From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Arts ed vs. Arts funding (was Re: government and the arts)
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
 <1992Apr10.035457.19026@Princeton.EDU> <1992Apr13.171845.10712@unx.sas.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 05:54:02 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.171845.10712@unx.sas.com>
 sasdrf@daedalus.unx.sas.com (Dave Frederick) writes:
[...]
>|> >|> 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.

>|> Actually, the lack of reading comprehension is a far greater problem.
>but simply tearing oneself away from a picture box to read is beyond
>the ability of most Americans.

My crack referred to YOU, Dave.  You seemed to have missed the
difference between ANY culture and a NATIONAL culture.  In any case, I
apologize for excess on my part, as well.

>|> There is no *national* culture, in the sense of a central cultural
>|> tradition.  All of the above (*Andrew Wyeth??*) except perhaps for
>                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I'm not a great fan of his either, but I was hastily searching for
>examples of Americana. Substitute Norman Rockwell, if you want.

Indeed.  Popular culture with a vengeance.

>|> Twain, are members of American cultures, to be sure, but with one or two
>|> exceptions ("Fanfare forthe Common Man") none of them has an artistic
>|> significance to the majority of Americans, or ever has had.  Beethoven
>|> and Shakespeare are far closer to the center of our culture than they
>|> are.

>Well, I'm not in total agreement here. We don't have quite as many
>centuries of retrospect to search for cultural identity, and I believe
>this leads to the illusion of a lack of culture. While our country is
>a couple hundred years old, it has only been within the past 100 or
>so years that we have really adopted a recognizable personna, and

Tocqueville claimed to sense one 150 years ago!

>sometimes a century is too little posterity to appreciate the accomp-
>lishments of many artists. Note that, save Mr Clemens, all names on
>the list are twentieth century artists. Yes, Copland was trained in
>Europe, but didn't N. Boulanger encourage him to seek an American
>flavor for his music? 

That doesn't make it into a national culture.  People had been doing
that since Gottschalk, to little effect.

Besides, what Boulanger said and what Copland did are often very
different things.  Teh man was far more complex than all that.

>And isn't Copland one of the most frequently
>performed twentieth century composers (note, I did not claim best)?

In the US, probably in the top 15 or so.  Worldwide, hardly.

>While we have to rely on imports for our "classics" (since we either
>weren't in existence or still in our infancy and therefore unable to
>produce them), we have been slowly developing a cultural identity
>which is coming to fruition. The excuse that "we have no culture" is
>not only lame, it is untrue.

Indeed.  We have a culture, but it is not very closely related to most
of the "traditional" arts, except perhaps the novel.

>|> >Of course, we have Bart Simpson and Madonna to offer the world, so
>|> >there may be hope for us poor Americans yet!

>|> Indeed.  Pop music and the movies are in fact America's
>|> national-cultural exports.

>Just a question...Does something have to be exported to be considered
>exemplary of a culture? Sumo wrestling has never really attracted a
>world-wide audience...does this exclude it from being part of Japanese
>culture? But I'm losing focus.

Quite.  The point is that these things DO represent ALL of America, and
America tends to see them that way -- as does the world.  

Besides, we have pro wrestling all to ourselves...8-)

>Yes, Bart and Madonna may indeed be a part of our culture. It is too
>soon for us to evaluate the long lasting effect that "pop culture"
>may have on American culture as a whole. 

Why?  The pop music revolution is a century old, with ragtime, and rock
and roll is, um, here to stay.  35+ years of that, too.  Movies and
video and so on have made pretty lasting impressions, and it's hard to
imagine them going away.

>Still, I would argue that there is such a thing as an American culture.

Yes and no.  There's no culture in the traditional sense, no national
base of universally respected great artists.  Well, the Elvis stamp
controversy immediately comes to mind as a sign of a counterexample.
But you see what I mean.  

(Where are the old movies, even?  How many people of the younger
generation know Laurel and Hardy or Chaplin, or even Bogart?   The gap
between the canon of film and audience practice is pretty vast, with
only a few exceptions like Wizard of Oz and GWTW.  This is not a simple
question.)
>Hap Freiberg writes:
>|> Subsidy by its nature is political.

>Sure, but must it be national, or governmental in origin? Granted, if
>the artist does not please the patron, his subsidy will be discontinued.
>This may or may not be political. Does the patron need to be the
>government? Texaco seems proud to have been subsidizing Met broadcasts
>for fifty years (as they are so quick to point out). Look at the program
>that your nearest major symphony orchestra gives you, and you'll see
>several endorsements from instrument manufacturers, record labels, etc.
>These are subsidies that are commercial, not governmental. In contrast,
>the State of North Carolina funds its own NC Symphony orchestra here
>in the Raleigh area, and it suffers from the most insipid programming
>and lackluster performances of any regularly performing professional
>orchestra I've ever heard. 

Are you arguing post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc?  Better not, because hundreds
of symphony orchestras get government money, and many of them do
exciting stuff.  You want boring?  Listen to commercial classical radio,
esp. in NY.  Oops, different thread.

