Of course, nearly everybody thinks they are paying more and getting less than most everyone else. Hell, if Dick Cheney, a man who almost surely owed his cushy CEO job to his Washington connections (and who did manage to handsomely increase Halliburton’s government contracts) can say, “the government had nothing to do with it” in reference to his own financial situation, then there are truly no bounds to this sort of sanctimonious attitude!
That’s not the point, milroyj. The point is that there are those who don’t drive cars, and every time you drive, you are stealing from them, because they pay part of the cost for your roads, and pay to give you low-cost gasoline. You are stealing from every American who does not own a car, by your own standards.
I disagree. Every consumable item, including welfare checks, are ultimately delivered via roadways. Roads serve everyone and are probably the best example of a self-serving tax.
People who don’t drive cars don’t pay registration and license fees, gasoline taxes, tolls, etc.
Who am I stealing from, exactly?
Which was my point. A healthy, well educated population serves everyone and is good for the country. Thus, taxes for these services are self-serving. I also believe that funding for Arts and Sciences are also in the interest of the country as a whole; therefore, taxes to support them are also ultimately self-serving.
If I could foretell the future, I’d buy a lottery ticket. But based on Bush’s performance over his term of office, I would guess that I probably will be better off with Kerry at the helm.
How does “Art” benefit anyone? It is so subjective as to be virtually irrelevant. Paying someone to insult me with a Cross in a jar of urine is not art, it’s social commentary at my expense.
If an artist is worth seeing it is worth buying. Let the market display it for profit.
I find it interesting how you and those of a similar ilk pick 3,5, 10 or whatever small number of controversial art pieces and then consign ALL art to the same category. Art is a huge subject encompassing many different styles and types of work. Some you may like, some (or many) you may not. Others may feel differently. Therefore, what you think is “worth seeing” may not be what I feel is worth seeing. But what if I am in charge of art in the world and my only criteria for displaying art is what will people pay to see? Well, you would face a very limited and redundant repertoire of pieces and styles, none of which you may appreciate. Government support of art eliminates the simplistic pure profit theme you allude to.
You don’t sound like you have had much exposure to a variety of art. Or perhaps you are just trying to make your point by isolating, again, a relatively few controversial pieces? In any case, should you want to take a tour through the history of art, you might want to look at this art timeline link which will allow you to wander though many periods of art history. Perhaps you’ll find something interesting. Now, if the sole criteria for the value of art was only what people would pay for, most of what you’ll find at this link probably would have been destroyed long ago.
Appreciation of art is a major part of what makes us human. Art has been part of the human experience since the earliest recorded history, from cave drawings to personal ornaments made out of polished stones or teeth of animals killed. An interesting theory HERE is that the act of drawing, such as the pictures made of animals on cave walls 30-40 thousand years ago were the precursor to developing a spoken and written language. So without art we may not have developed language!
A person unable to appreciate art or its value in and to society is a person without soul.
Finally, here’s an excerpt from a good overview on the value and need for the arts in human society (LINK)
Perhaps you didn’t read my previous post?
Art does not just benefit the artist. It stimulates people’s minds. Suppose the government did not pay for sculpture, for example. There’s a very famous sculpture of a guy sitting in a chair in Washington D.C. Millions and millions of people have visited it. The image of this sculpture is on one of our coins. People all over the world have benefited from the message this sculpture brings. It has brought about social change by reminding people what it means to be American. Without government support for the Arts, the Lincoln Memorial would not exist.
Public sculpture, often or usually supported by government funds, sends a message to people. Sometimes the message is one the government wants to send. Sometimes the government just wants some decoration. But whether it’s to inspire the public or just to make things not so drab, Art serves a purpose to the public. It often becomes a symbol af America. The Statue of Liberty (a gift, though the base was, IIRC, paid for by bonds) is art. What good is it? Maybe we should never have accepted it? Maybe we should just tear it down?
But as I said before, art stimulates the mind. Much of the social change in this country came about because of music. Without rock’n’roll, what kind of country would we be today? It was not supported by public funds, but you can’t deny its power. Why did the government send people like Glen Miller overseas during WWII? What good did Miller and other entertainment (art people!) do? Did they bomb Berlin? Did they shoot any enemy soldiers? No. But I’ll bet that if you asked most people who were there, the government support of the art of Music was important to the war effort.
But the most important thing about art as it relates to the economy is, as I’ve already said, that it generates new ideas. How many people have gone into a publicly supported museum and have seen one work of art or another, and thought, “Hey. That gives me an idea!”? An artist may make some bit of modern sculpture, and an engineer may see it and think, “Eureka! I can modify my machine by doing this!” Then these people, inspired by Art, go out and create a new widget that is useful to many people and which is profitable to them.
Art is good for society. It is good for the economy. It is good for the human condition. “Piss Christ” is offensive; no doubt about it. People make jokes all the time about modern art. “That urinal is not for use, sir. It’s an exhibit!” But you know? I’ve never seen such things in a public museum. Offensive exhibits are few and far between. To say that “Piss Christ” represents the art world is like someone saying that all [insert ethnic group here] are criminals because one of them robbed a liquor store, or that all people who live in trailer parks are slack-jawed yokels because a few of them have pink flamingoes in their yards. Most art is not offensive. Most of it is meant to inspire. (Indeed, even “Piss Christ” is meant to inspire; though I personally find it in very bad taste.)
Some art is incomprehensible. Many people don’t understand it. Yet the act of trying to understand it is beneficial. Trying to understand things has the effect of expanding the mind. The image of this thing that cannot be understood remains in the minds of many viewers; and it may result in a very profitable innovation at a later date. You may not invent a new mechanism because you saw some piece of sculpture in a museum; but others might. And you might benefit when you buy the new widget. And stores will benefit by selling it. And the inventor will benefit from its proceeds. And the government will benefit by taxing the inventor. And those taxes will go into the General Fund that supports our roads and other infrastructure.
Put another way: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; For want of the shoe, the horse was lost; For want of the horse, the rider was lost; For want of the rider, the battle was lost; For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost; And all for the want of a nail.” I doesn’t matter to you, at the time, that some schmoe lost a horseshoe nail. But it does matter to you when, for want of that little nail, your country is defeated. Art creates a ripple effect. One piece or another may mean nothing to you now. It may be so incomprehensible to you that you wonder why anyone even bothered making it. But each piece has the potential to caue great change. And without change, comes stagnation. With stagnation comes decay.
Art is beneficial to a country. Sometimes it’s beneficial financially. Sometimes it’s beneficial socially. Sometimes it’s beneficial personally. And this is why it should be supported.
These fees and taxes don’t even begin to cover the costs, by a wide variety of estimates. (See, for example, this Sierra Club pages for references to various studies.)
This thread has gotten way off-track from the OP. Maybe there should be a new thread like Is Art good for the economy? or Should taxes be used for programs not everyone uses?.
But I’m out of time, so I’ll have to leave that to someone else.
Then you are in the same position as every other business owner in the free world.
Right, just like the limited and redundant repetoire of every other consumer product in America. Which fully explains why every car in America is a black model T.
So you are saying that those cave paintings and jewelry would never have come into existence without a large federal grant?
Regards,
Shodan
So many righties, singing the same song…“mememememememememememmineIIIImememememememMinemine minememmeIIIIIIImememememememememe”
Hey, at least when a rightie says “me” or “mine”, he means it. When a leftie says “me” or “mine”, she means everybody else’s.
Stoid: There is no virtue in spending other people’s money on things you think are important. Unless you volunteer for soup kitchens or voluntarily give your income to charity, you have no right to call other people selfish because they don’t support the kind of forced redistribution of wealth that you might support.