Donald Pittenger writes:

Dear Blowhards --

It says in that panel over at the left that we Blowhards are arts buffs. But as best I can tell, "buff" doesn't translate into art über alles (yes, I know the German word is "kunst"). That's true for me, anyway. Art is nice, there's plenty of it out there and human nature being what it is, it won't disappear even though individual arts might have their ups and downs.

Given my warped little philosophy, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that my teeth grind themselves into dust when I encounter people making art out to be more important than it should be while whining that ever more resources must!! be devoted to propping up one favored enterprise or another.

What set off this tirade was an article I read in today's editorial page of the Seattle Times, an opinion piece from the 9 July Los Angeles Times by Ben Donenberg, "the founding artistic director of Shakespeare Festival/LA and a member of the National Council on the Arts." The link is to the LA Times site. As usual, I offer some excerpts:

[I] recently sent an article to a local philanthropic leader about the importance of helping arts organizations during the recession. I thought he might draw inspiration from it, but that was too optimistic.

"I don't need inspiration," he quickly responded. "We aren't supporting the arts; we're supporting essentials." ...

Why should we care? Because experiencing and creating art is a crucial part of developing young people who can understand the world's complexity and tackle its problems with a full range of tools.

He goes on to mention a project "working with a group of inner-city youths at an overnight community arts camp in the local mountains." They were to create a presentation "inspired by" A Midsummer Night's Dream and the idea was to have them experience a real woods at night.

They were urged to explore a variety of artistic responses to the experience. Some wrote poetry; some danced in celebration of nightfall; others sang songs about the moon.

One 17-year-old girl was particularly affected by the experience....

As she struggled to find poetry, she shifted her gaze and her flashlight beam between pages of a Shakespeare play and her notebook, filled with words she had carefully crafted. We struggled with her, rejoicing in her awakening even as we felt her pain at realizing that people with more money than she could know nighttime in a very different way.

That night in the forest put new colors on the young woman's palette. ...

Here's some advice for anyone who has to decide what is "essential" when making philanthropic funding decisions. Some summer night, take time out to look at the sky from someplace really dark. Then try to express -- visually or in words -- what the experience was like. I suspect you'll come to understand why art is essential.

Let's see ... a hint of racialism ("inner-city"), sexual politics (the subject is female), a dab of class warfare ("people with more money") and a large slathering of sentimental goo. It's a control panel covered by most hot buttons needed to motivate urban liberal Daddy Bigbuckses and their caring spouses to void the non-Swiss segments of their bank accounts and fork over the dough to keep the wheels of the arts oiled and rolling. Or, failing that, to influence lawmakers to see to it that our bank accounts are depleted enough so that various levels of government can do the job.

It's almost enough to make me return my arts buff membership card.

Later,

Donald

dear Mr. do-gooder NCA member;

Unless you know how the poor smell, think, and fight, then, you are just a fraud.

Posted by: jz on July 13, 2009 2:06 PM

I say let's make this empirical: Randomly assign inner-city youths to the Midsummer Night's treatment or a control group (no treatment) and measure differences in outcomes of choice. Hey, we can include a catchall "psychological well-being" outcome (psychometricians have scales for this) along with more hard-nosed stuff such as unemployment or participation in crime. Then we'll compare costs and benefits. Agreed?

I have a lot of time for the arts, but I see them as a luxury and think the people who enjoy them should pay for them. If I may, I'll link to a related post of mine.

Posted by: LemmusLemmus on July 13, 2009 2:09 PM

If you're trying to keep kids from a street life, then maybe teach them morality and a work ethic? What does that have to do with Shakespeare in the woods?

My opinion is that something like this program is to keep some college graduate from being unemployed. The truth is that there's not that many jobs in the arts. Kids would be better served getting an arts education in school and visiting a museum or two.

Governmental funding of the arts ultimately means governmental control over the arts. It may not be that apparent now, but it will be soon enough. If anybody values freedom, I have no idea why they are groveling at the government trough for money. Best to take your chances in the free market.

Posted by: BTM on July 13, 2009 3:31 PM

I'm in favor of some of our tax dollars paying for arts programs. I'm perfectly happy with the current percentage, which is something like a fraction of 1%, going to such programs, and then let them battle it out for who gets what from that pool.

WAY more concerned with the shit going on with Goldman Sachs and the like.

Posted by: JV on July 13, 2009 3:44 PM

"We struggled with her, rejoicing in her awakening even as we felt her pain at realizing that people with more money than she could know nighttime in a very different way."

Obviously, Donenberg is on crack cocain.

Posted by: Charlton Griffin on July 13, 2009 3:55 PM

Because experiencing and creating art is a crucial part of developing young people who can understand the world's complexity and tackle its problems with a full range of tools.

Doesn't this kind of empty blah-blah language just suck the life energy out of you?

