Latest / The Junto Podcast / E48: Who Decides What Art Is? Taxpayer Funding, NEA, and Free Expression

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E48: Who Decides What Art Is? Taxpayer Funding, NEA, and Free Expression · The Junto Podcast

0:10
Hello, America. Welcome to the Juneto podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thank you for.
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Hello, good people. Today, I want to talk about the arts and the government.
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I think there's a lot to be said. I have an interest in both,
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and I think there's a lot to be said for the topic. So I'm going to share my thoughts with you.
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In this episode, we're going to explore the government's role in funding the arts.
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And I'm going to weigh in with my opinion on, well, both arguments really for
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funding the arts via the NEA or against funding the arts with taxpayer money.
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And then I'm probably going to ask the question throughout this entire episode,
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four, five, six times, who defines art or who defines the value of the art?
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All this, obviously, from a slightly libertarian perspective,
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which I kind of put that on everything.
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So what if The government decided which books you could read Or which music
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you heard All under the guise of supporting culture.
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Does taxpayer funding Truly liberate and enable the arts Or does it selectively promote,
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some works while suppressing other works. I don't know.
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Are the arts essential to society at all? Well, you guys know that I believe they are, right?
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If you've listened to any of my stuff before, you know they are. I think they are.
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And if they are essential, which I think they are, should taxpayers fund them?
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Yeah, that's the question.
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I'm going to use, well, two main sources I'm using for this is,
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well, the Constitution, the enumerated power.
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You know, in a lot of episodes, I refer to the enumerated powers.
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But specifically, we're talking about Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8.
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And then there was a brief from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.
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And for the rest of the time, we're just going to call that NASA.
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Yeah, not to be confused with the Space Agency, NASA.
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And that document was entitled, Why Should Government Support the Arts?
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And they were basically making a case for it, of course.
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So first, well, we're going to broadly define the arts and their connection to the Constitution.
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That's a broad term, isn't it? And I've attempted to do this before,
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but I'm going to try to do it again The arts encompass a vast scope,
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folks, of creative human expression Music, and that's all music,
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I'm talking, you know, jazz, improvisation, you know, symphony orchestras.
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You know, even a busker out on the street corner with his hat out on the street.
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As far as music goes, visual arts, everything, right?
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Abstract paintings, murals, the Crog Street Bridge.
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There's so much. It's hard to even, sculptures, photography, yep.
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Old school film and digital, it's still art, you know. literature.
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I mean, my God, literature, it's so vast in itself.
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Poetry, even do graphic novels even count as literature or comic books,
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even they kind of, yeah, it's all art, digital arts.
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Yeah. These days we have, you know, all kinds of app game, video, are video games art?
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I think so. A lot of creative effort goes into those.
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And then we saw, you know, the rise of the NFT recent, you know, a few years back.
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NFTs, it's digital art.
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What else? Traditional arts. Frigging, you know, Native American frigging totem
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poles and beads and elaborate headdresses.
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All that stuff is, that's art, isn't it? Yeah, I think it is.
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Or African masks, the traditional tribal masks.
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And they have elaborate beadwork and ornate, you know, like traditional ceremonial stuff as well.
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Performance arts. Yeah. They're all very broad, right? Ballet.
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Any kind of dance really is interpretive art. What about, hell, mimes,
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It's a performance art, right? Mime out on the street or the statues,
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the metallic painted up dudes standing still like a statue. That's performance art, isn't it?
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What about your kid's third grade Christmas play?
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Yeah, man, that's it. It's art.
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It's all out there. Art in all its forms saturates our world.
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Not just about it, I mean the world. And it should, as it should.
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Art represents innovation, represents cultural identity, and almost most importantly,
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free individual expression.
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Because behind every piece, there is a struggling artist who may be completely
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insane or completely impassioned or whatever.
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The U.S. Constitution addresses this in Article I, Section 8, and Clause 8.
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This grants Congress the power, too, and I quote,
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To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing,
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for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective
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writings and discoveries.
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Yeah, how vague is that?
