During my time in Anchorage with the leaders of state arts agencies, the issue of ”public value” was still very much in play. Many state arts agencies had done extensive rethinking and planning around the public values they promote. And new communications strategies and publications were spreading this new word to legislators and constituents.
But it occurred to a few of us there that defining and exclaming the public value of arts and cultural activity (ie, the value to a broad public, even those who do not participate) was really only one half of an argument for public sector support of the arts. The logical progression we seem to assume is that once a public value is proposed and supported, the next obvious step is to sustain or increase public money to the cause.
That last step is no longer an obvious one to all.
Pretend for a moment that everyone agreed there was deep, rich, and enduring value in the availability of cultural opportunity — production, presentation, preservation, expression. There would still be plenty of reasons to reduce or eliminate public sector support. Many believe that it’s not government’s role to promote a great society, or to ensure equity and access to a better world. Rather, government is there to do as little as it can, to stay out of the way of the market and social-sector enterprise which are much better suited to the task (not my belief, but a common one).
From this perspective, we could easily see large groups of legislators say, ”Yes, we believe the arts are a powerful part of our community. So important, in fact, that we shouldn’t entrust them to the least effective and efficient sector. Best leave them to the private and social sector, where their health is better served.”
My point here is that even the best expression of the public value of arts and culture won’t, necessarily, improve the state of public funding for the arts. Rather, we also need to emphasize the next part of the argument — when and why public sector action is truly the best way to support that value.
UPDATE OF 9/29/06: A thoughtful and frustrated reader forwarded a link to this editorial, exposing the challenge of the ”second half” of the argument above. Even if you convince government officials and taxpayers that the arts are great, essential, and valuable to all, you might easily get this response:
The framers of the Constitution never intended for local governments to act as charities. If officials give to 501c(3) organizations, they are choosing not to give that amount to schools, law enforcement or any other necessary function of government.
Local government should raise only enough money to fund its own services. If it has money to donate to charitable enterprises, then it has overtaxed its people by at least that amount. Allowing people to keep more of their own money would enable them to donate of their own free will.
So, how do you respond to that?
And also what action, if any, is the best way. The default assumption seems often to be that “it would be better if the government gave more money to the arts”. This may be true, but it also may be true that the bulk and weight of government may be put to better use than merely providing dollars.
Thank you for this thoughtful analysis. Although I believe that government has an obligation to support a myriad of artistic expression, I hope that as this conversation continues we will not confuse a financial commitment to art with aesthetic judgment or decision-making about the forms art may take.
Neither arguments as to the public value of the arts, nor why government support is the best way to support that value, is going to do very much to win that support — the issue is politics and special interests. Like it or not, the arts are a special interest. You either have the political clout to get what you seek (money or something else – with or without restrictions), or you don’t. The arts don’t. While we have progressed (and making strong arguments is valuable to our cause), we still don’t have the political power necessary to get what we want. And all the good arguments in the world are not going to change that reality (the only exception being when there is so much extra money — surplus — that they don’t know what else to do with it).
In these discussions I often think of the day-long train trip my wife and I made across Spain from Barcelona to Bilbao to see Gehry’s new museum. During the endless, boring ride I kept saying to myself, “This cannot be worth it.” But it was! That building — the combined effort of local (and national?) government, private philanthropy, endless city controversy, artistic and architectural turmoil, egotistical empire-building by the director of MOMA, and God knows what else — transformed a city now self-defined in significant ways by its local pride in the structure. It transformed the discipline of architecture. In a non-trivial way it changed my life (not to be over-emphasized). The same must be true for the pyramids, the cathedrals, the library of Alexandria . . . and your local cultural program, whether large or small?
“Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir humanity’s blood . . .” Daniel Burnham, US Architect, 19th century.
With sufficient vision, the funding may fall into place. With luck the inspiring outcome will make the division among sources may seem irrelevant.
If those projects are too bold and big for the circumstances, how about considering the definition of a milliHelen: beauty sufficient to launch one ship?
Apply the milliHelen strategy to a beautiful little project, lovingly conceived, engagingly imagined, presented as an obviously efficient — even Spartan — self-contained project that inspires a single philanthropist and is welcomed by an enthusiastic local audience.
Is that a milliBilbao? Or perhaps a microBilbao (one millionth)? a nanoBilbao (one billionth)?
This mini-government argument is the gist of a book I read some years back, “What It Means to Be a Libertarian.” After assimilating the data supporting the author’s contention that when government steps in, private philanthropy steps out–of libraries, of education, of social services, of emergency response etc., it finally dawned on me, “Well of course! The philanthropists have raised public consciousness to the point that public support is ensured, so they can now turn their attention to the next needed reform”.
To be sure, public support has its problems (“He who pays the piper calls the tune”). The question for us: do we want public support of the arts in spite of the attendant problems?
We could consider the relevance of this question to that of public support of religion, but let’s not get into that explosive issue.
It seems to me that government’s overriding obligation is to create a quality of place and quality of life for its citizens, and that it cannot fulfill this basic responsibility without funding arts and culture. It’s too easy to say that it’s not government’s job, but you could just as easily say that about 90 percent of what government does these days. It would seem that Americans would learn the lessons from our visits to European cities. They are rich, meaningful experiences for the very fact that government does appropriate regular funding for them because they are seen as a fundamental role of government itself.