I don't believe that the government has the right to make the decision to spend my money that way. I did not give society the authority to spend my money to support people who are better at soliciting grants than they are at creating art (at least what I consider art). If you want to support an artist...great!!! Throw some money at them.
It's not like there is a right or wrong answer. What will be better about society if the NEA did not support artists?
Well, for starters, I could throw the dollars that I save from the NEA grants to something that I believe that is truly beneficial to society...like education.
The fact is, not many artist receive NEA grants, if the grants ceased to exist, the art community would have minimal impact. But the real point is simply that it is not the government's role to be supporting the arts. It is the role of the private citizen. The private citizens taking on the role of encouraging artistic expression by supporting the arts instead of expecting the government to do it, will be a tremendous benefit to society all by itself.
I believe that the more we expect the government to be responsible for things that the private citizen should be responsible for, the more we are controlled by the government.
Further, I believe that once the government gives an artist money, I have the right to say what that artist can express. After all, I paid for it. And if the government is using my money to fund artists, dammit, I want some paintings of dogs playing poker. For the moment, let's assume that you don't like paintings of dogs playing poker, if the NEA decides to offer me a grant to paint dogs playing poker, are you going to be supportive? (I do paint and I even had one show where I sold a couple of paintings). |