What happens to the souls of people - presumably with "artistic" souls - who spend their time grubbing for money with this kind of transparently bullshit language?

I saw so much of this in graduate school. It seemed like every paper for every seminar turned into several pages of this kind of general, cliche-ridden, liberalspeak insults to the reader's intelligence. I was so immersed in it that I've developed a sort of violent allergy to it.

I wish I'd been the rich guy this fellow was pumping for money. Not to yell at him, but to ask him a long series of pointed questions about exactly how his specific art program was going to do what he said it was. And what proof he has of that. And why I should care even if what he said was true.

This is the kind of thing that makes me despair for the future of our society. It's so filled with these empty advertising/pimping lies everywhere I turn.

Posted by: Mark on July 13, 2009 4:04 PM

In one of my art market books I found a graph showing public arts funding over several decades, and it seems federal funding took a nosedive in the early 90's, as most probably already know. The graph stops about 1995, but the truth is that taxes are currently the lowest they've been in this country and we no longer federally fund the arts according to the steep upward trend that characterized the middle of the 20th century. Government funding of the arts means whoever are the dominant arts gatekeepers will have some control over some aspects of the arts. That can be good or that can be not so good. The free market brought the art bubble and bust of the 90's--funny how that sort of 'free market' thing keeps happening....
Like JV, I'm in favor of some federal funding of the arts.

Posted by: KR on July 13, 2009 4:11 PM

Why should we care? Because experiencing and creating art is a crucial part of developing young people...

Depends on the young people. And even in the best cases, art doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Which brings me to the gravamen of my pointy little point: art is about pleasure, not about "development" at all. Harold Bloom made (IMO) a fool of himself by claiming that reading great literature (just poems even) would "strengthen the soul".

Nope. It doesn't.

Art, and I mean art-art, not sympathetic magic or sublimated reproductive tactics a la Denis Dutton (whose thesis in The Art Instinct I agree with somewhat) is like food that tastes good...it's not fuel, it's not medicine. It's pleasure. It's extra. And that's enough. Art is not justified because it turns out good people. Nor condemned for turning out bad ones. It probably has zero effect either way.

So this whole exercise in sick-making ooze and glop ("some danced in celebration of nightfall"--I'm celebrating too because now I don't have to look at them!) is really just political/moral indoctrination, not art instruction. Plato's reduction of the poets, post- modern version.

And don't accuse me of targeting leftists! Righties do, and have done, this kind of stuff before. It's a mentality at work here, not an ideology.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 13, 2009 4:59 PM

Would those, like JV and KR, who favor federal funding for the arts care to advance a theory as to where in the Constitution the language is to be found authorizing the federal government to do so?

I can't imagine that the Founders imagined in their wildest dreams that someday some people would expect the federal government to give money to artists.

There's certainly no amendment been passed that I'm aware of that authorizes such charitble expenditures.

The only language I can imagine could be construed in such a way would be the language about "providing for the general welfare."

But if that's how you think we should choose to interpret those words, then those words can be interpreted to mean anything. And if the Founders really meant those words to mean that Congress could authorize ANYTHING that it considers conducive to "the general welfare", then they could have limited the entire Constitution to just those few words. Because obviously, by definition, anything Congress does is supposedly in the interest of the "general welfare" of the country.

Sorry to get off on a Constitutional tangent but it bothers me that we've reached a point where the Constitution is such a dead letter. People blithely say "the federal government should give money for this or for that" without any thought anymore as to whether it has the power to do so. Reminds me of a poll conducted of congressmen where they were asked "what does Congress NOT have the power to do?" and many of them could not think of a single thing.

Posted by: Mark on July 13, 2009 5:09 PM

As she struggled to find poetry, she shifted her gaze and her flashlight beam between pages of a Shakespeare play and her notebook, filled with words she had carefully crafted. We struggled with her, rejoicing in her awakening even as we felt her pain at realizing that people with more money than she could know nighttime in a very different way.

The young advertising copywriter was surprised when the assignment landed on his desk, sent by the account executive who'd always figured him for a bit of a poofter. Just because he specialized in perfume ads. And now this, a piece of pro bono work for some arts outfit whose Head Ego wasn't above cruising Santa Monica Boulevard if nothing else had turned up by 10 pm of a Saturday night.

He glanced at the AE's brief notes, opened a new document on the computer. The blank space on his monitor seemed illumined from within, beckoning him to a new form of expression, new joys unlocking the spirit. He sat there, not struggling but willing the words to unfold like flowers, nurtured by memories of turning the pages of that Gabriele d'Annunzio novelette on the deck of the schooner, rocked in the offshore swell under the looming shadow of the Torre Niente.

Like galaxies forming against the pitchy black of the void containing all, the words sprung into being, pregnant with fresh certainty. He knew the deep joy of creation, the mystery of arts communication.