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Well, Congress achieves this, by the way, through copyrights and patents and things like that.
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And those copyrights and patents protect intellectual property and they create
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sort of a market incentive if you earn a living off of your art.
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You guys remember all the kerfuffle over like Napster or whenever way back in
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the day when Metallica was all upset because people could download their music for free.
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Well, I mean, there's two sides of that coin.
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But I believe the constitutional approach of art is right and correct.
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You should be able to do patents. You should be able to protect your intellectual property.
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Yeah, especially if you put the creative power or effort and whatnot into it and the resources.
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But what does Clause 8 not do?
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Well, it doesn't mandate or authorize any direct subsidies or funding.
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And historically, useful arts, as written in the Constitution,
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referred to practical innovations.
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And like literary works.
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But, you know, interpretations of that very broad phrase, they evolve because
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it is such a broad phrase, useful arts.
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So that raises the question, who defines useful art?
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Is it the artist or the creator who gets to decide that?
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Well, I'm sure they do have an opinion on that.
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Does the free market get to decide what useful art is? Or in the case of government
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funding, is it some faceless government bureaucrat?
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Now, think about that for a moment as we get into this.
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The National Endowment for the Arts came around in 1965, and it was created
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as an independent federal agency underneath a bill that got passed called the
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National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act.
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And that bill was enacted during the presidency of Lyndon B.
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Johnson as a part of his great society initiatives. And you guys know how I feel about that.
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But it was a massive government expansion. Well, why not create another government
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agency that required funding?
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But since it's been formed, there have been some controversies via NEA.
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I think there was one somewhere in the 60s, and we'll hit on that in 64, I think.
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In 1964, there was a case that went to the Supreme Court, and they were,
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I think it was a movie theater that was showing, well, what was then affectionately
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known as blue movies or stag films,
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and everybody was in an uproar.
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I went to court, the theater maintained that this is a freedom of speech.
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And the famous quote that came out of that case was, well, what is pornography?
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Well, I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.
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I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.
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But later on came controversy over a couple of works of art.
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And I've just, I've talked about this one before.
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There was a, there was a piece in the late eighties.
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I can't remember what year. And it was, it was called, the artist was Andre
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Serrano and it was called Piss Christ.
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And it was a crucifix submerged in a, you know, a big like vat of urine.
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And was it tasteless yeah i think so
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but well anyway that that
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was funded via nea that that whole
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sort of series that he did was was funded via nea and then during that same
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time frame if you guys remember robert maplethorpe and his works were controversial
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maplethorpe was living in New York city and was a homosexual.
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And he did a series of photography and put the, and these were out,
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you know, in like, in, you know, studios and whatnot.
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And they drew a lot of heat. I mean, one of them, you know, it was like a black
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dude in a, in a nice business suit, Armani business suit. What is,
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what is giant cock hanging out?
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And, you know, that was some kind of commentary on, you know, I don't know what,
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and one of them was Robert Mapplethorpe himself dressed in some,
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you know, leather stuff with a tennis racket hanging out his anus.
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Was it tasteless? Yeah, it was tasteless. Should the government fund that?
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Should the NEA have been funding that?
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Well, that created a outcry. And during that time, it sparked congressional
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debates on decency and standards.
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And during that time, there was a lot of censorship talk.
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And also, and that was, let's see, who's president?
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It was George Bush, number one there, H.W.
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And there was a lot of controversy around decency in the art and the funding of the art anyway.
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And that's when they invoked that I know it when I see it, you know what I mean?
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And the LGB community, you know, they got in an uproar because they were invoking First Amendment.
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This is First Amendment right. We have a First Amendment right to this is say,
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you know, this is an impactful thing.
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But they put a decency clause into the NEA sort of restricted funding from explicit
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or pornographic type stuff.
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Whichever side you take on that, I want you to understand a thing.
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If you give the government power to feed you, you give the government power to starve you.
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So no one was arguing, well, I'm sure Jesse Helms was arguing their right to
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be able to make that art at all.
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But what the argument was, was should the NEA be funding it?
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So should they have been dependent upon that art?
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I don't know how much money it takes to take a photograph and print it off and
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hang it up in a gallery, but it's not $20,000, $30,000.
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But at any rate, continuing on, they ended up putting a decency clause in there,
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and they got defunded on that.
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Well, who determines what qualifies as art under government funding?
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Is it elected officials and bureaucrats or public pressure from a voting bloc?
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Yeah. Whose metric applies? Is it whatever the majority cultural norms are?
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Or do we explicitly, exclusively promote minority perspectives?
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Or is there some kind of magical universal standard to apply to that? Who knows?
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Well, you know, when the government's involved, if anything is for sure is that
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you don't get to determine the metric.
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And during those cases with Serrano and Mapletor,
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Jesse Helms, who was a congressman, but like an extreme, the evangelical type,
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he argued for common decency based on traditional values.
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And then the artists fought back with First Amendment rights to challenge,
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you know, to challenge societal norms.
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But does government involvement in the arts inherently impose subjective values,
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which in turn potentially excludes art that is uncomfortable or extreme or avant-garde
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or whatever, or critical of the government even?
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Well, common sense will tell you, yes, government funding always comes with
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strings attached, right?
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Am I right or wrong? Government funding always comes with strings attached.
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So let's explore arguments for taxpayer funding of the arts through the NEA.
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Now, NASA, we said, not the space exploration.
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The NASA brief presented, they did, the brief was good and it was very thorough.
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If not, it was a little contradictory at some points, but they had sort of an
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evidence-based approach to make the case for taxpayer funding.
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And one they pointed out that states already provide
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some funding for their arts at the
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state level and that it's largely supplemented by
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federal only supplemented by federal dollars like that federal money isn't the
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only money going in that it's it's a mutual effort and so some of the things
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they point out in that in that brief is the economic factors and they argue
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that arts generate jobs, right?
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So let's say the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, that employs X number of musicians
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and, or even local music for that matter, or like tourism at festivals.
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So in the 80s and 90s in Atlanta, there were tons of festivals.
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We had the Atlanta Arts Festival and the Jazz Festival and the Dogwood Festival and all these.
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So the tax revenue and the tourism revenue from things like that.
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They argue couldn't be possible without taxpayer funding.
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And then they argue the educational factors where programs kind of enhance skill
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in whatever arts, for instance.
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Like y'all, I heard this as a youth and I did this as a young man,
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like theater initiatives, For instance, like if you take theater and school,
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you will vastly improve your public speaking.
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Well, I took theater in college and at Fayetteville Technical Community College.
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Mr. Lee Yop was my instructor or professor, whatever.
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And I was about 20-something, 24 or 5, and he said that I was already –.
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I was playing a role in, I want to say, Our Town. We were doing a little thing.
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And I was one of the characters that was meant to be sort of a naive teen boy.
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And he said, look, man, you're already too jaded to play this part.
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I couldn't even fake the funk to play a bright-eyed, naive young man.
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Anyway, educational factors. Let's see. They pushed, they talked about health and wellness factors.
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And some of us know that like the PTSD recovery road, people,
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not even just veterans, but anybody recovering from any kind of like trauma.
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You know, art is very helpful, whether it's music or physically doing art yourself, painting or whatever.
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So they argue that, and I think that's a good argument.
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Then they talk about the civic or the community aspect of it,
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where art projects kind of help boost and build community.
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When you see like these like public
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murals that you do in your little small town you know
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things like that that either you know have some historic theme or some theme
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of of people you know famous people from this town or just whatever all kind
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of stuff right so they argue that community building aspect.
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And I like, you know, something that's right.
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And then obviously cultural legacy, right? Especially when,
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heritage, right, for like Native American crafts and things to teach the history
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of that and to show the foundations and stuff.
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That's all, to me, all legitimate stuff.
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And you think to that, okay, great. And if you're a solid, hardcore libertarian,
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you're like, well, why can't the private sector suffice in this?
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Well, NASA argues that the markets, the free market favors like.
