You do realize that the NEA has an entire category called “Folk & Traditional Arts”?
And they even have specific award categories like “Challenge America: Reaching Every Community”
Incidentally, from 2016 NEA grants
So there’s your watercolor :).
It’s interesting to browse through these grant awards. I’m seeing a lot of stuff like
-Arts camp for autistic kids
-Directions for high school teachers on how to create poetry slams, with an emphasis on empowering high-poverty teenagers
-Art therapy programs for veterans with PTSD
-A program to bring a chamber orchestra to visit schools during their national tour
-A program to bring Spanish and Latin American theatre performances to areas of New York with large Latino student populations, where access to theatre is otherwise limited.
Measuring arts impact is very difficult. Here’s the NEA’s approach; an example from an arts-education program:
If you stipulate that the federal government has a role in education, surely a program that achieves results like these is within the government’s purview. I’m not prepared to do a cost-benefit analysis for this particular program, but I offer it to demonstrate how arts education can have real, tangible benefits, in addition to the intangible benefits.
That’s your weird stereotypes talking. Of course bluegrass and folk arts deserve NEA funding and, as noted, they do get it. I would think pretty much every supporter of the NEA considers folk arts to be deserving of preservation and funding. It’s part of our national culture and identity. If anything, I’ve been seeing more and more of your “lib elitists” taking renewed interest in American folk art.
I wonder how much is due to the older-school conservative notion that funding the arts isn’t really within the purview of government without actually being opposed to the arts, vs. the more recent idea (as far as I can determine) that they’re generally opposed to the arts in a fundamental way.
I mean, there’s a difference between being all for the opera, and having a philosophical notion that maybe the government shouldn’t be funding artistic things, or for that matter, a whole host of other things, because those things aren’t within what you think is government’s role, and being opposed to opera because it’s elitist, upper-crust nonsense or the like.
Huh.
I need to do more reading, but I may be changing my mind on this point.
(highlighted relevant portion)
This is the part that seems to be in doubt. We had an election, the small(er)-government party won that election, and now our elected officials get to decide whether they want to put a small amount of money into funding arts. So far, it sounds like they probably don’t, but we’ll see. I thought they wanted to repeal ObamaCare, but it seems that I was wrong about that (at least so far), so there’s some glimmer of hope for your side still.
Full disclosure: there are some grants that at first blush look like they might be the sort of thing you’re criticizing–funding for opera companies to “build community,” that sort of thing, that have no clear method for bringing arts to underserved communities. If conservatives want to ensure that the NEA doesn’t ever function to reduce opera tickets from $120 to $100, for example–still keeping the tickets affordable only for the wealthy–I can find some common ground there. To the extent that it’s transferring tax funds to subsidize wealthy folks’ enjoyment of the art, I’m not down with that.
But fixing this sort of poor spending, AFAIAC, involves fine-tuning the agency, not shutting it down.
Agreed.
There are two questions: is the grant process is need of correction, and is the entire concept of funding the arts flawed?
Prior to this thread I believed the answer to both questions was ‘yes.’
Having reviewed the facts you and septimus offered up and the arguments arising from those facts, I concede that funding the arts, as a concept, makes sense from a federal perspective and the necessary changes are to the grants process.
So, I’m changing my mind.
It is probably not fair to even mention ObamaCare when talking about items like the NEA.
A unilateral action by a single governmental body, (the executive) spend 6X the budget of the NEA with a single attack that launched Tomahawk missiles.
The US exports for culture are about $750B a year, and the republicans main reason for wanting to defund the NEA is to quell unpopular “speech” or expression.
My grandfather, a coal miner turned highway worker use to attend every local play and watch every single Opera on PBS. What the GOP is doing is to destroy government support for the creation of talent that results in improved lives for a high percentage of Americans, both rural and urban, in order to silence a small number of unpopular views.
Note the objection Bricker provide above about the writing retreat on Whidbey Island. While most likely unintentional he is arguing that there is no value in producing non-fiction content that is targeted at informing the electorate about women’s rights in the middle East, the spread of AIDS in Africa, inner city violence in America.
Bricker argument seems to be, at least on the surface, that because this is a group of Women who may label themselves as Feminists that the government shouldn’t fund that type of work.