"As she bit her lip as if to scoop out the poetry … " No. "As she opened her mind like butterfly wings to find poetry … " Mmmmm, not quite. "As she struggled to find poetry, her eyes slid in their sockets toward … " Wait, wait. "As she struggled to find poetry, her gaze fought for domination with a flashlight … " Uh, "She shifted her gaze between Shakespeare and the notebook where she deposited her carefully crafted thought forms … " Oh, bugger. Maybe if he just thought "perfume" …

Posted by: Rick Darby on July 13, 2009 5:33 PM

I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure 99% of legislation currently on the books is not in or referenced by the Constitution. Now, you could make an argument that that in itself is a negative, I'd be willing to listen to that. But to single out arts funding as "not in the Constitution" is cherry-picking.

Posted by: JV on July 13, 2009 5:42 PM

I never see an inner city youth walking around a museum or a gallery ON HIS OWN. Being led through a museum or gallery with a stunned, giggling or loud gang of other inner city youths on a public school outing, the purpose of which is to avoid the classroom, yes. But alone and voluntarily, never. Not once. My point? Art is there for those who want it and will find it no matter what. For them it is water. As for the rest? If there is no thirst for art, fine. Let them live out their miserable lives drinking dreck.

Posted by: ricpic on July 13, 2009 7:25 PM

Mark:

Doesn't this kind of empty blah-blah language just suck the life energy out of you? [...] This is the kind of thing that makes me despair for the future of our society. It's so filled with these empty advertising/pimping lies everywhere I turn.

Sometimes I ask myself how many people there are who actually aren't cynical about this sort of disgusting saccharine language free of any meaningful content that has become de rigueur for almost any sort of public communication nowadays.

Posted by: Vladimir on July 13, 2009 8:13 PM

One of the great joys of reading Shakespeare is the realization that none of this is new. That's why they had the word "fop."

Posted by: AN on July 13, 2009 8:27 PM

Fred Reed had an interesting take on the inner city poor and museums and culture and so on. Can't find the link right now...I'm too busy typing this comment...but it's illuminating in a Fred-like way.

Parenthetically, up here in the Boring Place, it's very difficult to interest black Canadians in black history month, black museums, black culture anything. And not just because Canada makes even black people boring! There just doesn't seem to be much of an interest in the past in black cultures here in the Americas.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 13, 2009 8:46 PM

Nothing from Chris White?!

He must be busy sending a check...

Posted by: Brutus on July 13, 2009 9:04 PM

Mark, you might find the following interesting and perhaps to your point:
"While the cause of the increase in the art world ultimately lies in the increased wealth of the country, focused government support was an efficient stimulus. During the 1960's, interested arts supporters convinced the federal government that the arts were a vital weapon in the cold war. Senator Jacob Javits argued to Congress in 1963, "A comprehensive national arts program...will enable us---far better than we do today---to meet the challenge of the Communists' cultural ideas in the world, on which they are spending great amounts of money for their propagation and which...are designed to bury the free world" (cited in Zukin 1989,103)" (Plattner 1996:38-39)
Is this rationale still valid or relevant, even though the Cold War as they meant it is over?

Posted by: KR on July 13, 2009 9:33 PM

Rick, that one goes straight up on the Funniest Comments Ever bulletin board! (Which no doubt should receive federal funding to nurture and sustain its profound influence on the development of our precious youth as they construct their own meaningful but unique knowledges in preparation for the challenges of the 21st century!)

Mark, I work in education, and did graduate study in the field, and my eyes no longer just glaze over when I see something written in this idiom, they try to roll back right up into my skull.

One other thought on the funding of the arts: access to the first fruits of human artistic achievement is now so easy as to be unremarkable. If a kid wants to read or see a Shakespeare play, or browse Raphael's greatest paintings, or listen to Bach's most sublime cantatas -- or if he wants to immerse himself in the art of the Scythians or the Dogon or the Khmers, for that matter -- how hard is it? No, what our tax dollars really are paying for is what this story describes: the opportunity for 'youths' to spend time with nice White (in the SWPL sense) enlightened folks whose salaries comprise a rather hefty recurring cost.

Posted by: mr tall on July 13, 2009 9:48 PM

"A comprehensive national arts program...will enable us---far better than we do today---to meet the challenge of the Communists' cultural ideas in the world, on which they are spending great amounts of money for their propagation and which...are designed to bury the free world"

Was this ever valid, and if so, did arts in this country perform as expected? Even if not, is it a valid rationale in the current geopolitical climate? What I find amazing is that a Republican promoted federal funding of the ARTS in an effort to address MILITARY tensions between superpowers--yikes! Can you imagine what the right wing reaction would be if a Democrat today attempted such a thing?!
The problem with the arts and 'the free market' is that the visual art market does not follow the same rules that other markets do.

Posted by: KR on July 14, 2009 1:30 AM

Style suggestion: not art über alles, but art über alles. Or art à l'outrance.

