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Congress is once again making plans to gut the National Endowment for the Arts, so it is time for us to post more data supporting the arts. In previous posts, we've argued that the arts are essential for the development of scientific imagination. Here we argue that the arts stimulate economic development by fostering invention.
The arts are very important
The arts are very important for our schools and children. But I'm for PRIVATE funding and STAY AWAY FROM Government funded programs. The National Endowment for the Arts is full of corruption. Know the truth and FACTS of what you contribute money to. What are our tax dollars and charity actually funding? http://video.foxnews.com/v/3939260/partisan-propaganda
Stay away from federally funded programs?!!!
Talk about nonsense! You say that arts and crafts are important for our schools and children but you advocate cutting all funding for arts education to the public schools -- not just NEA, but the entire arts education budget of the Department of Education. By your reasoning, we should not pay taxes that go to any program with which we personally disagree. Sorry, but the purpose of the federal goverment, as laid out in fundamental documents such as The Federalist Papers and our Constitution, is to provide for the welfare of ALL the people. Our argument is that arts and crafts training is not just important but ESSENTIAL to the education of a creative workforce. From our perspective, the government is just doing its Constitutionally-mandated duty to its citizens.
By the way, as long as you are staying away from government funded programs, we hope that you'll also refuse all your Social Security and Medicare benefits when they become available, not to mention turn off all electronic appliances that utilize federally funded communications satellites, forego all travel on highways and bridges that are maintained by the federal government, all drugs and procedures tested for safety and efficacy by the Food and Drug Administration, and all vaccines and other preventative measures developed by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. Does this sound like I've veered off track? Not at all: our point is that arts and crafts are what makes it possible for all these technological and health benefits to be invented in the first place. You want the federal government out of your life? Be careful what you wish for!You want arts out of the budget? Be careful what you wish for!
I'm going to assume to anyone
I'm going to assume to anyone who would post a Fox News video to support their argument is merely trolling.
The Arts - An 1800% Return on Investment!
Did you know that if the federal budget were the same as the average household budget, the amount spent on the NEA would be the equivalent of buying one pack of gum per year?
Every dollar spent on the arts returns 18. That's an 1800% return on investment!
http://www.blog.brianseitel.com/2011/02/01/a-case-for-funding-the-arts/
Art means life
Arts and crafts encourage experimentation as it is said in the article. There is no one right way as it is in life generally. Therefore, cutting arts funding is like reducing the possibilities to experience life in all its colours.
creativity and science
this is useful argument providing another insight into the intersection of art and science. however, the connection to NEA funding is spurious. The NEA is directly responsible for an infinitesimal amount of the funding for arts organizations in the US and, I would argue, rather than providing an "imprimatur," forces arts organiations to spend more time, sometimes than it is worth, to get a grant. I am in favor of government funding for the arts, both directly (as in cities like St. Louis and Denver) or indirectly through the tax codes, but the NEA has become a canard that is deflecting the argument. The corporate leaders cited in the article, and many other, know good art when they see it and direct their corporations' assets to those group; so do individuals and private foundations. As it should be.
when did good art vs. bad art enter the picture?
You bring up a point that drives me absolutely insane. "Good art" is not the issue here-- whether it's good or bad is not the point. The simple acts of participating and appreciating the arts are where the power lies. You don't have to paint like da Vinci or compose like Mozart to develop critical thinking skills, innovative ideas, or a capacity to accept diverse ways of thinking. In fact, if anything at all, it's the existence of "bad art" that helps us arrive at these transformative qualities. As an arts administrator, I agree that it is good to diversify funding sources, but with such little support already, don't call for the elimination of one of the most visible support systems we have in the arts community. NEA provides much more than just dollars to pockets of artists and arts organizations.
Why is NEA to blame?
We don't understand your argument. You say that states and cities do and should support the arts but that the federal government should not? What is the distinction? You say that NEA is a canard: How so? It funds art you personally don't like? It's too competitive? What about our point that the budget proposals also intend to cut ALL funding for the arts from the Department of Education budget? Is that also a canard? What about the fact that many states and cities rely upon these federal funds to make their local grants? Why are you not also calling for an end to government funding of science and technology? After all, our point is that the arts and crafts ard just as important to science and technology training as is math and science itself. So what do you REALLY want?
Great case, no power
I totally agree. Add this article to the hundreds, if not thousands of cogent and powerful case statements for a robust national arts and innovation program - funding arts education, support for the arts and a serious innovation agenda. Other nations are eating our proverbial lunch on all these fronts.