The risk of this type of political rhetoric, that transcends party lines, is to silence those who actually share common goals purely due to them belonging to a group that a minority faction finds distasteful.
I am quite sure that even the most fervently conservative groups in the country would like to see Women have more rights in the middle East and to help reduce the spread of Aids in Africa. I know that Trump campaigned hard on inter city violence.
After interacting with him a lot I think Bricker would change his mind with more information but the less informed opponents are tend to also belong to groups that are fearful of sharia law. The effect of this type of campaign is really no different than sharia law as it is pulling funding to punish those who do not share a particular religious belief.
You can easily search for results here.
https://apps.nea.gov/grantsearch/SearchResults.aspx
I challenge anyone to find a grant which is capable of reducing Opera ticket prices that much in a major metropolitan area.
This claim is pure rhetoric, and the max grant I can find in any major city that even matches the keyword “Opera” is only ~$25,000 and that was Aaron Davis Hall, in Harlem.
I very much doubt that the “Elites” are gaming the system to save ticket money on a performance from a city collage in a poor area.
I think that’s a fair analysis, and I in turn am open to ideas for fine-tuning the grant process. And folks say Internet debates are never productive!
Bricker has taught me a lot over the years (although I have to tease him my record on guessing SCOTUS outcomes is better 
)
But I would say that this is the difference between a debate and an argument in my personal definitions. To debate you have to be open to losing, if you lose it is still a personal victory because you learned something.
That said I want a cite showing that the grant process is broken. In theory the government shouldn’t be controlling what “speech” happens, and it should encourage new and maybe controversial ideas and art. This is critical to us being a leader in cultural exports which is big business. If the process was made too conservative (process not political affiliation) it would risk actually causing a chilling effect.
While just opinion I would hazard to guess that tutorials in grant writing would be more effective if there is a disparity than any attempt to restrict content.
But at this point I haven’t seen cites that show that there is any issue outside of people who disagree on what “Art” is for them. If I missed a cite showing objective issue with the process please point it out or provide a new cite.
Because its main adherents are people with the IQ of a carrot.
This is the sort of unhelpful ignorant stereotyping bullshit that I wish were limited entirely to my opponents.
I hesitate to use the word “courageous” to describe anything that happens on the Dope (not meant as a criticism of the SDMB, just that posting anonymously on the Internet is a relatively consequence-free exercise), but if I were to label something here “courageous” it would be this post, and posts like it. It’s acts like this that raise the level of discussion here and make this place worth coming back to and spending time at. Thank you for having the decency and consistency to call out BS even when it’s not easy. 
Heh, my initial response was “Because they’s dumb,” but I harbour no illusions that this is helpful.
b-o-o, h-o-o.
You’re welcome, but I don’t think anything like bravery is related. It’s really just about not being apathetic enough. Usually I see ignorant posts like his, roll my eyes, and scroll down, but occasionally I’ll take the time to call someone out for it.
Don’t cry, fix your shit.
@ Bricker — I don’t think I can “debate” this topic with you further. Our standards of evidence, logic, community, and humanity are too divergent for progress. I do hope you will indulge me by answering a few questions to help me understand your point of view.
(1) Key to your position, I think, is that states have plenary power, but the federal power is strictly limited. Pretend, if you can, that there is no Constitution, that we have a Union of good-spirited people much as the present U.S. but lack a written Constitution and are trying to “feel our way” and devise a good “unwritten” Constitution (perhaps as the U.K. has gradually done). Would you still oppose the NEA?
(2) Given that the federal government is proscribed from such programs, but states are allowed to form their own Endowments for the Arts, would you oppose such state Endowments as still contrary to the proper role of government? Of course, about 70% of the NEA grants wouldn’t make sense at a state level, but among the 30% which would make sense, or rather that subset of the 30% which applies to a particular state (say, Virginia), about what portion would you recommend that your Virginia Endowment of the Arts fund? Most? Some? None?
(3) While the NEA has strived to be non-partisan, am I correct to assume that in your view a Virginia Endowment for the Arts, if any, could or should select its grantees to promote the political purposes of the legislature’s majority?