Safe places for unsafe ideas? : history and science museums, hot topics and moral predicaments

Museums have always acted as sites of social transformation and social responsibility. According to theorist Tony Bennett (1995; 1998), the history of the modern museum is that of instilling dominant moral codes of conduct, values, and reforming behaviours. Working alongside other institutions of symbolic, coercive, political and economic power such as the penitentiary, the police, church, state, education system and the media, museums were established for the delivery of moralising and reforming discourses. All this raises interesting questions. Are the contemporary discourses of social responsibility simply a revisionist version of the older ideal? What roles do museums perform as moralising and reforming spaces in contemporary society? And how do audiences imagine museum roles and the shifting foundations of museum authority and legitimacy?