Should the National Endowment for the Arts Continue?

The National Endowment for the Arts was created in 1965 as part of the Great Society and an answer to the heavy national emphasis on science and engineering, with "highest artistic talent" (Jensen 2) as a key criterion. The argument for the creation of the NEA was two-fold: equal access to the arts and equivalent funding for the arts and sciences. Opposing its creation were the arguments that $5 million for fiscal year 1966 was excessive, money was better spent on other programs, federal support for the arts would discourage private donations, federal funding would encourage university faculties to spend their time seeking grants instead of teaching students, the arts were a luxury, not a necessity for the government, and the arts were thriving in America and didn't need government support. The opposition's arguments "seemed unprincipled and contradictory...in comparison to the (proponents') clear position that the arts deserved modest federal support" (Moen 2) and the National Endowment for the Arts was born. Since its creation, the NEA has claimed credit for the growth of interest in the fine arts over the years, but in fact it was the growing number of adults with a college degree that was responsible, as an increasingly well-educated public began supporting the arts.

As with any bureaucratic agency, the NEA became riddled with accusations of corruption, ranging from disproportionate regional funding to promoting pornography, until it has become a hot debate between liberals and conservatives today, despite the negligible amount of tax dollars appropriated for it. Democrats are afraid to abolish the NEA because the majority of Americans are in favor of keeping it, while Republicans feel that if they can't kill the NEA, there will be no chance of decreasing spending in other areas of government.

Proponents of the NEA attempt to show that the arguments against the NEA are invalid and that Jane Alexander's reforms should be supported. Those who oppose the NEA in its present form believe that the growth of the arts is hindered rather than helped by state funding because it is impossible to foster the development of the arts without imposing a directed culture of ideas and values. The opponents come closer to achieving their goal.

Robert Brustein is a proponent of the NEA who wrote "Mend It, Don't End It" while Michael Greene supports the Endowment with his article titled "The Arts vs. the 'Contract with America.'" Both writers rely heavily on statistics to refute the opposition's arguments. In his summary of recent activities in the House of Representatives regarding the NEA's future, Brustein cites that the NEA budget of $99.5 million in 1997 represents ".01 percent of a $1.7 trillion national budget...a drastic reduction from a high in 1992 of $176 million" (1), which is considerably less than arts funding in Europe and Canada, alluding to America's deplorable funding of the arts. Brustein also uses funding statistics to show that "the arts generate close to $17 billion in economic activity in America" (2), supporting over one million jobs and producing more than three billion dollars in income taxes. Statistics of the growth in numbers of orchestras, dance companies, theaters, and the audiences attending arts events since the inception of the NEA are used to show that NEA funding is the reason that most theaters are able to keep ticket prices comparatively low and that "without the NEA, the arts will become truly elite in the sense that only the rich will be able to afford them" (Brustein 4).

Greene puts the statistics into common usage terms to show how inexpensive it is to keep the arts alive through the NEA. He claims that "it costs taxpayers only 29 cents a year to keep jazz, blues, folk, and classical music on the public radio airwaves" (2), and that "the NEA...has brought theater, dance, and music to communities that could never have access to them otherwise" (2) for the price of just two postage stamps each year. He also shows what a wise investment it is to fund the NEA, that for "every dollar of NEA funding...an average of $11 in additional funding" (2) is generated. This use of statistics serves the proponents' purpose by pointing out the benefits of the NEA.

David Boaz, ("The Separation of Art and State: Who Is Going to Make Decisions?") and Gene Edward Veith, ("The National Endowment for the Arts: Liberator or Warden?") are opposed to the NEA as it exists today. They use quotes to show that state funding results in a directed culture of ideas and values. Boaz quotes his colleague at Cato Institute, Ed Crane: "There are only two basic ways to organize society: coercively, through government dictates, or voluntarily, through... interactions among individuals and private associations" (1). He also quotes President Kennedy's reference to artists as "the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state" (2). Referring to Western Europe's state support of the arts, Boaz quotes Yardley as saying that "they are accustomed to state influences...that our ancestors crossed the ocean to escape" (3). Meanwhile, Veith quotes an artist of the former Soviet Union and French academy historians to show that state funding has not fostered the development of the arts in other countries. In his discussion of the Soviet Union's support of the arts through a system of total subsidy, Veith cites Miklos Haraszti's The Velvet Prison to show how artists were confined by Communist ideals in the expression of their art so that they could enjoy a pleasant life within the system, sacrificing personal freedom for financial security and social status. In his discussion of the French Academy, Veith quotes from John Russell Taylor's Impressionist Dreams: "Above all, (an artist) had to have the approval of...the Academy of Fine Arts, and exhibit at the...Salon before anyone would take (him) seriously" (3). To be accepted, an artist was required to submit to the established academic style. The Impressionists, a part of the European arts culture that we Americans are encouraged to emulate, never had that approval. Veith's logical appeal is further supported through his discussion of Patricia Mainardi's book, Art and Politics of the Second Empire, which documents "the decline of the official arts establishment as a state patronage gave way to the rise of the middle class and the triumph of free market economics" (3). France, home of the Louvre, had ultimately failed to support the arts through state funding.

The opposition's use of logos in the form of quotes that show the ineffectiveness of state funding for the arts is more convincing than the proponents' statistical logic. Statistics can be easily turned around to prove the opposing point of view: low funding can mean that the majority of improvements were made without the NEA's help.