The borrowed foreign phrase is a separate element, applied adjectivally to the common word.

Posted by: Rich Rostrom on July 14, 2009 2:42 AM

Rich -- agreed on the proper style for dealing with foreign words and phrases. But when I was dashing off the posting (yes, I did write it more quickly than usual), my intent was to emphasize the thought and felt that the word "art" required emphasis, which of course complicated dealing with the German. The question of dealing with foreign words (quote-mark, italicize, leave untouched) is an interesting one. Although I have an old "Chicago" style manual in the house, I tend to wing it, and inconsistently at that. I suppose I could have written the snippet entirely in English and italicized it had I given the matter more thought than I did.

Posted by: Donald Pittenger on July 14, 2009 9:34 AM

An article from Lew Rockwell's site about Art and the CIA during the Cold War.

Posted by: Some Girl on July 14, 2009 9:42 AM

A conundrum I wrestle with considering this topic is the mess we've gotten ourselves into by dividing virtually all facets of life into the "private" or "public" sectors and by over specialization. Practically this means everything gets shoved either into "the free market" or "government" category with an "expert" at the helm. We seem to have lost the very idea of shared community and of considering anything (except possibly religion) as distinctly different from either "the free market" or "government."

Art is closely entwined with and at times synonymous with culture. [note the Cold War arts promotion tangent) In a culture that divides nearly everything into a commodity or a government program we get art, artists, and 'cultural workers' reflecting that paradigm. As a result we have "popular culture" which is whatever can be sold (e.g. Star Wars or Jeff Koons’s “Baroque Egg With Bow (Turquoise/Magenta),”) and what might be deemed "official culture" which is whatever is grantable (support for after school programs in symphonic or blues music, playwriting workshops, etc.).

These days, every business and every not-for-profit agency is anxious about their cash flow and struggling to survive in perilous economic times. As businesses trim extraneous expenditures they decrease their donations to not-for-profits. As they do, and as the economic crisis continues, those donations become more narrowly focused and targeted. Similarly those government agencies charged with dispersing (the exceedingly modest amount of) public funds to the arts are under increased scrutiny to be as effective, efficient and well targeted as possible. Not-for-profits, including arts organizations, must therefore work much harder to convince donors to keep contributing. "At Risk Kids", "under served audiences", and similar phrases become the jargon of the day because they are the most effective in getting the agents in charge of spreading around whatever corporate largesse or stimulus package monies are still flowing.

As in the recent thread on secession, one might well imagine a very different socio-political system than we currently have, one that comes closer to some ideal in which the federal government only concerns itself with national defense and stays out of the vast breadth and depth of areas it has taken on over time. When that day dawns the arts, along with financial and auto industry giants deemed "too big to fail", scientific research not connected to national defense, small businesses, and a host of other beneficiaries will need to rise or fall without government support. Until that time, however, the arts take up a very tiny portion of the federal budget and I would argue they do a lot to improve the "general welfare of the nation."

So, while Donald's anecdote, with its ample examples of asinine jargon and more than a whiff of elitist, do-gooder racism, offers an easy target, I continue to believe art and culture should be supported, both in the marketplace and through various public means.

Posted by: Chris White on July 14, 2009 10:22 AM

Yes, interesting article, Some Girl, thanks. I didn't think there was much of a significant market for AE, however, until the 1960's-?

Posted by: KR on July 14, 2009 10:38 AM

The article Some Girl links to on the Lew Rockwell site is, while interesting, severely distorted. It offers assumptions, accusations, and speculations which may have some slight connection to factual reality, but are far from objective facts. It may be true that promotion of the art and culture of the Free World was one element of Cold War American strategy, but the rest of the contentions in the piece are little more than conjecture and mud slinging.

Posted by: Chris White on July 14, 2009 11:26 AM

To me, the article reads more like an argument for funding summer camps as opposed to Shakespeare productions.

Posted by: Bryan on July 14, 2009 12:29 PM

"So, while Donald's anecdote, with its ample examples of asinine jargon and more than a whiff of elitist, do-gooder racism, offers an easy target, I continue to believe art and culture should be supported, both in the marketplace and through various public means."

Your comment is a pretentious and verbose pile of shit. Support it yourself...Give till it hurts.

Posted by: Cheapskate on July 14, 2009 12:30 PM

We don't need this funding.

There is a part of the movie "Crumb" where R. says one of the truest things I've heard about art. It goes something like this: people used to make their own culture, and they spent hundreds of years at it and made it into something great and beautiful, and it belonged to them. Now we just eat up whatever crap corporate america manufactures.

We can still do this now if we want to. Nothing is stopping us. But we've been conditioned to think of art as something that's hugely costly that requires legions of professionals.

It doesn't. A dirt poor village in Indonesia can have it's own gamelan orchestra, played by farmers. They aren't waiting around for the grant or the funding. They went out with their own hands and made music that is meaningful to them and their community. We can too.

