Heres a dumb question about 2 adams

[John_4185]

Less than zero from me, cuz aren't you using an Ebony?

paulr uses an Ebony? No! Say, I wonder if he'd leave the label on it and do a project with me on Chicago's Southside. I'll be photographing Paul with a Printex Press because I just like alliteration.

[paulr]

Frank, I was asking Paul, since he just mentioned his checkbook, and since the holiday spirit seems to be flowing from his posts

But in case it changes your mind, no, i don't use an ebony. Don't even know what one looks like.

[Frank Petronio]

But I hear Paul is loaded so I was going to ask him for a grant too.

[tim atherton]

actually, it had slipped my mind, but one of the best sources of government arts funding in many jruisdictions coems from Lottery Money - that way nobody loses out. Plenty of money for the arts and it's basically just a tax on the stupid

[Paul Butzi]

Oh, Paul, I swear you are in humorless mood today. Twice you misunderstood me. Read: Facetious. For gosh sake, I work in a library. (Did you know that the word FacEtIOUs has all the vowels in proper order? The things a janitor learns in a library.)

Sorry, I guess I missed the tone of your voice when I read your posts.

Since you're into this sort of thing, did you know that all of the following have all the vowels in proper order, the way facetious does?

abstemious
abstemiously
abstentious
acheilous
acheirous
acleistous
affectious
annelidous
arsenious
arterious
bacterious
caesious
facetious
facetiously
fracedinous
majestious

which is cool enough, but the following have it in reverse order
duoliteral
juloidea
muscoidea
pulmonifera
quodlibetal
quodlibetary
subcontinental
subhyoidean
uncomplimentary
uncontinental
unnoticeably
unoccidental
unoriental

[paulr]

Paul, if you really want to put this thread to rest, just use all those words in a sentence.

That's a dare!

[Struan Gray]

Nice thread. I confess that I have always been a little surprised that tax revenues are used to subsidise some of my favourite activities, and agree with Paul B. that there is no obvious reason why this should happen. But, and it's a big but, my personal experience is that I have found the widest spectrum of art consumers at events and institutions where access is free or heavily subsidised. I also have found that corporate sponsorship tends to concentrate in a few prestige projects, usually in the captal city, and usually heavily biased towards canonical art.

The UK recently made all publically-owned galleries free to enter. To me, that sort of maintaining access is a much better use of tax money than stimulating the production of new art and trying to second guess posterity. The Duke of Buccleuch isn't too keen in the hoi polloi gawping at his Titians, and there's no reason why he should be, but in a society where gawping at Titians is regarded as a worthwhile and even beneficial thing to do I can see a strong argument for the public purse to buy a few and put them on show where everyone can see them. Similarly, when I lived in Berlin performances at all three then active operas were appreciated by an incredibly diverse audience, completely different from the usual image of opera goers, again, because pretty well anybody could afford tickets.

If there is a problem with the whole idea of Government, it is usually because people abdicate responsibility for electing it and monitoring its activities. Active citizenship and open governance is the real key. Neither are the exclusive preserve of the private sector.

[paulr]

One philosophical point that people differ on concerns the common good. I believe (but could never prove) that anything done to increase the production and consumption of the arts will make the world a better place. This has little to do with whether or not I see a particular show, or if I like or dislike a particular piece. I live in New York, and did not see a single performance of the Philharmonic last year. I don't know if I will this year. But I strongly support them getting support from my tax dollars. I think having such a musical institution thrive is important in some way to all of us, and I know the economics of the situation well enough to see that they need all the help they can get. Ticket sales and private giving pay for a lot, but not enough.

I also know that there are a lot of people who believe (but cannot prove) the opposite. I don't think George W. Bush or his closest cronies think the arts are anything more than an indulgence, and don't see how they could benefit society at large. I doubt I could win any of them over in a debate, but I'm fairly certain that the world they envision would look bleak to me.

There's a parallel argument with education. Plenty of people are incensed that they have to pay taxes to public schools, when either A) they don't have kids or B) their kids go to private school. They are completely blind to any notion that the future of their society--their personal future included--is riding on the education of the next generation.

People will argue into the night about whether this is a fair parallel. Based on my own biases, which include the world I envision, I think it's a perfect parallel.

[John_4185]

One philosophical point that people differ on concerns the common good. I believe (but could never prove) that anything done to increase the production and consumption of the arts will make the world a better place.

I cannot prove it on this forum, and I have difficulty at work showing correspondences in problem solving in the arts and sciences, not because there are none, but because the current generation of scholars has the natural tendency to narrow their focus to exclude a larger view - some say they are too busy to look across disciplinies, some are lazy, and some simply have their heads up their ass.

There's a parallel argument with education. Plenty of people are incensed that they have to pay taxes to public schools, when either A) they don't have kids or B) their kids go to private school. They are completely blind to any notion that the future of their society--their personal future included--is riding on the education of the next generation

You are right, of course - the common good is served by better educated students. Unfortunately, we are not doing an adequate job of educating the K-12 educators. Typically, education departments in colleges and universities are the very weakest of all, and often just laughable.

Fortunately, the private and K-12 charter schools are doing such a great job that the failure of public education is becoming so apparent that more so-called ordinary people are becoming motivated (pissed-off) that perhaps change is possible.

[Paul Butzi]

One philosophical point that people differ on concerns the common good. I believe (but could never prove) that anything done to increase the production and consumption of the arts will make the world a better place.

Anything? Anything at all? I don't believe for a second that you really mean that.

Would you, for instance, propose to make admission to arts events free by increasing funding by selling girls into sexual slavery in one of the tourism capitals?

No, I didn't think so. I doubt any civilized person would think that it would be ok to perpetrate evil in order to increase the production and consumption of art.

So we have a spectrum. Some things that can be done to promote the arts, everyone agrees are good. Voluntary private donation, for instance - is there anyone who thinks it's bad?

At the other end, there are things that everyone agrees would promote the arts but which would be bad. The sex slave scenario, above. Funding the arts by selling crack cocaine and directing the profits to the arts. Murdering people on the street, picking their pockets, and giving the proceeds to the arts.

In the middle, there are shades of grey. Tim's proposal to fund the arts through lotteries, for instance, I find unacceptable. I'm a conservative, and I still find the 'stupidity' tax offensive, and I don't understand why in general people who favor progressive taxation fall in love with things like the lottery. Somewhat closer to the unacceptably evil end, we have the idea of nationalizing the assets of private citizens and using that to fund the arts. Somewhere in the middle are things like the NEA.

In the end, it makes more sense to invest energy where there's clear consensus (private funding, for instance, and advocacy) than to invest energy arguing about where the line should be drawn in the grey zone.