This is mostly a rewrite of a post I made in March, 2017 on another blog; with a substantial tax cut now law, elimination of unnecessary and unjust federal and state spending is so much the more vital. Last year's proposal to eliminate the NEA failed; the effort must go on this year.
Here we'll go again with the anguished protestations of those who say they foresee the death of the arts in the prospect of the complete federal defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts which I hope to see realized in this year's budget. Oh somehow the arts, which have weathered the vicissitudes of ten thousand years of human folly and destruction, will survive I owe (the worthy ones at least).
What must die is the requirement that taxpayers pay for "art" which often sneers at traditional values but never dares to blaspheme the "politically correct". The NEA funded Andres Serrano, who executed the celebrated "Piss Christ" (damned be the thinking which conceived that title) in hopes, I suppose, that it would one day flank The Pieta. His abomination depicts a crucifix dipped in urine; that speaks for itself. You can be certain that an imaginary creator of a "Piss Hillary Clinton" or "Let's Defecate on a Statue of Nelson Mandela"would never have been supported, despite the transcendent beauty and art historical significance of such daring ideas.
I think there are people of good will who sincerely believe the proposed defunding to be a philistine attack on the arts by low brows. It is not. For my own part I treasure what is generally considered to be encompassed by the term "the arts". I love Shakespeare and and I experienced "the joy of being alive in his great poetry" several years ago on stage with a local theatre group which does receive some taxpayer funding. I am convinced this group and any doing as good a job as it does would be supported by the public, without requiring taxpayers to ante up, on its merits (that's the key - MERITS).
Similarly, artists lauded for depicting Santa's elves having sex and other disdainful masterpieces would be hard put to gain support from the general public - why that's just common sense. But experience shows we simply cannot expect such rectitude from unelected bureaucrats - deep staters ad nauseum. In Buffalo, several years ago, elected County Executive Chris Collins, now a Congressman, relieved county taxpayers of having to pay for art organizations. But Shakespeare in the Park soldiered on somehow and I rejoice that it did.
No, the visceral outrage comes from those who believe it just that our public and what is left of our "private" lives be controlled by an "enlightened" elite and that that should include devotion of taxpayer's money to cultural efforts which satisfy that elite and often ridicule Middle America. ( How would these snobs feel if they were forced to pay for The Young and the Restless?) "Benevolent" but mandatory guidance on the part of our betters is integral to their continued crusade to transform our nation to one of political righteousness. And public acquiescence in this advances their all too obvious relentless campaign to subject us all to totalitarian control of expression in order to place us permanently in their thrall. That is why the amount of the funding is of secondary importance ( though of course lots of small cuts add up to big savings ); it is the purpose and the message which it sends which must be resolutely confronted while we are yet able. Jack
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2 comments:
Here here, master thespian! It's a sad commentary that, in this day and age, public funding of the arts will INEVITABLY fund mostly PC tripe, but that's the world we live in. Subsidizing the arts is hardly a virtue, when it's BAD art, from which the public derives no benefit. It's time to scrap the NEA.
Dr. Waddy: I don't think its art at all. Its a cynical expectoration of bad will and contempt. I knew students who took Hugo Munsterberg's art appreciation courses at New Paltz. He had three Harvard degrees and his courses were demanding. I'd love to see Andres Serrano try to convince someone who took one of those courses that his vicious and presumptuously blasphemous garbage is art. Despite their disingenuous statements of concern for the injustice of public funding for art which sneers at the public, we know we can never trust the deep state to reform in this regard. We need simply ensure that they never get their mitts on our money in the first place.
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