Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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> Government funded culture” is literally how all of Europe and Canada pays for their culture

America isn’t Europe. For one thing, it’s not nearly as culturally homogenous. More Americans want their state to leave the union (about 1 in 4 nation wide) than people in Basque Country want independence from Spain (about 1 in 6). The French have an idea of what “French culture” is and what’s desirable about it. Americans have highly divergent views on what is American culture or what’s desirable about it (or even if anything is desirable about it). In practice, the NEA and NEH end up funding not “American culture” but “coastal urban culture.”

Now, I happen to like coastal urban culture. My wife and I take the kids to the MOMA when we’re in NYC. But a federally funded agency picking sides in an active and ongoing culture war is wrong. The government shouldn’t be putting a thumb in the scale when it comes to influencing the evolution of culture. But that’s exactly what NEA and NEH end up doing in practice. They hand an elite cultural minority a $300 million a year platform.

Is it really the governments job to fund culture? I think there are plenty of folks willing to contribute without the need for tax dollars.

Maybe. However, that yields art in the private interest. The people shouldn't have to hope for the scraps of the upper class to showcase their culture.

Ultimately, this leads to exactly what the parent is worried about: a culture of the coast for the coast. I doubt that the "coastal elites" are out in Louisiana and Nebraska paying for art galleries, or even interested in showcasing rural work in urban galleries. That's solved via broad-based social contributions.

> a culture of the coast for the coast.

The people who don't like the NEH / NEA are arguing that that's what they're getting already. Only now, the people in Lousiana and Nebraska are being forced to pay for it as well.

The people on the coasts don't get any benefit out of rural broadband initiatives but it got funded anyways... People outside of the eastern corridor don't benefit from I95 being resurfaced, people outside of texas don't benefit from national park funding there.

The US is a country, not everything directly benefits everyone - the NEH and NEA actually do funnel quite a bit of money into the center of the country, but their funding is lopsided toward urban centers because those are the locations that attract and can sustain artists. But, tomorrow, someone from LA can head to NY, become an artist, and work on qualifying for a grant - they can secure a grant where they are if they can demonstrate their research topic and get in contact with the NEH.

> The people on the coasts don't get any benefit out of rural broadband initiatives

Don't they though? Those are new potential customers and users. ie. market growth?

And I’m arguing that the problem isn’t who’s paying it’s where that money ends up; and destroying the whole thing throws out the good with the bad.

I think it is the governments job to fund culture in the same way it's their job to fund science, education, and public transportation. Government funded cultural projects help society by bringing its citizens together in a productive, collaborative way.

We can't push and both say "You folks should do this fun stuff for free" while concurrently cutting the social safety nets and, tbh, you get what you pay for. If all the artists are forced to either peddle for money or have a main gig for food and shelter then they have less time to devote to art. In our modern (i.e. not subsistence agrarian) society, we have the excess needed to fund these things and to allow people to specialize into artistic professions.

Currently there is a lot of comedy out there for free(ish) if it became more heavily capitalized, and there were constant steep costs to consume comedy, what would we lose out of society? Nothing super important, the trains would run, factories wouldn't shut down, but we'd lose a source of expression and joy that helped up think differently and approach hard questions in life... Art adds value to all of us and it's so insanely cheap to fund.

I don't see the reason both can't be done. Historically, prosperous societies produce more art. We may not be producing as much art in classicly prestigious formats like paintings, pottery, etc. But one look at the entertainment industry seems to refute the idea that art needs to be sponsored. I simply don't see why we give this significance to certain forms of art as if they fill a societal hole that no other format could. Your example of comedy was perfect because the manifestation and growth of standup comedy is a good example of how new arts can come into being without needing some sort of state sponsored intervention.

All of the private wealth sloshing around needs a home. Art is a great place for some of it.

That's like, your opinion man.

With "All of the private wealth sloshing around needs a home" there are lots of homeless who needs a home?

Alan Lomax-like folk & traditional arts programs (and actually sometimes Lomax himself IIRC) don't exactly scream coastal urban culuture. And I've never seen more arts grants looking for projects (nationally sourced, locally administered) than when I was living along the Wasatch Front, which is only coastal if big inland lakes count.

I'm sure the NEA does end up funding coastal urban culture because... a lot of people live in urban centers, maybe even an above average population of artists, so there's lots of art that happens in that context. And those of us who live in that context will probably see even more of it.

But even living in an urban center now, I see a lot of art that looks towards other places and times in the United States, and the people I know creating/practicing art do too. Where I've encountered elitism it's almost always adjacent to the private art market and/or certain historic treasures, and even in that context you will find people who fit the general rule that most of the arts-involved are some of the most open people I've met, as curious about shape note singing as conceptual art.

In fact, I suspect most of them would find your conception of art as culture war odd. It's possible that you're the one who needs to get outside any MOMA bubble and look around more.

Again you've missed my point. I'm saying where the money comes from is irrelevant if left in the hands of the folks in each state to create and showcase what they consider is their culture. The problem you identify is based more on how it's spent not where it comes from. It's much more interesting to tweak the former than throw it all out.

>… But a federally funded agency picking sides …

There are three articles suggested for further reading on the "City on a Hill" excerpt. One is about Henry Louis Gates Jr. in quite a contrast to Perry Miller.

NEH ends-up funding a wide gamut instead of being a kingmaker. In fact it funds a lot that would not be paid for otherwise. When criticizing something it's best to critique the thing for what it is rather than what it is imagined to be.

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