Farewell Mapplethorpe, Hello Shakespeare (Roger Kimball on NEA, the W. way)

National Review Online ^ | January 29, 2004 | Roger Kimball

[NutCrackerBoy]

You forget the fact that phrase "culture war" is not hyperbole. It's us or them.

Interesting that Pat Buchanan has opined that W has barely addressed the culture war. But he's quietly making moves that marginalize the secularists/postmodernists from some strongholds.

[George W. Bush]

I would suggest that a hefty dose of Shakespeare, Milton, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, and Michaelangelo would go a long way towards changing the cultural fabric of the US.

Are you then prepared to pay people to attend such functions? And inject them with crack to keep them awake and interested?

That is a crazy liberal idea you've got hold of there, Miss Marple. I'm very serious when I say that.

There are simply some things the government cannot do. And it's dangerous to our pocketbooks to even let them try.

[Yaelle]

But what does publicly funded mean? There is a problem with social engineering: it tends to BACKFIRE.

If you let every child get into the best performances for free, the wealthy who could afford season tickets will STOP their private patronage, which would hurt the arts and make them more dependent on the public teat.

If you only let the poor inner city kids go, the middle class (MEEEEEE) will bitterly resent that a mom who has three kids by different dads, can't afford to take care of them, and does crack while they are in their lousy schools gets HER kids exposed to quality performances while their own kids don't get to and could never afford to.

I still don't like the sound of this.

[Miss Marple]

Until the mid to late 60's, most public school students were given hefty doses of Shakespeare, Dickens, Shelley, Milton, and other greats of literature. Your comment that one would need to supply audiences with stimulants tells me that you are one who is of a younger generation.

I suggest you rent Henry V starring Kenneth Brannaugh and watch it. This is the play from which the phrase "band of brothers" comes, as well as having the famous St. Crispin's Day speech. It is an rousing, inspiring play which speaks to all those who have inherited the English legacy.

Then compare and contrast that play to The Vagina Monologues or Angels in America.

[McGavin999]

I'm going to say this only one time so maybe you folks will think a bit and try to understand. I don't really have much hope that you will, but I'm going to try anyway.

Say you inherit a house. The house is delapitated, the roof is sagging, the plumbing is shot, but the foundation is still fairly good. With a little investment you can fix it up and sell it. It would make a fine home for someone but only if you fix it up a bit so someone, with less imagination, would be willing to buy it and live in it and perhaps contribute to the community.

That's what Bush is doing with the NEA. Yes, it should be supported by the public itself and not really through tax dollars, but it's not. Why? Because now a days, when you think of the arts, you automatically think of Maplethorp and music that makes no sense, and theater is merely a bunch of idiots running around on the stage saying and doing things that revolts you. So you don't go. BUT, if the arts became something people learned to enjoy again, they WOULD support it. The more they support it, the less the government has to support it. W is merely fixing the roof on the arts community so it will be marketable to the American people.

You guys would rather the government would allow the whole house to fall down and we'd be paying the property tax on it forever, or a perfectly good thing will be destroyed forever and your children and grandchildren will be deprived of something that has existed down through the ages. THAT is NOT conserative.

[NutCrackerBoy]

The Constitution enables or forbids the federal government from certain acts and policies and defines legislative and executive duties and basic election law. All other things not ennumerated are reserved to the states or to the people.

I am very aware of that; I meant to say (but poorly worded it), the Constitution does not restrict the states from regulating public health within their borders. If your point is different from that, can you make your point more specific?

[George W. Bush]

Until the mid to late 60's, most public school students were given hefty doses of Shakespeare, Dickens, Shelley, Milton, and other greats of literature. Your comment that one would need to supply audiences with stimulants tells me that you are one who is of a younger generation.

I was in school in the mid to late Sixties. We had no such thing.

Then compare and contrast that play to The Vagina Monologues or Angels in America.

I don't need to. It is not a legitimate role of government to fund such things. Whether I love them or hate them.

And the market for this sort of tripe was actually created by the very program you now advocate.

Just admit you're a big-government conservative. Because that's what you are if you can't see this for what it is.

The rest of us always opposed the NEA and any level of funding for it.

[George W. Bush]

It appears we do agree. I have noticed that FR is drifting from its constitutional moorings. It seems to me that on many FR threads that we need to return to constitutionalism and strict constructionism.

[Miss Marple]

I don't know where you went to school, but in Indiana we had to read three Shakespeare plays, 4 Dickens novels, and Milton and Shelley as part of our general high school curriculum. Since Indiana isn't usually in the forefront of education, I simply asumed that was the norm in those years.

I don't support funding the NEA. However, we are stuck with it because of Congressional support, and therefore I am glad that it is being redirected to more worthwhile endeavors.

[NeoCaveman]

I don't support funding the NEA.

I'm glad to hear it

However, we are stuck with it because of Congressional support,

Sadly, I think you are right....for now.

and therefore I am glad that it is being redirected to more worthwhile endeavors.

I still see no need for an increase. Besides, when the D's get into office again (has to happen sometime in our lifetimes) they'll dumb it down and dirty it up again.

[Richard Kimball]

If we left this solely to the market, we would have nothing but hip-hop, reality TV, and Terminator movies.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Seriously, I'll guarantee you that every team in the NFL gets a bigger government subsidy from sweetheart stadium deals to sky boxes than the entire NEA gets (I know, most of it comes from taxing authorities other than the Feds). Yeah, I'd like to see the NEA shut down, but the reaction to this by some on this forum is out of touch with reality.