Also, are you arguing that subsidy affects program choice?  I'd like to
see some evidence.  

Maybe it's just a bad orchestra.  They exist, you know. 

>I've heard more adventurous programs from
>amateur community orchestras (including one in Raleigh that occasionally
>performs (shudder) NEW compositions!).

Again, what's your point?  Look at the exciting programs that German
orchestras do.  They're subsidized to a level that you couldn't imagine.
Play good, too.

>|> >the arts is an artist's birthright?

>|>I think a subsidy is not the artists' right but the nation's right. Like

>I disagree. Federal funding in practice has little to do with art. It's
>a pork barrel like everything else in the federal government, going to
>thos localities whose representatives have sold their votes on some
>other point.

Evidence?

Congress does not allocate arts funding at all.  The NEA is autonomous
of regional apportionment legislation or anything like that; its panels
are not chosen by Congress, either.  Grants are given in response to
applications; I think you'll find that there's no partcular bias toward
any region of the country.

Or are you thinking of something else?

> In theory, yes, having the government blindly making the
>arts available to all would be a Good Thing. Unfortunately, in this
>empirical realm it doesn't work that way.

Tell us about it!  I don't know quite what you mean.

>|>education. "Good" art will survive through education and "bad" art will
>                                             ^^^^^^^^^ Good point!
>|>probably survive along with the "good" and those able to discern the difference
>|>between Beverly Sills and Milli Vanilli, Harold Robbins and (yes) William
>|>Faulkner will continue to bemoan the fact that New Kids on the Block
>|>make zillions while the local symphony balances on the narrow edge of solvency
>|>and bankruptcy...

>I agree that there is a problem. I only disagree with solving it by
>having the government throw money at it.

Which is not what happens, of course.  Again, what specific things do
you mean?

>|> >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?

>Roger Lustig writes:
>|> Rarely.

>|> On the other hand, what's truly weird is your juxtaposition of the
>|> bogeyman of artistic commissars with the (thoroughly Marxist) notion of
>|> the role of art, wrt "society at large."

>Sorry, my gaffe regarding "society as a whole". But in doling out
>subsidies to any artist applying, we leave ourselves open to fraud or
>ineptitude (a degree or a prior sucess does not guarantee artistic
>quality).

So?  That's true of any investment.  The radio ads for mutual funds say
that explicitly.  

Why get all hung up on guarantees, for heaven's sake?  This is art we're
talking about.  Requires imagination.  Often comes up with thundering
failures.  

> By limiting ourselves to a bureaucrat's or agency's decision,
>where the arbiter is a political appointee who may or may not have any
>knowledge about the arts, the motivation for making these decisions
>lies more with keeping one's job rather than with supporting deserving
>artists.

Are you describing the NEA or some other agency, or are you merely
speaking generally?  If the former, then your description is quite at
variance with what I know of the agency.

> I don't feel comfortable with either of these choices. For
>those of you who feel it's better than nothing, we'll have to agree to
>disagree.

Tell me again why it's worse than nothing.  Please limit yourself to
actual, currently implemented situations, not generalities.  

>|> >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?

>|> In a sense, yes.  If people no longer receive the education that allows
>|> them to have ACCESS to culture, then the problem is beyond the reach of
>|> the artist, unless art is to be "dumbed down."

>|> >It must be up to our governments to set us straight.

>|> As long as there's still public education, I'm afraid so.  (Note: it
>|> also produces most of the artists...)

>Hmmm. I agree and disagree with these statements. First, I disagree
>with the statement that public education "produces most of the artists".
>While their primary education was most often garnered from public
>elementary and high schools, very few state universities (with some
>very notable exceptions, such as Indiana or SUNY Purchase) support
>arts education.

There's fine arts at all four big SUNY campuses, plus performance at
many of the smaller ones.  You did mention the Indiana U conservatory
(world's largest, they say), alongside which there's Illinois and dozens
of others in the midwest alone; Iowa has famous studio and writing
programs; the Cal system has huge numbers of art and music departments,
and on and on.  

Besides, where do all those teachers come from?

> When I was pursuing degree programs in music, I could
>not find any state universities either in my home state or in a state
>with reciprocating tuition agreements that even offered a composition
>program, let alone a good one. 

What state was that? And when?  Besides, how many good composition
programs are there ANYWHERE?

>I was not wealthy, and had to find
>funding through scholarships, assistantships, etc. to attend private
>universities that offered the programs I desired. At best, public
>education can produce *some* artists, but I believe these would be the
>vast minority.

I think you shuld look up some statistics, from any of various sources.

>|> >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.

>|> Hey, it's been that way for a couple millennia.  See _Republic_, section
>|> 399.

>I wouldn't argue that this hasn't always been done. I would argue that
>artists would prefer more freedom than this entails.

And more money besides.  Unfortunately, we have to proceed from what
we've got.

