From: sasdrf@daedalus.unx.sas.com (Dave Frederick)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Date: 9 Apr 92 19:13:26 GMT
    <1992Apr8.221929.21158@scubed.com>
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasdrf@daedalus.unx.sas.com
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In article <1992Apr8.221929.21158@scubed.com>, hap@scubed.com (Hap Freiberg) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr7.113956.5324@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
|> >Let government do its duty and support the nation's culture! Without it,
|> >the arts will remain the preserve of the middle classes and the well-off.
|> >Stephen Wilcox

Historically, hasn't it always been the "duty" of the artist to find a
patron, rather than the other way around? Certainly, back in the days
when monarchies were the norm, an artist could set himself up in the
court of the powers that be, but still the monarch, and not
"the government" per se, was the true patron and sponsor of the artist.
Occassionally, citizens of these monarchies resented the fact that
their ruler was taxing them in order to surround himself with the
luxuries associated with the court. Remember the Bastille? I believe a
well known 20th century statesman from your side of the Atlantic was
the one who said "Those who have not learned from history are doomed
to repeat it".

|>
|> Nicely stated and, I think, some ideas for us Americans to ponder....
|> The basic problem, of course, is that the U.S. has no national
|> culture.

Of course this is true. Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, Andrew
Wyeth and Jackson Pollock, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Miles Davis,
Charles Mingus, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, are just a few of the
examples that demonstrate a total lack of culture in this country.
Of course, we have Bart Simpson and Madonna to offer the world, so
there may be hope for us poor Americans yet!

|> Culture has always been the province of either the wealthy
|> or the weird.

Well, since I certainly am not wealthy, and since I enjoy music, art,
and literature, you must be claiming that I'm "weird". Do you make
the same claim of every non-wealthy participant in this newgroup? Are
you wealthy?

|> The denizens of the political right have always been
|> suspicious of culture (because so much of it is foreign? Or that the
|> "cultured" tend to be a bit "different"?) and under the banner of "let
|> the market decide" have managed to quash any hints of a national subsidy.

Let's ignore your political baiting, since that is entirely outside the
scope of this newsgroup. Why do you think that a "national subsidy" for
the arts is an artist's birthright? Are we to take the artist's word
that what he has created is a masterpiece worthy of preservation? Or
do we place our faith in some government bureaucrats to dictate to us
what we should and shouldn't like? Isn't culture itself a reflection
of society as a whole? If our present day society does not relate well
to the arts as they are presented today, and do not value what our
artists are producing, the fault must lie in the populace as a whole,
and not the artist, right? It must be up to our governments to set us
straight. And certainly any credible artist would be thrilled at the
prospect of having to acquiesce to government control over what
constitutes "culture", and would never have to worry about political
posturing in return for favors granted.

Here's a proposal for you. Instead of direct government funding for
the arts via the NEA, lets have a National Tax Rebate for the Arts.
The money that would have gone into the NEA would be redistributed to
the wealthy and weird (Oh, I see below that you define weird to mean
middle-class. That means I'll get a share, too!). We would be required
to spend this reabte on "cultural" events, but we get to decide what
culture is. How many of us would use this money to witness, say, some
performance art or an exhibit by Robert Mapplethorpe? Then again, how
many would buy tickets to the symphony or theatre? See the point. If
we as individuals don't value certain forms of expression that are
intended to either offend us or represent an explicit countercultural
message, why should we as a society consider these same works part of
our "culture"?

Of course, such a rebate could never occur. The denizens of the political
left (once they have finished screaming "Regressive, regressive. Let's
soak the rich for every penny they've worked for) have always been
suspicious of being responsible for themselves (because the concept is
so foreign to them? Or they'd have to think once in awhile) and under
the banner of "I can't decide" have managed to quash any hints of
self-sufficiency.

|> As to the idea that the arts will remain the preserve of the middle classes
|> and the well-off, I think you're being optimistic, but that's a topic for
|> another .newsgroup.....
|>
|> Hap

Dave Frederick                          sasdrf@unx.sas.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical