In the recent news, Many people are frustrated with Donald Trumps new budget plan and the most outrage seems to be going to the axing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As an artist myself (A Novelist and Playwright), I want to talk about why this might actually benefit everyone more than hurt everyone and my opinion with this.
Most of my friends and some of my family members really care and support the CPB, with channels like NPR and PBS giving all sorts of entertainment for everyone. Whether you listen to comedy podcasts like Wait, Wait, ... Don't Tell Me, or seeing the lovely items on Antiques Roadshow, no doubt both channels have good shows to offers whether introducing us to Downton Abbey and the Nobles who must change in the 20th century, enjoying the comedy of Garrison Keillor and his musical friends on A Prairie Home Companion show, or enjoying the murder mystery antics on Poirot, Marple, or Father Brown, both channels have something to offer. However, there is a main point still needed to be said about funding the arts. What is the government's role in it? My answer is that Government has no duty to fund the arts, we as the consumer however, do.
In the history of the world, the great artists of their times were funded by multiple patrons of the arts, whether be the Medici family supporting the Italian masters, Queen Elizabeth II personally funding William Shakespeare, or even today's Patreon, people have funded the high arts since its conception. Sites like Patreon, GoFundMe, and Kickstarter help give publicity to many artists, some of which I want to fund but sadly don't have the money. (However, I did help a fund for Tim Schafer's Psychonauts 2 being a fan of Tim's since playing and discovering Psychonauts.) And it allows more people to fund them personally for loving the art they make whether be video game making for Undertale, making fan art with artists like Sakimichan, or movies like horror/black comedy film Director's Cut. The internet age has allowed many of us to become the patrons of the arts we wanted to be. We decide to chose who we believe are worthy in our investments for their art in a way previously not possible. However, this is my main reason as to why I believe government shouldn't have a say in art. Because we don't get to chose who deserves our money.
For those of you who don't know my opinion in taxation, it should be all voluntary. (Of course I know that will hardly ever happen but give my idea a chance and realize taxation is theft pure and simple please) But when it came to our taxes now, we don't chose who deserves our money to be funded. People have various opinions of art and should decide themselves how to appropriate their money. Having someone steal their money to fund another isn't what should be happening but it is. Art Galleries, Artists, and others have used the CPB and other arts related programs to fund their projects without personal opinions from others. Of course people use the argument of the public good but really, the public good is nothing equivalent to the individual members who decide for themselves which projects they want to fund with their own money. For example, I personally abhor abstract and postmodern art of any kind whether be abstract paintings replicate Jackson Pollock's schizophrenic style, sculptures where balloon animals are enlarged with no real purpose, or architecture that changes their style way too much to be recognized for functional purpose over odded-aggrandizement. Personally, I feel postmodern art is not meant for anyone but the artists to understand as some sort of condescending reaction to patrons of fine art and just give the taxpayers the middle finger and contort art to some ugly, unappealing, and schizophrenic form insulting the rational mind. (That itself sounds like a postmodern artwork) For people like me, we have no say to funding these artists and are personally ignored over some oddities in a museum that should be dedicated to bad art. We as patrons have no say in what we want for our art and if we disagree to fund it, we can't. As well as this, they also abuse the system to give themselves private and public money, aggrandizing themselves without a serious look at whether their art is of true merit and theiving from people like us.
Defunding the arts allows more power to the U.S. citizenry to decide for themselves the essential philosophical question of What is Art? The government obviously has no taste in art and should have no say to decide what we can fund and what we can't. And there are so many places and people we can find to see if we can make a wise investment in their art.
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