Posted by: Todd Fletcher on July 14, 2009 2:22 PM

My tax dollars already go to support many things I would rather they did not. Only the most recent example are those egregious provisions being inserted into various agricultural and foreign aid program bills meant to promote and encourage GMO crops. Which, not surprisingly, will insure the profitability and market expansion of Monsanto and other GMO patent holders, ultimately at the expense of farmers not using their products and even, as evidence is beginning to reveal, causing colony collapse among the bees needed to pollinate NON-GMO plants of all kinds.

While anyone, certainly myself included, can find various "Bridge to Nowhere" arts programs getting public funding, I'd far rather see tax dollars spent to enable some at risk youth to wrestle with Shakespeare and how to express themselves through writing under the tutelage of earnest do-gooders than spent getting indigenous farmers in Third World nations to plant patented GMO crops designed to produce sterile seeds and requiring proprietary fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides in part so they will become dependent upon American Agribusiness for both their livelihood and food.

The amount of attention arts funding gets among its detractors seems quite distorted given the relatively tiny portion of the budget going to the arts. Furthermore, it generally seems to be a very small percentage of the programs and artists supported that get most of the attention because so many art programs are not particularly controversial and have a reasonable support from the grassroots and up.

The arguments against arts funding are far less about better ways to spend our tax dollars and far more an ideological stance that seems to assume "arts programs" are some type of leftist conspiracy ... except when they are underwritten by the C.I.A. to destabilize the Commies.

Still, despite my support for arts funding (given our current state of affairs socio-politically), I agree with Todd Fletcher's comment that culture can ... and should ... rise up from the community rather than being handed down from above.

Posted by: Chris White on July 14, 2009 3:27 PM

Meh. The sentimental goo is par for the course in these kind of fundraising appeals. Not my cup of tea, but I certainly don't begrudge nonprofits targeting their donor audience in ways that audience will respond to.

What's with the gripe about depleting our bank accounts? It's a fundraising appeal--we're supposed to object to an arts org appealing to private donors because some arts org somewhere is getting a few government bucks? Um, I thought we were supposed to *encourage* them to solicit private funding? But now we object to that too?

And why is it "sexual politics" to include the thoughts of a girl? Girls are, after all, half the population. And in terms of kids likely to attend arts and theater camps, considerably more than half. (My daughter just helped run a summer theater camp. Ratio of girls to boys, 10:1).

Sorry, Donald, this whole post is less than half-baked.

Posted by: Steve on July 14, 2009 3:40 PM

Chris White,

We seem to have lost the very idea of shared community

America wasn't founded as a "shared community"--it was founded on the idea of individual freedoms. Capitalism, not communism.

I continue to believe art and culture should be supported, both in the marketplace and through various public means.

I don't think you ever address the idea that the entity that censors art is always--the government! Yet you call for the government sponsoring of the arts! What is wrong with this picture?

I guess you could say that churches censor art, but not with guns and jail cells (unless you are talking about the Vatican, which is also a nation state and was a huge fuedal landlord in the Middle Ages, owning about a quarter of Europe and the fuedal slaves that worked the land).

Why do you cling to communism so?

Posted by: BTM on July 14, 2009 4:32 PM

BTW, a much better link to the CIA and elites as creators of culture is this series of articles by Dave McGowan. For all you hippies out there, it will show just how controlled all the "counter-culture" of the 60's actually was.

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr93.html

Posted by: BTM on July 14, 2009 4:37 PM

Dangit, Bryan took my punchline.

@Todd:

I'm not disagreeing with your point, however, I have read here (2blowhards) and at kottke.org the idea that the true American art world actually exists WITHIN ad agencies and corporations. That's where the gifted artists are these days.

Which is analogous to back in the day when kings and other royalty commissioned most of the art that still exists today.

Which bolsters Bryan's point even more: perhaps we should set aside money for summer camp rather than a "happening" where they try to get kids to draw some meaning between Shakespeare and a sunset.

Posted by: yahmdallah on July 14, 2009 4:43 PM

yahmdallah,
Definitely the case, they have bought up a huge amount of talent since they have the most money, and that's not likely to change. Where else to go as a talented and ambitious person who wants to get paid instead of starve? And ads can be very creative and clever. So it monopolizes the pool of talent to some extent. But while sometimes enjoyable, ads are not something I think often move people in any big way.

Another thing is that art forms today, having been stripped of tradition, almost require the creator to be a genius to succeed. It's all up to the individual's creativity. Where as in traditional forms, you mainly have to execute the style well, then add a layer of your own spice and flavor on top. That is, people with less than genius level talent can and did contribute to the development of the form. They put their two bits in with everyone else, and over time you had a slowly but continuously enriched tradition that was open to all levels of talent. I don't think it's possible to reconcile this approach to culture with big business. But we don't have to! Like I said, we should take it into our own hands, which we are of course seeing right now with blogs like this.