BTW, I believe that funding for the Arts should be out of private donations. If Gregorian chants aren't popular enough to sell cds, tickets, or at the least, receive private donations, maybe there's not any need for Gregorian chant subsidies.

[NutCrackerBoy]

I suggest you rent Henry V starring Kenneth Brannaugh and watch it. This is the play from which the phrase "band of brothers" comes, as well as having the famous St. Crispin's Day speech. It is an rousing, inspiring play which speaks to all those who have inherited the English legacy.

Then compare and contrast that play to The Vagina Monologues or Angels in America. Miss Marple, #64

I don't need to. It is not a legitimate role of government to fund such things. Whether I love them or hate them. -George W. Bush, #67

Leaving public funding (with a sigh of relief), I would like to commend the author of this thread's essay, Roger Kimball, for his outstanding work through the years at The New Criterion. This publication is among the strongest in the world in holding the light of truth up to the creepy, left-radicalized academic/arts worlds and, on the positive side, their alternatives.

Note carefully that Roger's was not an unfiltered endorsement for public funding, but only that ... under normal circumstances ... the president seeking a big budget increase for the National Endowment for the Arts might have been grounds for dismay.

[JoJo Gunn]

Hefty doses, eh?

In the '70's I had that Shakespeare and Shelley crap forced on me, that limp wristed "my true love hath my heart, and I have his", eye rolling stuff abhorrent to any hormone crazed teenager, that I knew I'd never need it in the real world. I was in a cranky mood one day, and just blurted out to the teacher about why we needed such if we might end up being a ditch digger, which pleased her no end. About 5 years later, while a plumbing/electrician apprentice, I was out digging up a broken water line and I thought of that woman. And rolled my eyes.

The good old days wasn't all that great, considering Shakespeare was taught all through the years, and we still had such opuses as "My Mother the Car".

The arts doesn't balance out the mediocre, and never has. 90 percent of everything is still crap. I don't want a dime of my hard earned money going to any more fiascos, and nobody can tell me it won't happen again because it happened too many times over too many years. My trust is completely and forever gone, so the NEA should be gutted and razed.

You want Carmen or Camus or Ingmar Bergman or Barney, pay for it yourself.

[Bulldogger]

Well said!

As an indie recording artist, I believe my success is dependent on my ability to promote myself and the value of my work. If I can't persuade people to visit my website and buy my CDs, I shouldn't expect the government to force taxpayers to surrender their hard-earned money to me to keep my exercise in artistic expression afloat.

The best way to support the arts is to BUY some.

[George W. Bush]

Excellent!

Real culture and a real appreciation for the arts are something you invest your time and money in. It's one of those things you can't educate for.

The arts would fare far better without government subsidy.

I think the height of irony is when some social rebel artiste has to suck up government money in order to produce some hate-America flag desecration artwork to be displayed in a government-owned and funded museum.

And they wonder why government art gets no respect.

IMO, our aircraft designs are among the artiest stuff the government produces.

[George W. Bush]

I'll guarantee you that every team in the NFL gets a bigger government subsidy from sweetheart stadium deals to sky boxes than the entire NEA gets...

That is the business of a given city's voters. They have the right to do these things reserved to them. The federal government does not! Even states have more rights than the feds in this matter.

Some of you just don't give a flat flying goddamn for the Constitution, do you? Simply could care less.

Then you sit around whining about how the liberals have done all these bad things. Don't you understand that this is exactly how they did them?

[LaraCroft]

Whatever rights are not specifically granted to the federals, are reserved for the states. Whatever rights are not specifically granted to the state, are reserved for the people.

Government should not "serve the function {} for what people need, like health inspectors"

You may think people need health inspectors, others might think that we need hand holding welfare from cradle to grave,... and the government actually has no business providing any of that stuff to us with other peoples money.

It's all redistribution of wealth, and they are saying we are too stupid to handle things on our own. I guess they are right, since we let them.

It may be an abusive relationship, but we are staying in it.

[NutCrackerBoy]

It's all redistribution of wealth, and they are saying we are too stupid to handle things on our own.

Agree in general. And let's agree of course that common defense is appropriately a function of government, national military to defend borders, small local police forces for law enforcement.

However, I fear you are more radical than the radical to rule out common safety regulation as a proper function of a local government. I've heard some Ayn Rand-type arguments such as yours before that hold some libertarian attraction. But plenty of radical libertarians will concede that a village might like to formally arrange to pay a local person a few bucks to inspect the meat.

[ExpandNATO]

I got a hefty dose of classical music in public school (starting in 1970). It did harm to my appreciation of classical music. Perhaps it was that whoever picked the music, picked out the most boring, mind deadening piano and string quartet pieces they could find. The live performers talked down to us and did not play any better selections. There are plenty of classical pieces that will appeal to even restless teenage boys, but the music teachers were obviously not up to finding them.

I was finally cured in 1996, when I was dragged to a performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in Prague, Czech Republic. Those musicians could play!

[LaraCroft]

I completely agree with common defense, and if I want my meat inspected, I will shop in the store that does so. I don't need the government to 'make them do it'.

Also, as a side note, they do a horrible job at health inspecting. There are quite a few plants that are coming to toe the line because the stores that buy from them say they won't do so if they don't meet "X" level of security.