>Conservatives are against the NEA like they are the public school system.<
No doubt some conservatives are against the public school system, but they are hardly against public education as a philosophy, and this is the heart of the thing. Conservatives, at least religious conservatives, have supported public education since its beginning. Indeed public education began in this country at the behest of the puritans. Many conservatives are against America's public school system for a number of reasons, one of which is the fact that despite the ever increasing billions of dollars taken from them to spend on our current system, American students are becoming increasingly as dumb as rocks. There is a problem when some 40 percent of fourth graders in this country cannot read at even a basic level. Another reason many religious conservatives reject the public school system is they believe it insults their moral sensibilities, subjecting their children to forced indoctrination of morally bankrupt ideology. One may disagree with their views, but they have every right to struggle against a system they believe to be an incorrigibly inefficient, immoral, economic pig.
>The fact is, the NEA doesn't endow individuals, but the right has viciously marketed the issue as if they do. The NEA gives money to worthy organizations which then decide which smaller organizations or individuals are deserving.<
You do not argue here. You merely claim it fact that these organizations are worthy as if we must ipso facto believe they indeed are. By what standard do we judge their worthiness? By some standards their worthiness is negatively influenced simply because they fund women who display themselves naked-- publicly masturbating with chocolate bars. This would indeed disqualify an organization from being included in any group of organizations I would deem worthy.
>The NEA stopped endowing individuals long ago precisely because they knew something like Mapplethorpe could happen. The attack on the NEA is like conservatives destroying Texaco as a child abuser because the local gas station attendant sold cigarettes to a minor.<
The analogy is utterly false. Texaco is a commercial enterprise, as are the local gas station and the very attendant who sold the cigarettes. We have the option to lobby against the attendant, the local station or even Texaco by use of commerce and/or the law, whichever the case may be. We have no such option with the "worthy" organizations that fund "artists" who throw 'AIDS infested blood' into public audiences. Our only recourse is to lobby the source of funding and that source is the Federal Government. We lobby the source because it forces us to pay for this trash through your very "worthy" organizations. This is our right.
>The NEA is the only reason there are classical orchestras in most cities. Even then the NEA must put stipulations, such as requiring a certain amount of modern repertoire be programmed, in order to bring many of the great musical achievements of mankind to the public. You see, the public won't pay for what they don't understand, but the NEA understands that, and like the education many don't have, it is worth exposing people so some things.<
Who is to say what is worth keeping if it is not the public? I am a classical musician by hobby, and a darn good one too. But I certainly would not presume my interests so important to society that I must force it to pay for them simply because I think society too stupid to know what is good for itself. We as a society have agreed that public education as a philosophy is a worthy thing, and we have set the terms of that public education. Those terms include support for public libraries, zoos and museums and the like. Time after time have we have expressed a desire to support these items with our money. But the NEA does more than support the repository of knowledge we as a society have deemed worthy of support. The NEA in effect aims to add to that repository by coercive methods, forcing a whole country to act as if certain works of "art" are worth creating, publicly displaying and preserving. This is Draconian. Mapplethorpian pornography should survive only because enough people think it valuable, not because a nation is forced by law to pay for it.
>The conservative view is that if it doesn't make enough money to stand on its own, it can't be worth anything.<
Every dollar spent is a vote of confidence in value.
>They will point out that John Lennon or Elton John didn't need the NEA and then call you an elitist (which BTW implies a position of power, something musicians certainly can't be accused of) when you suggest that art is something other than running to the local music store, buying a guitar, and wailing away on the local street corner asking for a paycheck. Artists must study a culture, a history, an individual's life, his craft, and then stand on the shoulders of his mentors and look to the future....etc.<
I have no problem with artists doing any of this. Let them stand on their mentors. Let them stand on cow chips for all I care. I just want them not to stand on my dollar as they produce what I think is trash. They want to study a society and whatnot? I say, "Knock yourself out, pal. Study on! Stand on your mentor, bad boy! Just make sure all your studying and standing can put bread in your mouth, and don't come looking to me for a handout should I deem your produce worthless. Stand until you drop, buddy. But you cannot by good principle force me to support you simply because you think me too ignorant to understand you. I suggest you work to produce something this barbarian can understand. At least you will be able to eat. The essentials of the matter is this: we all have to eat, and if we are unwilling to produce toward this end, we deserve to die."
>In short, whether it is museums, orchestras, or libraries, the NEA is, like the public schools, about public education…<
Unlike public education (which society supports and which local societies agree includes libraries, etc., all of which society understands), bureaucrats have determined to fund a good deal of worthless "art". Much of this "art" would die on its own because of precisely why you say it would-- people do not understand it. I submit to you that much of this "art" is not worth understanding and therefore it should die. I do not understand dunking symbols of someone's spiritual identity in vats of urine and then forcing them to pay for it through your "worthy" organizations. Since I do not understand it, indeed since I found it an insult to my person, I have worked to destroy it, and will continue to do so until it is indeed destroyed. It is only reasonable that I do so.
What gives me the authority to do this? My dollar does. I do not understand Mapplethorpe's pornography, so I do not want to be forced to buy it. I suggest your worthy organizations work hard to produce things this simple barbarian can understand if it wants his support. Until then, if the relative handful of people who do understand the garbage supported by he NEA want to keep it around, they should use their own money instead of leeching off the Federal Government.
>It always comes back to the same place: if you can afford it, you can have it.<
A lesson for the ages. This country is in the financial mess it is in because we have forgotten this simple lesson. You can't always get what you want, my friend. And you can't get something for nothing. There is no honor in leeching off the government because the public will not buy what it deems the worthless produce of your labor.
The public has been wrong in the past? The public has never been wrong concerning the things it wants to legally buy. This is called a market and the market is never wrong. Simply because it did not support Van Gogh in the style you think he deserved does not mean the public was wrong then. We have Van Gogh's works today, despite his hardship. I dare say the glory of those fine works shines today because they struggled for existence while in the crucible of Van Gogh's life.
Let the artists starve. Maybe we'll start getting art that is truly worth having. Have you heard any modern orchestral works lately? I must admit an odd fascination with many of these works. Indeed many of them I would say are brilliant for their structure and textures. But to the uninitiated ear they are awful wretches, undeserving of massive national support. Should I and my relative handful of wierd-music aficionados enjoy our strange musical fetishes at the expense of a public that on its own would reject them? I think not.
Where are the Beethovens, the Bachs, the Mahlers, the Mozarts, the Prokofievs? They have all grown lazy, fat and mediocre because they are no longer held accountable to the tastes of the people. |
