A lot of the objection to subsidizing the arts is that the art tends to be pure crap. Not just "well, I'm kinda mixed," but just a toilet glued sideways to a wall crap. Stuff that takes neither imagination nor skill, and is praised because it landed in the right position in the circlejerk. I think this might be what you get when the government subsidizes projects directly, in both the arts and sciences. A possible solution would be to have the government provide funding to trusted third parties. Specifically, I'm thinking of the government taking their arts funding and giving it to universities to use as scholarships. I trust the Juliard admissions office much more than a trust government bureaucrats.
Know what I'd like to see? Some examples of toilet-glued-sideways-to-the-wall art that was funded by federal taxpayer dollars. Rather than, you know, gross generalizations. The other thing that's missing is a distinction between fine arts and liberal arts in terms of university degrees. I happened to have known a lot of people who went into performing arts for university. Let me tell you, those people didn't go into those programs for shits and giggles, or because daddy was paying their way through, or they needed a degree of some kind. They had talent in ways most people simply don't, and kept with art because they were passionate about it. And someone who has studied, say, music performance in university is a musician in a way that a typical humanities grad is not a "writer". In most cities in the world, good jazz bars will have university jazz program bands playing on a regular basis, as paid gigs. How many history majors have syndicated columns in newspapers or magazines? How many economics majors are invited onto the evening news to provide commentary? I'm not saying that fine arts degrees are inherently more useful, but a fine arts major has skills that a humanities student doesn't. And the thing is, while a fine arts student can wait tables or something to support their art as a side gig, a humanities grad... can wait tables. And while that old trope about how there aren't any history factories for history majors to work in, there are musicals, plays, performances, etc., which fine arts grads can go work in. Finally, it's not as though subsidization of art doesn't have return on investment. You might not go to see these things, but lots of people do. Lively, bustling, cultured cities with active arts scenes are what draw tourists to a city. It's also what makes a city something more than agglomeration of people living in the same area. The arts are consumed by all demographics, from poor students attending a gig at a bar, to the 1% taking their wives to the opera, to soccer moms taking their kids to the museum. The chances of "making it", which draw young artists to a city, is dictated by a city's economy, business environment, and cultural cache. It's what brings young professionals to the city, who want something more to do with their evenings than drive their 2.5 kids to and from soccer practice. It's what brings tourists to a city, and what makes them glad they visited. The government can't do it on its own (see: Ottawa, City of) but it's something the government has a vested interest in incubating.
I always remember someone making this argument on the TMMB and having their ass absolutely handed to them by Mr. Suapyg. The object in question was a board painted pink, leaning against a wall, which I think had received a fair amount of scholarship funding. People asked, very reasonably, why a $1 board with a .50c coat of paint was worth $50,000 in funding (numbers dimly recalled and perhaps not accurate), and suggested that it had taken some dreadlocked hippie two minutes between games of hackysack and hitting the bong. Suapyg actually broke it down; the minimalist movement that had spawned it, its commentary and influence on other pieces, and just this incredible wealth of detail, all about an item which to me was so much scrap wood. Ever since then, I'm a little less quick to pull the trigger on the imagination/skill argument. I wish I could link to that post, but 5 minutes of google has not made it forthcoming.
“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.” ~ Salvador Dali The problem with the art world is that there are just so many idiots.
So basically, you're saying that the things that YOU define as worthwhile and contributing to society are the only areas that the government should subsidize? What a crock of seriously overgeneralized shit. There are plenty of jobs available to English majors besides, oh I don't know, teaching people how to communicate effectively. In fact, there are plenty of Fortune 500 companies that employ people "useless" English degrees to simply edit emails and memos and letters because the people with the "useful" accounting and marketing degrees don't know how to fucking write. Quite frankly, if the government started to pick and choose which college degrees to support and which jobs in which to invest, I wonder how many of the politicians' speech writers would clamor to write that rhetoric. (For the record, I'd vote for any politician who actually saw the hypocrisy in that.) As for other types of artists, the ones who are serious about their chosen profession know exactly what they're getting themselves into and most have such a passion that they still choose to live like paupers in order to live their art. A person can certainly support himself with a humanities degree, he just has to be creative about how to use it. And good on them, I say because they are the ones who are the backbone of society. They are the ones who expose the issues, who challenge our minds, and who write out history whether we realize it or not. I learned more about the horrors of the French Revolution from Dickens than I ever did from a bullshit history book. In fact, I'd say I learned more about the beliefs, values, and ideals of whole peoples from reading literature and taking art history classes...I regularly use paintings and sculptures in my classes in order to demonstrate some kind of concept, historical context, or ideal. (Shit, I'm using my "draw something" app to teach context clues next week. And I guarantee the kids will get the concept much more quickly this time around.) Artists, whether they're writers or singers or painters are the ones who measure and place value on just about everything in this world...how on earth could you say that they are less and should be treated as less? Oh yes, you're right...it's because there are English majors and hippie artists who are on unemployment and can't find jobs because they studied something worthless. Silly me. I guess everyone reading this post who works in accounting or medicine or finance are all reading this at home and not at work, right? There aren't any people with finance degrees who are simply not serious or passionate about their jobs and therefore are unemployed or underemployed. Whoops. The point is, there's laziness everywhere and genius everywhere. Artists will always be undervalued by the government but that doesn't mean they should receive at least a little bit of consideration, guidance, and help. What it boils down to for me is this: I'd much rather help support someone who at least earned a degree in something "useless" or is pursuing some kind of art than someone who has chosen not to get an education or pursue a dream at all.
