart
-‐
-‐
even
more
so
since
I’ve
met
so

many
of
you
and
heard
what’s
on
your
minds
and
observed
your
work.

*
*
*

*
*
*

*
*
*

In
thinking
about
today
and
thinking
about
this
moment,
I’ve
realized
that
I’m

haunted.
.
.
despite
all
the
expertise
in
this
room
and
the
majesty
of
your
museums

and
your
museum
sector
and
the
brilliance
of
yourselves…
I’m
haunted
by
the

suspicion
that
you’re
not
getting
enough
done.
And
I’m
energized
by
the
belief,
the

conviction,
that
you
can
get
more
done.

As
I
was
worrying
about
the
government
shutdown
last
week,
and
thinking
about

my
keynote,
I
decided
to
clean
out
a
shelf
in
my
daughter’s
room,
and
I
found
some

old
storybooks
-‐
-‐
“board
books”
we
call
them,
they’ve
got
very
thick
pages,
suitable

for
young
hands
-‐
-‐
and
I
found
a
board
book
of
Aesop’s
fable
of
the
Tortoise
and

the
Hare.
It’s
a
very
familiar
fable:
everyone
in
the
world
knows
this
story
of
a

brash,
speedy
rabbit
who
is
humbled
by
a
slow
and
patient,
plodding,
turtle.
And

that’s
the
lesson
I
was
taught
when
I
was
young.
It’s
the
lesson
that
you’ve
taught

your
children.

It’s
been
the
lesson
for
thousands
of
years,
that
slow,
patient,
humble
work
towards

a
goal
is
the
way
to
succeed
in
your
personal
life,
and
in
society:
slow
and
steady

wins
the
race.

And
while
elements
of
that
are
still
true,
I
think
it’s
only
true
to
the
extent
that

you
know
what
race
you’re
running
in,
and
the
finish
line
isn’t
moving
away

from
you
faster
than
you
can
run.

And
I
think
that
is
the
moment
we’re
in
now.

Two
years
ago
I
was
in
the
Netherlands,
in
Rotterdam,
to
give
the
closing
keynote

for
the
DISH
conference.
Two
years—a
couple
of
hundred
days:
it’s
nothing,
really.

But
in
the
two
years
since
DISH,
the
population
of
the
world
has
grown
by
140

million
people.
That’s
not
just
births,
that’s
the
net
growth.
About
200,000
people
a

2

day:
each
with
the
right
to
be
educated,
each
with
the
right
to
participate
in
and

shape
their
culture.

In
those
two
years,
the
population
of
the
Internet
has
grown
by
476
million
people.

In
the
last
two
years,
872
million
more
people
have
become
new
mobile
phone

subscribers.
That’s
more
people
than
the
populations
of
the
European
Union

nations,
Canada,
and
the
United
States
combined.

40,000
people
just
took
Introduction
to
Sociology,
free
and
online,
from
Princeton

University.
Those
people
came
from
113
different
countries.
The
professor
said
that

in
two
weeks
of
teaching
that
class
online
he
learned
more
from
his
students
than
he

had
learned
in
a
career
of
teaching
it
in
the
classroom.

The
art
historians
Beth
Harris
and
Stephen
Zucker
reach
200
students
a
semester
in

their
classrooms:
last
semester
they
reached
750,000
learners—from
200

countries—through
their
art
history
video
site
Smarthistory.

Wikipedia.
As
of
this
morning,
people
from
every
country
on
earth
have
made

1,982,665,048
edits
to
Wikipedia
and
the
Wikimedia
projects
that
support
it.
Users

have
translated
the
Mona
Lisa’s
Wikipedia
page
into
86
languages.

TED
has
served
a
billion
videos.

Iceland
is
crowdsourcing
a
new
constitution.

3

2.4
billion
people,
34%
of
humanity,
is
now
online
and
connected
to
the
same

Internet
you
and
I
use,
every
day.
And
even
in
the
poorest
parts
of
the
world,
it
is

not
uncommon
to
see
street
vendors,
taxi
drivers,
and
even
beggars
using
cell

phones.

Everywhere
I
look,
I
see
the
old
rules
about
who
has
a
voice,
who
does
the
work,
and

who
gets
to
benefit
being
rewritten
on
a
global
scale.
It
is
amazing,
but
what

surprises
me
the
most
is
that
we
find
it
surprising
at
all:
we
have
wanted
this
since

the
enlightenment.
Our
institutions
are
founded
on
the
principle
that
we
will
be
a

stronger,
wiser,
more
resilient
society
if
we
understand
our
past,
if
we
understand

science,
if
we
interact,
communicate,
share,
create,
do.
We
believe
that
culture
isn’t

something
frozen
in
amber:
culture
only
has
meaning
when
it
is
alive
in
our
minds,

reworked
by
our
hands,
and
loved
in
our
hearts.

We
are
among
the
most
trusted
institutions
on
earth.

I
was
talking
recently
with
an
institution
that
you
all
would
be
familiar
with.
A

collecting
institution
with
a
museum,
library,
archive,
and
performance
space.
The

leaders
of
this
institution
spoke
of
their
pride
in
being
a
global
brand,
a
global

leader.
They
were
particularly
proud
of
their
work
training
educators.
I
asked
them

how
many
educators
they
train
every
year,
and
they
told
me:
24.

We
are
the
most
trusted
institutions
on
earth,
but
if
that
trust
can’t
be
used
as

capital
to
accomplish
immensely
important
work
in
society,
then
that
trust
is
like
a

check
that
you
can
never
cash.
It
is
useless.

4

The
future
is
ready
for
us.
It
is
craving
our
resources.
It
is
hungry
for
our
expertise.

It
is
listening
for
what
we
have
to
say.
And
it
is
our
obligation—our
privilege—to

respond
and
serve.
A
few
brave
institutions
lead
the
way,
but
with
the
course
of
the

race
so
unclear,
and
the
finish
line
moving
away
from
us
so
quickly,
even
they

struggle
to
keep
up.

And
when
we’re
in
committees,
biding
our
time,
deciding
what
to
do…
Outside
the

committee
room,
down
the
hall,
past
the
galleries,
the
education
classrooms,
the

collections,
the
administrative
offices,
a
new
challenge
is
looming:
It
isn’t
what
do
we

do
now
that
there
are
2.4
billion
of
us
online?

-‐
-‐
It’s,
what
do
we
do
for
when
the
next

5
billion
people
join
us?

Thank
you.

[Note:
portions
of
this
these
remarks
are
derived
from
a
draft
essay
for
Merete
Sanderhoff’s

Sharing
is
Caring
anthology,
to
be
published
by
the
National
Gallery
of
Denmark
in
2014.]

5

The Tortoise and the Hare, Netherlands Museum Congres

More Related Content

What's hot

Similar to The Tortoise and the Hare, Netherlands Museum Congres

More from Michael Edson

Recently uploaded

The Tortoise and the Hare, Netherlands Museum Congres