Using inflammatory language to support his stance that the NEA is unfairly attacked by the opposition, and in response to Jesse Helm's charge that the NEA funds obscenity, Brustein speaks out against "the homophobic revulsion and sexual loathing" (2) brought to America by the Puritans. Richard Philp, who wrote "Again: Renewal of Congressional Efforts to End Funding of National Enowment of the Arts," uses similar language to address the reason that Conservatives oppose the NEA: "Artists sometimes put people off because they can be uninhibited critics of society and its sacred cows, and they are known to traffic in scary stuff like passions and emotions" (2). Referring to the Christian Action Network as "cultural strip miners," Greene says they have "used the arts as a scapegoat for virtually every social concern imaginable...(and) revel in their attempt to recast the NEA's commitment to cultural excellence and diversity as a terrible threat to their new world order" (1). Ridiculing Sonny Bono's assertion that the NEA never assisted anyone he knows in the arts, Brustein stated that "perhaps too few American artists are spending enough time in Palm Springs cocktail lounges. If Bono thinks that his singing had something to do with the 'arts,' it's no wonder he wants to kill the NEA" (3). He also claims that problems associated with the NEA would go unnoticed if there were enough funds to go around, but that "federal funding for the arts will have no clout and arts policy no definition until President Clinton makes more of an effort to speak out strongly on their behalf" (5). Referring to recent Congressional voting, Philp looks at the NEA debate as "one of the thorniest political and ideological struggles in Washington since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Viewed rationally, it seems peculiar that an underfunded arts agency would generate this kind of heat" (1). This form of pathos serves the proponents' purpose by appealing to our sense of social pride and the diversity of cultures, by showing that charges against the NEA's effectiveness are myopic in scope, and reinforcing the argument that the NEA debate has become little more than an insignificant political bargaining chip in the battle over taxpayers' votes.

Veith uses pathos to support his argument that state funding restricts our freedom of speech. He uses the failures of the former Soviet Union and the French Academy to support artistic expression through state funding without imposing a directed culture as a warning to Americans not to follow in their footsteps, appealing to our sensibilities regarding communism and aristocracy. The NEA, according to Veith, differs only in degree from those two arts establishments, resulting in "another kind of directed culture that interferes with the free development of the arts" (4). Addressing the argument that the NEA should support "the great art that fails to win appreciation in its time," Jonathan Chait, ("Illiberal Arts: A Progressive Case Against the NEA") asks, "Why is government more capable than the marketplace of spotting great art? Government is accountable to the majority, and...(the NEA's) survival depends on elected officials, and so its taste in art naturally gravitates toward the middle-brow" (2).

The NEA was one of many programs instituted as part of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," whose theory "was that the central government should increase its power and its responsibilities in order to address national problems...The federal government would direct the economy in order to eliminate poverty" (Veith 4). While eliminating poverty is a noble cause, achieving it through directing the economy is dangerously close to directing the entire culture of our nation. Boaz says the bottom line is "politics is about the individual's relationship to the state, pure and simple" (1), and asks whether or not American citizens truly make their own decisions regarding spending, school choice, books to read, medicines to take, and other life choices. "Because it is not the natural order of things for someone other than you to make those decisions about your life, the political society is of necessity based on coercion" (Boaz 2). The opposition's use of pathos serves their purpose by appealing to our most fundamental rights as American citizens: our freedom of speech through the free market of ideas and our right to choose.

The opposition uses pathos more convincingly than the proponents by appealing to the broader based emotion of personal freedom. They touch something of significance to more people, while the proponents attack individual persons with whom their audience may or may not previously agree, narrowing their field of potential allies. In addition, Brustein's critique of Sonny Bono's talent is an ad-hominem fallacy that detracts from his argument.

The opposition does a better job of accomplishing their goal. By focussing on how state funding of the arts fails to foster the development of the arts without imposing a directed culture, their approach builds to a logical conclusion that the free marketplace of ideas is where "various points of view can compete with each other and individuals are free to accept or reject them" while the NEA's "patronage of contemporary art permits little aesthetic or ideological diversity" (Veith 6). The proponents rely on too many statistics based on claims that could support either side of the debate, and personal attacks on public figures and partisan ideologies that are difficult to dissuade, while their appeal to the diversity of cultures actually supports the opposition's argument.

Sources:

Boaz, David

"The separation of art and state: who is going to make decisions?" Vital Speeches, June 15, 1995 v61 n17 p541(3).

Brustein, Robert

"Mend it, don't end it." The New Republic, Oct 6, 1997 v217 n14 p29(3).

Chait, Jonathan

"Illiberal arts: a progressive case against the NEA." The New Republic, Sep 29, 1997 v217 n13 p14(2).

Greene, Michael

"The Arts vs. the 'Contract with America.'" Billboard, Jan 13, 1996 v108 n2 p6(2).

Jensen, Richard

"The Culture Wars, 1965-1995: a historian's map." Journal of Social History, Mid-winter 1995 v29 nSUPP p17(21).

Moen, Matthew C.

"Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts: institutional patterns and arts funding, 1965-1994." The Social Science Journal, April 1997 v34 n2 p185(16).

Philp, Richard

"Again: renewal of Congressional efforts to end funding of National Endowment of the Arts." Dance Magazine, Sep 1997 v71 n9 p7(1).

Veith, Gene Edward

"The National Endowment for the Arts: liberator or warden?" Current, Nov 1995 n377 p15(6).