Wouldn’t thus not funding any applicants reflect some “bias” by definition, too? Saying “none of this is worthy” is as much of a choice as is “some of this is worthy, some of this is not”.
Not in the same way. Not funding any says, “We are not in the business of funding art, however worthy it may be.”
I certainly am. I didn’t warn you.
Did the musical get an NEA grant?
Which is a statement on the worthiness of art; no matter how worthy it is, it isn’t worthy of our funding.
The only difference is where the line is drawn. “This art isn’t worth funding, this art on the other hand is worth funding.” vs. “No art is worth funding.” And “all art is worth funding”, I suppose, at the other end. A choice of “nope, none” is as inherently reflective of bias as “all!” and “that, but not that”.
Thanks septimus, this was really classy. I appreciate it. 
I dunno, but it is art. Or so some say. Or so Trump fears.
The mind-set of conservatives on this matter is hard for me to understand. I hope Bricker and other right-wingers will answer the following questions to help us understand where you’re coming from.
(1) The government prescribes the use of public lands like Yellowstone Park. Would it be better to sell (or give?) this land to entrepreneurs so that the Free Market can determine what its best use is? Why shouldn’t the Lincoln Memorial, Statue of Liberty, etc. be made profit centers?
(2) Just as the NEA was injecting its biases into the art world, so school boards inject their biases into education. What use are history classes for most jobs, anyway? Shouldn’t the Free Market determine curriculum? Students (or their parents) should be able to replace History classes with Computer Game Playing or Objectivism if that’s what they want.
(3) What about NSF projects like the Billion Dollar LIGO boondoggle? Surely if a few thousand dollars to support the National Choral Conference is begrudged, then this Billion is lamentable waste — the money could have been spent to build 500 Tomahawk missiles. Yes, a portion of LIGO funding will advance technology, but that’s not government’s job and anyway, much of the NEA funding may advance social sciences, humanities, community spirit, and even foreign relations.
Do the anti-NEA people concede that NEA programs are often desirable, but want to severely limit the scope of government? Would the anti-NEA voices be happy if similar programs were operated by state governments? Is it just a "states’ right " issue, a generalized fear that Washington has too much influence over local (“red state”?) cultures? Much of the NEA money is used to leverage state programs: do conservatives object to such “leveraging” on principle?
Of course Trump’s abolition of the NEA is just the tip of a horrendous iceberg. The Party-in-Charge also wants to eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Should the Smithsonian museums be sold to the highest bidders? Trumpists and other conservatives — Please help us understand the New America.
I’d rather view “Piss Christ”.
Remember when the market was going to take over science programming? Why should you fund PBS when you have TLC and Discovery. Now look at them, Finding Bigfoot, UFO’s, NASA’s unexplained files! Nova and Nature are worth the entire NEA budget themselves.
No.
This is the fallacy of equivocation.
The original complaint I made was that the government was picking and choosing types of art over other types of art, making what I contend is an impermissible choice for the government to make and using the spending power to introduce a bias towards types of art.
Your formulation is bias against the funding of art as a government activity. Yes, no question, if the government does not fund art, it would be biased against funding art, but that’s not the sort of impermissible bias that I was postulating.
No, it’s still the former, even if it falls under your personal view of impermissable on the latter as well. The bias would be against all art. The picking and choosing has selected none; the spending power has introduced a bias against 100% of the choices.
It’s not just biased against art in general. It is also biased against all the particular selections. A choice of none is not simply a rejection of the premise; it is also a choice of none. The government is still picking and choosing, even if nothing ends up in the “acceptable” pile.
No. I don’t think there is a meaningful analogy to be made between public land and the creation of art for art’s sake.
There is a dramatic (ha!) difference between the role of state and federal governments. I invite you to recall that state governments are exercising plenary sovereignty and the federal government limited, but supreme in its bailiwick, powers.
Typically, school boards are a creature of state government, and as a general principle, school boards are elected and indeed are responsive to local desires for Objectivism et al.
I don’t agree that the government’s job excludes “advancing technology.” As a consumer, one that must raise and support and army and a navy, the government is absolutely an interested purchaser for technology.
What NEA funding advances social sciences?
Spending to advance foreign relations makes sense, but that’s a function of the State Department. And I’m afraid I’m unmoved by your passionate defense of community spirit.
Speaking for myself, I’d certainly be amenable to a state-level program.
Again my own view: it’s not so much the amount of influence, but the role of the federal government in selecting art, period.
No, the Smithsonian should remain as it is.
There is no “picking.” If they looked at all the art and rejected it all, then, sure, you’d be describing the process fairly. If there is no office and no funding, then there is no “bias” in the way you’re describing.
Prior to the creation of the NEA, did this bias you describe exist?
Sure there is; it’s just automatic picking. Everything fails. It’s still hundreds of thousands (or however many) of individual decisions as part of the big one; it’s just the inbox is set up to say “Sorry, we aren’t funding anything at this time. Please don’t respond to this email”.
Rejection of all is a rejection en masse and a rejection of each single application.
I’m sorry, I don’t know enough about the history of art and government in the US to answer this question.
It is the privilege of the patron to discriminate. The later Guelphs preferred to have Zoffany and Mrs. Kauffmann to portray them than Gilray or Rowlandson.
There’s nothing wrong in selection.
No: it’s no answer. The building is closed; the windows shuttered; the server disconnected. It’s the distinction between “we aren’t funding any projects this month,” and “we don’t fund art projects.”
That’s fine.
There is an old game called Mumblety-peg. Per Wikipedia, one variant of this game is “The first player attempts to stick his knife in the ground using some unusual technique, such as behind the back or off his knee. If successful, the second player must duplicate the feat. In some cases, just getting the knife to stick at all can be the objective but in others, the players attempt to stick their knives into the peg or as close to it as possible.”
Would you say the federal government is biased against this game? They have never funded it. There is no agency to fund it, no grants (so far as I am aware) for mumblety-peg exhibitions, no work-study programs to develop mumblety-peg proficiency, nor have there ever been.
Do you hear of this and believe that it’s fair to say the federal government is biased against mumblety-peg?
And I asked you for a cite for that assertion, a request which so far you have ignored.
Why do you believe that the distribution of NEA funding for different types of art is somehow disproportionate to or a distortion of the different types of art for which artists are actually requesting NEA funding? Show us the numbers, please.