We know the reasons. We lack the POWER to make them real.
Please read "America Needs You! Why You Should Become a Creativity Champion" at http://tinyurl.com/AmericaNeedsYou (download text for free) and see my rationale for YOU running for local office. That's right - if you are reading this - then you are EXACTLY the person we need to lead in public life.
Tom Tresser
tom@tresser.com
Chicago
Arts are part of the new economic development equation
We heartily agree with the premise of this article. Exposure to the arts at an early age, and continuing through the grades when most children stop thinking they can make art, will help America immensely.
Kids who are exposed to the arts develop not only "thinking outside the box" but also perseverance, a belief in experimentation, questioning of orthodoxy, enjoyment of thinking new thoughts--exactly the skill set that is needed for an America that must innovate its way out of its current economic development dilemma.
We're struggling for jobs now because of the productivity gains of the computer age and the communications technology that allows out-sourcing. What government would stay stuck in denial that we can't go back to the old paradigm and must find a new one?
We think that new employment will come from (a) innovation stemming from the creativity so obviously fostered by the arts, (b) becoming serious about supporting people stuck in chronic poverty and mental illness until they can join the workforce, and (c) finding ingenious ways to allow retired people to have ultra-flex-time jobs.
it's a start
As a proudly narrow-minded philistine, and being of a heart that is most vociferously anti-art, anti-music, anti-literature, anti-all-forms of creativity, this is some of the best news I've heard in a long long time. My prior-tortured soul now has cause for joy and can't help but dream that a time may yet come that the world will be set free from the hopeless dark scourge of art and all mankind shall beam smiles which collective light shall have power to cast its hearty heat way way out there, so far as to defrost the icy scapes of Mars and maybe, just maybe, with just enough oomph of positive thought rays, the entire solar system shall implode like one glorious broadway font exclamation mark. Yes. A happy day.
best ironic post ever
You know, for being against all forms of creativity, you sure have a talent for expressing your feelings in a creative way! You might want to consider working on that a bit...
alas
Once upon a time, such pleasures as composing expressive or words 'creatively' was indeed a personal driver of easily more than modest strength. I also loved to mess around with my old minolta film camera (since I live in a region rich with nature's scenic displays); also love(d) the guitar, making up my own stuff; a late-comer -and still a relative babe - to literatures and poetry (I'm not one of those who draws a distinguishing line between the Faulkners and the Hemingways- I love both and all points between)... but then one day, a certain presidential candidate of an educated stature very very great, and who cast a messianic power upon all of us mere mortals, informed all the world of what 'smalltown people' were really like. I struggled to integrate that new revelation into my soul and mind and life, but it was hard to do, since I just didn't see the caricature semblance; and so I somewhat continued my loves. But when that candidate was installed in the oval office, I realized I had to forsake those loves, because as we were all informed, all smalltown people know only to cling to guns and bibles, and we all hate all peoples in any way different than us. So I'm trying to behave the way the great leader declared people like me behave or think or believe. I'm still not much of a gun guy (don't have any), and I only cracked open a bible once or twice, and I find all different kinds of people really interesting. But I'm working on it, though it's gonna take awhile, since uneducated, smalltown people like me are so so slow in all departments of the universe. Heck, just ask any present-day oval office occupant.
Private Arts Funding....Patronage system
Isn't the private funding of the arts the patronage system of the past that is wrapped in a feudal governance structure. Those who aspire for freedom and democracy should reject a feudal system and embrace public funding....a more democratic option.
IOW
I'm pretty sure my chances of getting any sort of grant would be pretty much zero, so I have to figure it out myself, which means a lot of failures, but hopefully lots of fun along the way, anyway. If somebody out there somewhere, for who can guess what possible reason, finds anything I happen to come up with interesting enough to offer backing in the form of materiel support... well that'd be just dandy as heck. If nobody ever does? That's okay too. I do it myself, and for me; do the best I can with what I have to work with, which admittedly is not much; can still play around with words, guitar notes, cameras, just because it feels good. That mindset immediately relieves the stress of holding my breath for any kind of bureaucratically-approved funds to magically fall into my humble hands, because they never will, and I'm pretty sure I'd prefer they didn't.
oops
Meant to post this as a reply to the reply above. My mistake. Not paying attention. Getting all worked up. Ciao.
Counselling london
Those who aspire for freedom and democracy should reject a feudal system and embrace public funding....a more democratic option.
Counselling london
Those who aspire for freedom and democracy should reject a feudal system and embrace public funding....a more democratic option.
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