Posted by: Todd Fletcher on July 14, 2009 6:42 PM

It is curiously odd to see America presented in a way that implies our forebears made the choice for capitalism over communism, especially in a thread about funding the arts. Then again, paranoia and political extremism can lead one to make all sorts of fascinating leaps into the realm of conspiracy theory; like how the Laurel Canyon music scene of the sixties was the creation of a nebulous military/intelligence community aristocracy. Now THAT is creative writing!

When I mention "community" I suspect I mean pretty much the same thing Todd does. Apparently, given that he agrees with the premise that arts funding is a waste of tax dollars, his call to community ... "They went out with their own hands and made music that is meaningful to them and their community. We can too. ... is somehow upholding our heritage and traditions, yet mine is either promotion of communism or perhaps part of an especially nefarious and counter intuitive military/intelligence/elitist coup.

Set aside for a moment the arts industry jargon and "human interest" reporter prose, set aside the funding issue, and what do we have? "... a group of inner-city youths at an overnight community arts camp ... to create a presentation "inspired by" A Midsummer Night's Dream and ... experience a real woods at night." Isn't this about sharing and passing on our artistic heritage and culture to the next generation? Doesn't giving kids the opportunity to experience a sense of personal connection to that tradition help strengthen it and keep it alive?

2 Blowhards can come together as a "community" of one sort, but a 2 Blowhards production of "King Lear" would just seem to be missing something. Shouting Thomas as Lear slamming down the caps lock key AND RAGING ABOUT DAUGHTERS then hitting send, before I, as Lear's Fool, respond would hardly be the sort of spice and flavor on top of Shakespeare that Todd is talking about.

So, when Todd references a local gamelan orchestra as the creation of a community isn't that pretty much the same sort of thing as what those inner city youth were given the opportunity to do, presenting something inspired by their shared experience in the context of Shakespeare's play?

So, the question boils down to who pays for the gas and the bus and the copies of Midsummer's Night Dream? And is there a profit to be made selling tickets?

Posted by: Chris White on July 14, 2009 10:35 PM

It is curiously odd to see America presented in a way that implies our forebears made the choice for capitalism over communism, especially in a thread about funding the arts. Then again, paranoia and political extremism can lead one to make all sorts of fascinating leaps into the realm of conspiracy theory; like how the Laurel Canyon music scene of the sixties was the creation of a nebulous military/intelligence community aristocracy. Now THAT is creative writing!

How is the factual statement that the US was founded as a capitalist free-enterprise system and not a socialist nanny state imply paranoia?

As far as the Laurel Canyon scene, do you have any solid factual evidence to refute Mr. McGowan's well-researched articles? Or just the fact that you bought into the hippie nonsense hook, line, and sinker and don't want to look like a gullible fool?

If the CIA has run operations to propagandize and overthrow peoples and governments all around the world, what makes you think that they are not or have not been doing the same thing here? Because they say so? How comforting!

The symphony orchestras and major museums get major funding from private sources and don't really need governmental funding. Its simply extra money. They sure waste plenty of money as it is. There's almost no worthwhile art I can think of that is a result of government subsidy.

The simple fact is that censorship comes from the government. Yet you want the government to be a major funder of the arts. Why? That just means giving them control and the ability to censor. How is that consistent with the idea of artistic freedom? It's not.

The government is already deep deep into the creation of culture, as the Laurel Canyon series proves. That's real government funding of the arts! And it fits in well with the totalitarian trending of the US since the beginning of the 20th century (at least). I guess the communist Chris White won't be happy until an American Mao or Stalin rules in Washington D.C. A father figure who provides a base subsistence living guaranteed to all, while we toil in endless serfdom, believeing that freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and war is peace.

Posted by: BTM on July 15, 2009 1:01 AM

I think ST would make a great Lear! Imagine him roaring at the storm: "Blow winds! And crack your cheeks!"

To say nothing of how cool it would be to hear him yell one of my favourite Shakespeare-isms: "Hurricanoes!"

Chris, you're a good guy, but you're far too serious to play the Fool. I dunno, maybe Gloucester? You know, the guy with all the good intentions?

Posted by: PatrickH on July 15, 2009 12:21 PM

I never really get why so many of those against government funding of the arts end up sounding anti-art. The arts are valuable. They are perhaps the most valuable part of culture. They convey our values, morals, visions, etc. to the future, helping to form that future. So many artists are Leftists precisely because too many anti-government-funding types attack the arts themselves even more than they do the funding. The fact is, they seem to have bought into the argument that the government SHOULD be funding what is important -- thus, if the arts aren't in fact important, the government shouldn't be funding them. I say, just because something is important, that doesn't mean the government should be funding it. More, perhaps precisely because it's important, the government should be funding it if any other way of doing it is possible. We should oppose government funding because of the danger of the arts degrading into propaganda -- either directly or indirectly. We should oppose government funding because the arts are TOO important to allow politicians to get their grubby little hands on it. We should oppose government funding because majority rule shouldn't determine artistic content. How many great works had to take decades to become accepted? The market allows small groups to get what they want; democracy only allows a majority to get what they want. Shall we subject the arts to that?