I was responding to the common perception about where arts funding goes. If government sponsored projects aren't crap, then way to go government. But, seeing the government's commitment to quality in other areas, I'm reluctant to think they'll make the right calls regarding art. That's why I said I'd prefer funding to go through a trusted third party, preferably a university arts program. The NEA has a staff of about 500. That has to cover every genre of art they deal with, poetry, prose, painting, sculpture, dance, theater, photography, music performance, and I'm guessing music composition is its own thing. And that staff of 500 includes their office administrators and such, not just the people who do the real grant reviews. I would think the university programs would have far greater resources when it comes to reviewing talent and making funding decisions. The NEA gave out 51 Our Town Grants in 2011, to projects all across the country. I can't imagine those were handled with the same level of care as, say, an MFA program deciding which dozen student to take this year.
There's also this, which is probably the most well known instigator of the "the fuck is this hippie shit" reaction: I don't think the question is, "what is art?", but rather, "What would average American Joe be okay with spending tax dollars on?" Answer: Not a whole lot, unfortunately. Most people won't be able to either a. Back their art up in person or b. have someone else knowledgeable enough be able to do it every time their art is shown, and a lot of these minimalist and other related pieces absolutely need context in order to be understood. Which means we get the "the fuck is this shit," warranted or not, much more than an actual analysis of whatever the piece is, and THEN "the fuck is this shit," if necessary.
It would be easy enough to have government funding exclude the very experimental stuff and focus on areas where there's a more objectively skilled technique involved. Not because these areas don't have value, but because who the hell can tell which of it is good? We'd get more bang for our buck sticking to more traditional art.
I'm sending many disconnected thoughts into this thread because I'm doing half a dozen things at work, but one other thing to consider: in my opinion, Banksy and other subversive artists have done more for the type of society I want to live in than innumerable STEM graduates. Now, whether work like Banksy's would ever be the subject of a Government grant, or if it was, whether it would be any good, is a fascinating question. This would be a great thread for pictures if attachments weren't playing up. There are a dozen Banksy pieces off the top of my head which I'd love to post.
But that's the rub, isn't it? If you stick to "traditional" art and exclude experimentation, why bother? Why rehash what's already been done? You're going to have to blur that line to get anything worthwhile out of it.
The other question that is conspicuously missing is whether or not the 'meaningful art' we know exists because of subsidies or not. I'm guessing a whole ton of art is created without needing to go into debt or have government help. A brief wikipedia glance seems to show Banksy didn't require subsidies, for instance. This is the problem: <a class="postlink" href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/11/college-has-been-oversold.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalr ... rsold.html</a> I don't care if you're an art fan or not, we've got a STEM problem. So I view the question as - do I think it makes sense to give extra subsidies to STEM majors to help fix that problem. It seems to be a good idea at first glance, but I'm sure there's a number of nuances that come up. Like whiny liberal arts majors feeling like they've been slighted.
Trying to reconcile the "art vs science" argument is pointless. Pure art is subjective, pure science is objective; and where they meet is grey area. Get a scientist to create an orangpple and then we'll talk. I see art as a requirement for a fully functioning society. If you can follow that art is an expression of the human spirit, then a denial of that expression is an inhibition to human potential. Saying that, though, the expression of my inner spirit means fat fuck all if I'm living in the mud with an empty belly and the predators are closing in. So, really, I see art as part of the incing on top of the cake of practicalities. You can have a dead boring cake without the icing, but the icing by itself does not make a cake. How does this relate to subsidising and funding? I don't think that there should be public funding for arts unless society's practical requirements are effectively met. If everything's running more or less okay, then you look at kicking the balance into the pot. But when there's not enough medicine/food/infrastructure, I'd get pretty pissed off with a chunk of taxpayer money being given to someone to compose a song about the consistency of their piss. Get your priorities in order. Of course, all that being said, if it were private money then good on them.
