When I first heard the term “limousine liberal” I immediately envisioned the crowd outside the Kennedy Center.
I have spent the second half at the bar more times than I can count. They’re not supposed to keep the bars open but my brother-in-law and I tip well.
The chorus or the patrons?
I think they trend liberal at the Kennedy Center.
Whose high culture?
From what I can tell, high culture mostly means stuff that came out of Europe.
I don’t have a problem with the government funding PBS but opera, ballet and concerts are exclusionary almost by definition.
Does high culture only come from Europe? But when we talk about high culture, we are mostly talking about Europe right? I think that les miserables and the beatles will be around centuries from now. I think that a lot of movies and books will be around centuries from now. Of course they will only appeal to a small group of elitists who look down their noses at holodeck adventures and jacking into the simulated environment on the galaxynet.
Speaking as a former impoverished music student and current performer - yes fucking please. Better to have a full house of appreciative music-lovers than a half-empty one full of shallow idiots.
Mind you, better shallow idiots than no one at all.
I admit to hyperbole, but as a performer you can tell the difference between an audience that genuinely understands and appreciates a performance (and indeed can differentiate between a good performance, a mediocre one and a great one) and one where they’re just clapping because the music’s over.
Right hand clapping into left hand, the audience is approving and appreciative. Left clapping into right, audience is celebrating their endurance. Both hands clapping into each other, the audience is a three year old child or schizophrenic.
In most places, a standing ovation is a gesture of fulsome approval and appreciation. In Minnesota, however, it only suggests that the audience believes your mother is in attendance, and they don’t want to hurt her feelings.
But your evening wasn’t spoiled by a liberal’s lack of understanding of personal responsibility. It was spoiled because you were irritated when others expressed opinions contrary to your own.
No, and that’s not the end of the analysis in any case.
My irritation was not that “…others expressed opinions contrary to [my] own,” but that they were free to voice their opinions when propriety apparently mandated my silence.
I think his evening was ruined by someone spouting political views in a polite environment where such things should not be done. Same with someone holding forth with religious views in a neutral setting. Half time at the opera is not the place for a political rally, no matter which side you fall on.
I suspect Bricker overestimates the number of liberals in attendance at the show but ideally he shouldn’t be able to tell political stance of anyone there.
I don’t mind funding PBS and having PBS or some PBS subsidiary pay a fee to broadcast opera, ballet and concerts but subsidizing the cost of tickets is like subsidizing champagne.
The PBS point is pretty important because I think you can subsidize something that is subject to wide consumption like PBS but subsidizing concert tickets just seems like subsidizing a “luxury”.
PBS is non-exclusionary. The poor can watch PBS just as easily as the rich. The poor have limited access to opera at the Kennedy Center.
A) why doesn’t PBS achieve that access better than subsidizing $200 tickets?
B) How does it lead to a stronger nation?
Whose culture?
I am pretty OK with the smithsonian and PBS. I would be OK with a subsidy of a touring national orchestra and ballet company.
Yes, of course the charitable deduction is effectively a subsidy of the charity but its no more directed at Opera than it is directed at Saddleback church.
National pride? There aren’t that many American operas (we just call them musicals and they don’t need subsidy because they are awesome).
I thought the point was that these arts don’t need subsidies in large cities.
Yeah, I agree. I also agree that we should reform the charitable deduction.
As one of the shallow idiots, I think most of the shallow idiots don’t want to be there any more than they want to watch Muriel’s Wedding or Bridget Jones’ Diary.
Its not that I don’t appreciate orchestra music, most of my favorite movies wouldn’t be the same without it. The Darth Vader music evokes a Pavlovian response in me. But I can’t just close my eyes and appreciate the music the way other people seem to be able to. I certainly don’t get anything out of watching some dude flailing his arms with his back turned to me.
Its like having a good cheese with my wine. It definitely enhances the wine but usually means little by itself.
No – in fact, her stare reminded me of correct social convention. Had she not been there to stare, it’s true, I likely would have voiced my own political views in response. But then I’d have been guilty of a lesser version of the same offense as they were.
The really classy thing to do would be to get would be to get all your super rich right wing nut job buddies to gift a billion dollar trust fund to the Opera. Then no one would be able to whine about the lack of government funding, because the Prima Donnas wouldn’t need any. Problem solved.
In case it wasn’t clear, that crack about France was a joke. There’s a case to be made for a smaller US cultural budget. And I’m not personally fond of opera. But given the small scale of the subsidies, it’s not clear that yanking public support for the Kennedy Center would result in ticket price increases over the long or short run. It could plausibly result in less public outreach.
That’s a valid consideration. But again, I question whether the ticket subsidy is a significant one, leaving low income outreach programs aside.
Hollywood, a huge exporter, benefits from a wide and deep artistic talent pool. Parts of that talent pool are less directly commercial, but they arguably benefit the whole.
Great civilizations produce great art. That’s pretty much a tautology. As for who decides what great art is, we discussed that upthread. A: There’s a rough consensus on these things and I can point to wikipedia. In all fairness though, the distinction between high and low art is quite frankly dated. If I truly was convinced that opera was wholly the equivalent of Jaguar or Ferrari production, then I would oppose its subsidy. But I don’t accept that commercial value is the sole measure of artistic merit: I see these as separate criteria. And I want my country to produce the latter as well as the former, for separate reasons.
I believe I addressed your main points, DA: let me know if I’ve given something short shrift.
Well given the time you’ve spent on the staircase you should know that snappy retorts are but one option. A far better response would be humorous and [del]caustic[/del] light (what I might do) or eloquent and diplomatic (John Mace’s preferred approach).