If those of us who support the free market were to actually support the arts, we might find more artists supporting us -- and helping to create a more liberty-friendly future.

Posted by: Troy Camplin on July 15, 2009 6:14 PM

PatrickH - You might want to re-read some Shakespeare to remind yourself how he used the character of the Fool, and not only in King Lear, as the character offering words of reason and truth to the powerful when others would not or could not do so.

BTM - thanks for illustrating how wingnut conspiracy theories flourish across a wide range of political view points.

While I can imagine a USA functioning in a very different way than it does today, in which there is no funding for any program not considered vital to the national interests, until that day dawns I'm quite happy to see the tiny portion of the total budget that goes to the arts and humanities continue to do so. As I do nearly every time this topic comes up, I urge folks to go to the NEA web site, look up what got grants in your state and how much they got. While I will concede that there may be an extra slice of pie that goes to top tier arts organizations in major cultural centers like NYC, overall most is actually going to help support the very grassroots, tradition extending, community efforts Todd seems to favor.

Posted by: Chris White on July 15, 2009 9:03 PM

Like I said. Gloucester all the way.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 15, 2009 10:22 PM

BTM - thanks for illustrating how wingnut conspiracy theories flourish across a wide range of political view points.

Once again you refuse to address facts and namecall, all the while claiming victim status if somebody does the same to you. Prove Dave McGowan wrong on at least some point before you call him a wingnut.

Like the fact that Jim Morrison's dad was the Admiral commanding the ships involved in the Tonkin Gulf incident. Meanwhile Jim, who never played a musical instrument in his life, forms a band, somehow writes an album full of songs for the band, and lands a big record deal with the scrubbed up band without the usual years of playing clubs. Meanwhile saying his parents are dead. Funny coincidences, eh?

Got suckered by the hippie deal, didn't ya White?

While I can imagine a USA functioning in a very different way than it does today, in which there is no funding for any program not considered vital to the national interests

Aren't you ignoring the fact that money for the arts also comes from the individuals, as in a free-market? I guess you already live in the communist America you crave, when you wholly ignore that fact.

Another famous example of the Chris White false dichotomy.

Once again you skirt the censorship issue, like a coward.

Posted by: BTM on July 16, 2009 1:07 AM

There are those who hold the opinion that the attacks of 9/11 were actually the work of the C.I.A. working in conjunction with various American and Israeli Jews and the knowledge of the White House. They have web sites filled with "evidence." To get sucked into attempting to refute this "evidence" is a futile waste of time. So too is attempting to refute the theory that the Laurel Canyon musicians of the 1960s were connected to an organized effort by a group within the American military/intelligence hereditary elite to stage a stealth coup via leading a generation astray. This is about tossing red herrings into a thread to overwhelm and distract those of us who do not fall in line with the argument that any and all support for the arts on the part of government is a terrible thing.

As for the censorship issue, my understanding of the term, especially in the context of a thread on arts funding, is that censorship is governmental prohibition on expression before that expression actually takes place. This is far different than the closest thing I can see to censorship being referenced here, which is that an artist might be denied a grant and thus be unable to accomplish the creation of a particular work of art due to lack of other funding options. Or that artists will cynically create works with no underlying artistic purpose merely to gain grant monies. Neither of these are censorship by any reasonable or rational definition.

Further distortion of my position is the notion that I ignore that arts funding also comes from individuals. Once again, this is another red herring from the boatload of them being tossed about to obscure the actual topic of discussion. The vast majority of "arts funding" comes from the private sector, a fact am well aware of I and applaud. The vast majority of art and artists, regardless of what art form we're talking about, get the nearly all of their support from the private sector. A sculptor may get the occasional "Percent for Art" commission paid for ultimately by tax dollars. Still, even a very canny grant writing expert, with friends among those who help decide who gets grants, who sends out applications every day would be hard pressed to build a career (or pay their bills) based on the cash flow this might generate for them.

Boil most of this down and it remains an ideological argument. Some hold political positions that lump all public funding for the arts together and assume it all somehow serves a "liberal agenda" ... if not being part of a covert coup by a rogue faction of the military/intelligence elite ... and therefore want to revoke the decisions made over time by Congress that underlie various public support programs for the arts. This is countered by those like me who think that "we the people" acting through our elected representatives have agreed that the arts are worthy of some degree of support.

And, if I don't get the role of The Fool, I'll audition for Kent.