Not to be too much of a STEM asshole, but every time I get have this discussion with a liberal arts major, all the things they point out as the benefit of their degree ("It teaches you how to think!" "It teaches you how to see things from different points of view!" "It teaches you how to communicate ideas!") are all things that are pre-requisites for STEM degrees. I can't imagine a single asshole walking into any engineering 101 course not knowing how to think and lasting more than two weeks. And maybe my school just had a stronger engineering program compared to its liberal arts programs, but the engineers were the best writers in the required freshman writing courses. At least with fine arts they're doing shit I can't do myself.
I live in a city full of engineers that can't think for shit. Case in point, NASA contractors have to send out safety briefings telling employees it's not safe to leaving the building during a tornado warning. Many of these people know how to do the basic tasks of their job, and outside of that, they are terrible minds with little to no critical thinking skills. The few people I know with STEM backgrounds who are really, truly brilliant are also extremely well read, know classical music inside and out, and are often artists themselves.
You're giving me the shits Bill, HR would send that note out because some litigious cunt of a lawyer made them due to risk management considerations. As an aside, to me the only art of note produced by humanity in the last 50 years is the space program, everything else is bullshite wank.
Then perhaps you are not the best person to speak to the impact of art on modern soceity. "I don't really any art that's being made and don't seem to really understand it, but I have lots of feelings about it!" I realize the counter argument is that it's your tax money, but tax money goes to lots of things we don't have direct says in. No one asks me whether Huntsville, Alabama needs a road, yet they might spend money on it. It's the cost of republicanism and/or civilization.
So you haven't enjoyed a book written by an author in the last 50 years? Haven't like a single movie released in that time frame? No television shows have sparked your fancy? I guess music is completely out of the question, too.
It's a difficult question. I wouldn't just single out art, too. For example, based on numerous conversations I have had with people that worked there, LIGO has been an incredible fucking waste and done little of significance. It's just a sink of hundreds of millions of dollars. By contrast, the LHC is potentially interesting and worthwhile. So even when it comes to scientific subsidies, and something as high-profile as LIGO (started by Kip Thorne no less, one of the 5-10 best physicists in the world), there is waste. In an ideal world, the government subsidizing art would be a dazzling success, leading to the creation of countless masterpieces. In the real world, it's a way for government to squeeze more money from its citizens, leading to millions of dollars of waste and countless third-rate crap no one will admire 50 years from now. As LessTalk MoreStab correctly noted, wealthy private donors are the way to go. While very suspicious, I am nevertheless open to the idea of government funding certain professional art works. But subsidizing their education? Idiocy, plain and simple. Why should arts majors get a major reward and a huge natural preference simply for choosing to study something? Especially when that something is vastly easier to graduate with a degree in? I'm not saying it's easier to do on a high, professional level, (sometimes just the opposite) but to get a fucking piece of paper in? It requires virtually no ability or study in most instances. Also, there is not some gigantic dearth of artists in the world today. There are at least a thousand times more artists in the world today than during the European Renaissance. Where are all the masterpieces? They exist, but not in a sufficiently greater quantity. The number of true artistic geniuses is very small. We already have a situation where 99% of arts majors are incapable of producing high-level art, and only 1% are able to make genuine, professional work. Do we need to raise that number to 99.9% with art education subsidies? At least give subsidies for actual work and results.
I agree. I support the notion of municipalities, states and the federal government investing in urban architecture, cultural facilities, and cultural events (if nothing else other than tourism) to improve society on a macro scale, but not on an individual subsidy bias for students. These investments would provide an indirect stimulation to the arts by providing opportunities for artists, without artificially propping up a these majors year after year or saying 'Hey artists. Make art.' Just as financial markets ebb and flow, so will the majors that incoming students choose. If there is a shortage of professionals in the medical and technology sectors, job demand and therefore postgraduate opportunities will reflect that accordingly, and more students will choose those fields. Look at nursing in the past decade. A huge shortage in nurses led to a large increase in nursing graduates across the country. The answer isn't as simple as 'engineering good, art bad', and subsidies on either side with provide an unnecessary bias. The government shouldn't meddle in these affairs at a microscopic level, but instead from 10,000 feet, like I described earlier.