>|> Besides, the government doesn't *control* waht constitutes culture, nor
>|> has anyone proposed that, your tendentious comments to the contrary.

>They do if they *control* the purse strings. By giving a cultural grant
>to a group or individual, they are claiming that said group or individual
>is a part of our culture. The awarding of a grant says that the product
>is art, without awaiting posterity's judgement.

Again with the posterity hangup!  Who cares? MOST art doesn't last, and
that's true of the subsidized stuff too, and always has been.  The very
idea of writing for posterity is a 19th century notion (with small
exceptions from prior centuries).  If artistic subsidy is supposed to be
investment in the symphony programs and gallery hangings of the early
22nd century, then we need to go about things QUITE differently. 

For one thing, we need to decide that there will BE such media in that
time, and then figure out why we think that.  

Yes, we give out grants and say that artists are part of our culture.
As with any culture, it involves timeless pieces and things that last
for about an hour and a half before growing stale.  It involves topical
and political art, and more general stuff.  It involves mainstream
things, and screwball things.  It involves a messy process -- that
process IS culture -- out of which comes the next round and some
retention of things that happen to have found favor.  There are no
guarantees, no prior decisions as to what will last.

> In a capitalist society, money is control.

Indeed, which is why the political process (until now) had carefully
restricted its own control over the spending of the money, and had
limited itself to very borad guidelines.

>|> The problem is this: government IS involved in culture (*and cultural
>|> education), and we need to decide HOW.  Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham,
>|> Aaron Copland, etc. all benefited from government funding; Mingus and
>|> Miles got their basic training in school, too.

>|> Look, the vast majority of arts money is spent in the schools.  The vast
>|> majority of the rest is spent on utterly establishment high/middlebrow
>|> things like symphony orchestras.  Since the NEA costs each of us less
>|> than 75 cents annually anyway (less, incidentally, than the military
>|> spends on bands), why this fuss about a tiny fraction of one cent?  All
>|> the things you find objectionable, and that the NEA funds, cost you less
>|> than the Army Chorus.  Over hill, over dale...

>Put more into education. Make arts education necessary for a high school
>diploma. Make high school diploma necessary for a driver's license. Make

Sorry, but that one gets you into REAL trouble with matters of liberty,
etc.  You're joking again, right?

>someone quote Shakespeare before he is allowed to purchase a TV :-) Put
>more things like Bernstein's old young people's concerts on in prime
>time. There are many things that can be done to improve the state of
>the arts in our day, but having the government indicriminately throwing
>money at the problem is bound to be as successful as any other solution
>involving the government's money squandering.

One more time: WHO DOES THIS?  WHAT MONEY IS BEING THROWN AROUND?  

The NEA does NOT squander money.  It doesn't HAVE that much money.  It
gives most of it to tried-and-true things that people do enjoy.  It
supports young artists.  Hardly anyone gets more than one or two grants.
They constantly review what has happened to the money they've spent in a
particular place.  (You're required to report what you did with it.)

>|> > 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.

>|> Horseshit.  Self-sufficiency is not the issue here.  Most of the artists
>|> who apply for grants have been self-sufficient for a long time, and will
>|> go back to being so after the grant is over.  Nobody lives off of NEA
>|> grants, certainly not for long.

>If the grants aren't necessary to keep organizations and individuals
>afloat, why do we need them? 

To allow the artists to do a little more than float, for a change.  To
do something bigger.  More complex.  More visible.  

Think of it as venture capitalism.  Start-ups need outside investment to
reach their potential.  

The potential of art is often not monetary profit for the investor, but
rather an enrichment of those who benefit from the art.  A grant can
make an artist's work known (by allowing some of it to be executed in
the first place), and can allow the artist to go on INDEPENDENTLY to
future success.

But it's not guaranteed.  You want guarantees, try the orange-juice
futures market.

>And if the grants are necessary, then
>these groups and individuals aren't self-sufficient. That is an issue.

No, not at the moment, not doing the things they want (and perhaps
ought, in an artistic sense).  But the net effect of the grant is often
that they BECOME that way.  Or that people have access to their work.
Or that they are able to participate in arts education.

>I'd say they should be self-sufficient (which might mean relying upon
>private patronage and an educated populace).

Since when is reliance on private patronage equivalent to
self-sufficiency?  I'm lost.

>|> And remember: if people had been unsubsidized and self-sufficient (or
>|> whatever), you wouldn't have 80% of that wonderful culture you tell us
>|> you like...

>|> all the oil painting.
>|> Most of the symphonies.
>|> Almost all the opera.
>|> A lot of the jazz, for that matter -- it's rarely been profitable.

>How many people choose a profession in the arts because it's profitable?

"None but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
                                  --- Dr. Johnson 

But this has nothing to do with the matter at hand, either way.  My
point is that it's SO unprofitable, and always has been, that only with
subsidy did it ever come to pass in the first place.

Imagine the history of Western music without the Church.  Now consider
the Church's powers of taxation over the millennia...

Roger
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical