Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Should we cut public support of the arts?

Listening to a program called American Mavericks: "Is It Music if Nobody Hears It?" about classical composers - how they have to dumb down their music/pander to audiences because people don't listen to classical music anymore.

There was also an essay by Gary North (economist & Y2K Cassandra) a while back calling for a halt to government financial support to symphonies - if they can't hack it in the marketplace, they shouldn't be supported.

While North made some valid points, I would be uncomfortable to vote against support for classical music groups - as elitist and corporate tax-dodge laden as they may be. The same goes for art museums. I think we would be worse off as a civilization, although I'm very hard pressed to argue the point and explain why. Who are we keeping these things alive for? Would it matter terribly if nobody in 2204 had heard of Dvorak, outside of a few academics? Or if no one could go and see actual Rembrandts (or The Scream, assuming it's never recovered)?

A lengthy Sunday a.m. ramble...

This strikes me as an example of one of the truly great ills of modern society, namely the tendency to try to understand all aspects of human life in terms of various economic theories, whether they be "free-market" or "centralized planning" views. This has had a particularly devastating impact on higher education, for example, as the increasing "corporatization" of universities has led to their viewing students more as "products" to be outputted and marketed as cheaply and efficiently as possible, rather than human beings whose growth and development they are responsible for.

In this particular example, the underlying assumption is that music of a certain type is valuable only insofar as it happens to be valued by people. This is an assumption that works really well for basic goods and services (food, clothing, etc.). Its applicability to the arts, to those items which are designed to have aesthetic value, is questionable.

That said, there are a number of underlying reasons why "people don't listen to classical music anymore". Some, though not all, of these reasons do relate to the culture and attitudes that often surround the classical music establishment. One can appeal to the masses without "dumbing down" one's music, and a number of successful groups have done so. So I guess there is something to be said for re-thinking the exact role in which arts play in our society, and encouraging artists themselves to make certain changes as a part of this re-thinking. I don't see that the elimination of funding to the arts would have any positive impact on this process, however.

It's the marketplace that saved classical music in the first place, not tax monies taken under threat of force. (Never forget that guns, ultimately, are behind any "public support" in this sense. Some do not consent to this use of their money.)

If not for innovations in recording technology and distribution, classical music would have become a quaint curiosity in a few larger cities. A symphonic orchestra or opera company is a hugely expensive effort to nurture, assemble, and coordinate, with a hundred narrow music specialists involved. Few areas have enough free-floating wealth to pay for this outright. (Some do get local government -- or the National "Endowment" for the Arts -- to pay for a venue with tax money.)

High-fidelity recordings made it possible to spread these costs onto a larger universe of record buyers. Digital cable and satellite radio are doing the same. Only a half-dozen local markets, until recently, could commercially support a single classical music FM station. Adding this to the XM lineup is simple.

I suggest that another question ought to be asked alongside -- framing it properly -- "Should we stop stealing money from some people to support art that other people like?" (To which the only moral answer is "Yes.")

That other question is: "Does this government support do anything to preserve such art that isn't ultimately done better, and in more diverse and supportable ways, by private efforts?"

Some artists will always have political pull. The only difference in government patronage between the Medici rulers of Florence and the NEA is the numbers of forms artists have to fill out to get the swag, and of bureaucrats they have to flatter. Those who do enough of it will always favor having "public support." The rest of us have to earn our livings.

I feel that without support there will be far fewer places for art, and therefore a lot of up and coming genius's would be squeezed out of their potential place in history.

There has always been a culture of royal patronage on this side of the Atlantic, and to a degree many barons etc would have their own musicians on site too.

In the modern setting that could be seen as the support the ENO have received from governmental sources, and smaller local groups get some through local councils or lottery grants or whatever. In the UK in the last twenty years the changes in the patronage of the arts has been dramatic. They were stripped to the bone, leaving many without hope of being succesful in fields that they were born into then thankfully the Labour Party (not a party I have ever voted for) insisted all major galleries and museum be free to enter, there has been an increase in funding towards community level efforts and things, while still woefully short of the mark IMO are getting better.

Private market ethics are all good and well if you are rich enough to enjoy the benefits but for the rank and file it would be the death of their imagination.

In my opinion no access to art = no magic to inspire

Im in a lucky position that I have connections to various musical bodies, one of my lodgers is a designer for theatres and the other (sonnie) is a painter. In all seriousness there isn't a week when we don't get at least one offer for tickets to the latest show (in whatever field), as a household we do rather well in this regard. Ten years ago it wasn't so wonderful and free/subsidised museums, concerts and galleries were my saviours.

Let them eat cake, listen to Dvorak and see the Scream. And I want to be one of 'them'.

Who knows what it can inspire?

What is worthy of support? For every dollar spent on "classical" music (which is a style of music that is a couple of hundred years old, would you be in favor of government grants to support "polka" composers, "new wave" artists, and "Dixieland" bands that just make new "old style" music?) we may miss the opportunity to fund someone who has come up with a new and revolutionary style. Who decides and how? Personally I don't really believe art needs outside funding to happen, it just needs it to spread. The way we currently fund the arts involves giving people grants for work that may not even be done yet. This puts us in the position of spending thousands for people to put a crucifix in a jar of urine.
Punk happened because punks wanted it to. Van Gogh painted because it was easier to cut off his ear than to stop painting and get a regular job.
Funding venues for artists to display and perform their art is probably a better way to encourage art than giving money to artists that can't find a way to scrape up an audience to pay them for it. If a piece of art can't find a following (yet) then some artists will move on to the next idea, some will stick to their "thing" and maybe never find an audience (or maybe they will after their death) government funding makes both easier for the artists but doesn't help ensure quality of the works . Giving venues to be noticed is the only way to open people to art, then they can fund it if they wish. Giving money to "artists" hoping that what the produce will be "art" is risky at best.

In some respects ART is too wide a term. If we are talking about painting or poetry or something of that ilk then a solitary individual can make great works of art in his own space on his own time and in his own way.

Yet the mechanics of bringing together a symphony orchestra, giving it a place to practise, a place to perform needs some form of investment other than fees/tickets at the door.

How do we decide? How do we as a society decide that firstly we want to support the arts, secondly how we do that, thirdly how the money/support is divided? Do we preserve what we have or do we encourage something new.

I think the best thing is to take the funding of art bodies or at least the grant giving bodies away for the art professionals. That way we may avoid such blunders as that composer giving us a work consisting of 4 and half minutes of silence.

Hey! No badmouthing John Cage!

Thats OK KP, I will just sit and look at him in silence for 3 and half minutes.

Let him take the time to figure out what I am trying to say with my art.