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The following appeared in an article in the Grandview Beacon.
"For many years the city of Grandview has provided annual funding for the Grandview Symphony. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony’s concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Given such developments, some city commissioners argue that the symphony can now be fully self-supporting, and they recommend that funding for the symphony be eliminated from next year’s budget."
“ Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to beanswered in order to decide whether the recommendation and theargument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how theanswers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation. ”
In this argument, some city commissioners argue that the symphony can now be fully self-supporting, and they recommend to eliminate funding for the symphony from next year's budget. These commissioners' recommendation comes from the facts that symphony has earn more private contributions and attendance. Although this argument seems logical at first glance, but after considering the process of reasoning, it has some critical flaws.
First of all, some commissioners argue that because private contributions and attendance has increased, the funding for symphony should be eliminated. We may ask some questions about this reasoning: Does private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent really mean a lot of increasing in the amount of the contribution? Does the increase of attendance and not means symphony can now be fully self-supporting? It is possible that funding from private contribution is very low, thus an increase of 200 percent means not much. And it is possible that raising the price of tickets is a not much profit action but just because of the supply-demand relationship. Thus these evidences may not persuasive to justify the recommendation.
In addition, is statistics from a one-year period enough to justify that private contribution will continue increasing or will sustain in this level? It is possible that the increasing of whole economy of the nation and the private company result to private contributions' increase. And this increase may not be sustainable in the next few years. So it may not be a good evidence to justify the increase from private contribution and attendance in the long run. Therefore, eliminating funding of symphony may be not appropriate.
What's more, even if it is possible that symphony can support itself, is it appropriate to eliminate the funding for symphony? Maybe only under a combination of funding from the city, the private contribution and the attendance could the symphony improve the quality of itself. Thus, it may be not appropriate to eliminate funding for symphony.
To sum up, although the reasoning behind the recommendation seems logical at first glance, the recommendation mentioned above is not based on valid evidences and persuasive reasoning. In order to prove the quality of this recommendation, more statistics and evidences of eliminating funding for symphony should be expounded.
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发表于 2012-2-5 11:56:03
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