Norwegian cultural life is in crisis. Public funding is being cut, cultural journalism is being reduced, and populist forces are creating an anti-art climate – where art is branded as elitist, expensive and ridiculous. In this book, author Mariken Lauvstad analyses various cultural debates, such as the threat of closing down Oslo Nye Teater, the influence of the Norwegian Ombudsman on the public conversation about art – and TV 2's controversial slogan "Less narrow art film – more of what you really want to see". The author shows how the idea of art's power to build society is far more alien today than it was when the social democratic cultural policy was shaped after the Second World War. Now that the far right threatens free society, we need art as an arena for visions, criticism, aesthetics and community more than ever, the author writes. Democracy will suffer if we do not take up the fight for art.