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Issue80
40:38
Nationsshould suspend government funding for the arts when significant numbers oftheir citizens are hungry or unemployed.
Shouldnations suspend their funding for the arts when significant numbers of theircitizens are hungry or unemployed, as the speaker contends? I basically agree.After all, effective governments must address the most pressing social issuesfirst. However, the speaker also ignores certain compelling reasons thatsupporting the arts can, in turn, help to solve these issues.
Tobegin with, I agree that the speaker’s claim is on the correct philosophicalside of the issue for several reasons. First, given that the resources arelimited, governments should be careful about where their funding goes andsometimes cannot satiate all the different fields in short of funding. This issad but true. It is necessary that governments take a realistic stance whendeciding the allocation of their funding. Secondly, it is undoubtedly thathunger and unemployment are issues more pressing to address than the developmentof arts. After all, according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the basic physiologicalneeds such as subsistence and safety are the bricks at the bottom upon whichhigher needs such as esteem and self-actualization rest. Without satisfying thebasic needs by eliminating starvation and unemployment, families involved willkeep on suffering. It is hard to imagine how would these people come from suchfamilies possibly have the mood to enjoy arts produced to reflect the beautyand harmony, which, in their eyes, are nothing but cruel lies. Besides, acountry where significant numbers of its citizens are hungry or unemployedcannot possibly has an active and flourished market for the development of arts,which is a bottleneck that cannot be solved by governmental funding and theabsence of which renders the money invested in arts impossible to operate. Onthe contrary, the same money would have gone a long way through addressingpoverty and unemployment. By addressing these problems, the art will beappreciated by a larger audience and hence possible to thrive.
However,despite being reasonable, the speaker’s statement is premature, ignoring themerits inherent in art and the fact that hunger and unemployment cannot beeasily addressed by inputting more money. After all, hunger and unemploymenthave been enduring conundrums ever since human society was first formed.Throughout the human history, the problem of hunger and unemployment, althoughhave been ameliorated, have never been eliminated completely even once. The reasonsof hunger and unemployment, such as global economic atmosphere and localpolitical system, cannot be fixed in the short run while, on the contrary, itis always art that helps people to pull themselves together to fight against suchsituations and stimulate critical reform.
Adoptingthe speaker’s recommendation will lead to a developing world where mostcountries in that category suffers from hunger and unemployment with no nationat all that will continue funding the arts and therefore citizens in the thirdworld, despite hungry or not, despite employed or not, are all deprived ofcertain rightful interest of enjoying arts and getting inspired by artssupported by the government, which amounts to a significant portion of publicfree arts there. The only access to arts funded by private groups will soonturns to be prohibitively expensive and not widely available. As a result, the well-beingof these citizens is undermined and the potential reform that might beenlightened by art vanished.
Inaddition, there are feasible ways to help alleviate hunger and unemploymentissue aside from suspending the funding for arts. For example, the governmentcan undoubtedly cut down its unnecessary budget to make room for necessaryfunding to address those issues by downsizing or cut down peripheral expensesor by simply urging every official to be more sparing. The speaker’s statementhas such an underlying assumption that arts cannot help alleviate such issueswhile this is not the case. It is universally acknowledged that arts industryis a massive modern industry that offers a great many job opportunities. Thinkof the Slumdog Millionaire, whose production employed hundreds of poor peoplein the slum area. Consider how many jobs will one Hollywood offers?
Finally,the government’s funding for the arts is so important that suspending it willlead to the decrease of the overall utility. Without public support, it is lesslikely for arts to be displayed widely for public enjoyment. Without publicsupport, the overall arts atmosphere will be less active and as a result thecitizens will be less creative and happy. It is also important for governmentfunding for arts to support those programs targeted at teenagers, who are thefuture backbone of our society. Lacking enough nurture from arts they will beless likely to develop well-balanced personalities.
Insum, despite seeming reasonable to adopt the speaker’s recommendation, it is potentiallyharmful to do so. The influence of governmental funding for arts is sofar-reaching and so vital that the suspension of it will lead to untoward results.In the final analysis the potential hazard of adopting it outweighs itsbenefits. I think the speaker’s recommendation is not only unfeasible but alsoill-conceived so I disagree with him. |
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发表于 2013-3-16 12:53:52
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