Posted by: Chris White on July 16, 2009 10:14 AM

As for the censorship issue, my understanding of the term, especially in the context of a thread on arts funding, is that censorship is governmental prohibition on expression before that expression actually takes place

No Chris, it also occurs by only funding those you agree with. You say what we want, we gove you money. If you don't, no dough. Free speech is protection for unpopular views. Nice try.

So Admiral Stephen Morrison commands a flotilla of ships in a completely fabricated incident in the Tonkin Gulf that greatly escalates the Vietnam War, and stateside, his son is positioning himself as the icon of the anti-war counterculture. To hide this fact, Jim Morrison says his parents are dead.

Then he and scores of other children of military families move from the Washington D.C. area to an isolated canyon near L.A. where no significant music scene or recording industry exists to become--famous musicians! That's how you do it! And of course, major record labels owned and controlled by big corporations are more than happy to follow these people to Laurel Canyon and promote this counterculture that supposedly challenges their values. Because hippiedom was soooo popular at the time.

Or did the big corporations make hippiedom popular? So they could control the counterculture? Gosh, which is it?

Oh, and I forgot that the same group helped popularize the drug trade which the CIA flourishes in and uses to conduct covert operations.

It must all be a coincidence. Sure. There is no evil in the world.

Posted by: BTM on July 16, 2009 3:06 PM

Anyone else have a dictionary handy? If so, does its definition of "censorship" more closely match mine or BTM's? While I am always willing to accept an unconventional definition of a term for purposes of specific discussion, I do find it useful when all parties use the term in the same way. Absent a quorum that agrees "censorship" does not involve prior restraint, but rather refers to the state using the ability to give grants with the result that those artists who fail to get grants are being coerced into an approved aesthetic, I'll keep using the term the way it is defined in my dictionaries.

Would a young wannabe rock star and rebellious son have any reason to deny any connection to his military father other than being part of a C.I.A. plot to generate anti-war sentiment with the support of major record labels so that they can destroy American culture and tradition from within? Hmmm ... call me naive, but I'll stick with simple youthful Boomer rebellion.

Posted by: Chris White on July 16, 2009 5:48 PM

Chris White,

Refer to the government censorship of art in communist China, Soviet Union, etc. What does the First Amendment protect? Individual rights from governmental squashing. I don't need a dictionary, but you most certainly need a history book. Holy crap you will tell any lie not to be proven wrong!

I see once again you completely overlook the facts that Morrison was not unique--his military connections were mirrored by almost all of the rock stars of the late 60's. Again, you refuse to deal with facts! Go argue with Dave McGowan about his facts. It doesn't take a genius to see an overwhelming pattern and then draw reasonable conclusions from it.

You've been a sucker all your adult life for the most ridiculous and dangerous political and cultural garbage I can imagine. If you like living in a delusional dream world (and it seems you do), go right ahead and deny reality. But for the rest of us who know we're being played by the government, it's not good enough.

The government is the way to perdition, not salvation. You'd think a guy like you would have figured it out already, yet somehow it hasn't sunk in. I wish that delusional people like you could just reap the fruit of your own delusion, but unfortunately, the rest of us will be sucked in as well as the "benign" totalitarian government takes off the mask.

Posted by: BTM on July 17, 2009 12:37 AM

According to McGowan, the Byrds' biggest star was David Crosby. Now that's only true in the sense that he was a part of Crosby Stills Nash and Young, though by no means the biggest part, and they were really popular for a while. Or maybe that Crosby thought he was the biggest star in the band. Which, admittedly, he did.

That McGowan would ignore the massively influential guitar of Roger McGuinn, the songwriting of Gene Clark, and of course the positively towering figure of Gram Parsons, makes me rather doubt his theories about anything else.

Unless he's using "star" to mean something different than me. And the rest of the planet.

Jeebus, BTM. That McGowan piece is positively craaazy. Admiral Morrison engineers the Gulf of Tonkin incident while HIS VERY OWN SON is positioning himself as a leader of the hippy anti-war movement...coincidence? McGowan THINKS NOT.

And Zappa senior's into chemical warfare while HIS VERY OWN SON Frank junior is leading the counterculture. Coincidence? McGowan THINKS NOT.

Man, like I said, that is just craaazy. As Chris White knows, I'm not one to agree with him overmuch, but that McGowan piece is just really really bizarre.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 17, 2009 10:40 AM

PatrickH,

McGowan covers Gram Parsons later on in the series. I'm not sure about the other guys. The series is 12 parts long (as of now). There's lots more to it.

No doubt that many of those rockers were talented, but were they the only ones? Were they not other talented musicians without the extensive military connections?

I tend to believe in the evil of governments, and I'm sceptical of all authority, so yes I believe there is a conspiracy of the elite against the little guy.

I'm also not as old as some of you guys here and I didn't live through the era. But the whole hippie thing seems a bit contrived to me.

Posted by: BTM on July 17, 2009 3:15 PM






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