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Well chases profit and favors more
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popular art and it leaves the little
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guy out in the wind or like rural like rural artists and and works go underfunded
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because they're not hot and popular they're not in the center of the city you
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know in atlanta they're not in a hub of a major metro the metropolitan area.
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So what they're arguing is that the government, here we go, ensures broad access
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to counter elitism by supporting diverse programs.
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What does that sound like? To me, that sounds like just a form of DEI.
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And it's arguable that the NEA is an early form of DEI because at any given
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time at the High Museum of Art, you know, they promote African-American artists
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like nobody's business.
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I'm not going to say exclusively, but yeah. So is that good or bad?
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Well, some of you might think it's good. I don't know.
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And for these proponents of government funding, then we ask the question still,
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again, who defines art and its value?
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Well, the people who, NASA, for instance, are the people who strongly advocate
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for government funding or taxpayer funding. There's no such thing as government
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funding, folks. It's all taxpayer funding.
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They say NEA peer reviewers base their decisions on merit rather than politics,
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but then in the same sentence say that prioritizing social impact over individual tastes.
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So if you're basing your decision on merit, but prioritizing societal impact,
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yeah, we're going back to the DEI model.
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But then they also emphasize that art, the arts in general, are nonpartisan
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and that they garner a lot of bipartisan support. And that...
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And they suggest that there's some kind of collective public values somehow reached there.
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I argue that the collective has no value. It's individuals.
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And do 360 million people have the same values and things like that? I say no on that.
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So they're toward the end. And then there are peer reviews, right?
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Well, in the NEA, who are the peers?
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What does appear to a government agency? Is the NEA made up of a bunch of artists
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who just now became government people somehow?
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And then some of the critiques that the NSA or the NASSAA counters with,
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well, the arts are elitists.
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Well, NASA has, I mean, they got numbers that show that there is broad participation in the arts.
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Mind you that we broadly define the arts, right? Live music,
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visual, digital, the whole works.
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So they have, I mean, good numbers of data showing that, yeah, a lot of people.
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And it's not elitism at all. There's all the whole spectrum of the financial scale there. Thank you.
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And then there are people that say, well, why fund the arts?
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The arts are irrelevant in times of, I don't know, economic recession or natural
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disasters or things like that.
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And, well, they argue that the arts actually help in economic recovery,
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you know, post-recession or post-disaster.
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And they got numbers in that briefing that they got there.
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They got numbers in that, and that looks legit to me.
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So all these points I just made, I think they make pretty decent points.
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I'm not a big fan of this diversity program stuff.
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Inherently, the arts are diverse. But at any rate, they make good points, I think.
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But now we're going to look at the arguments against taxpayer funding. And again, I'm...
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It's kind of libertarian, but here it goes.
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Just on the broad philosophical grounds, all taxation is theft.
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And you guys know, just in my last episode, we talked about Frederick Bastiat and the law.
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And taxation, our taxes going to support the arts is coercive.
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And that it forces individuals to fund other individuals' preferences and it
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violates our property rights and our voluntary exchange.
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Yeah, I believe that to be true. However, more so than that is that anything
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the government touches,
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it creates inefficiencies and it creates market distortions with zero actual
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feedback on what is useful or efficient or wanted or needed.
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And all it does is lead to waste.
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All the government does is it creates waste and inefficiency.
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So the government might be given some little art organization,
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you know, $50,000 a year, and they're putting on shows that nobody goes to see because it's garbage.
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They have zero talent, but the government's funding them and they're riding
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it and they're, oh, we're artists or whatever.
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And the market's not driving it. And then in that case, right,
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the government does what the government does. It fosters dependency.
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So now you've got an artist out there, let's say with zero talent.
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Let's say this person shouldn't be an artist at all. They need to go get a job.
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But they're getting this $50,000 a year for this art project.
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And they might be living kind of frugally, but they don't even have a job because
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they're making enough to live and do their art.
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Well, that ain't what the government exists for so that you can just live and do your art.
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Needs to be value somewhere. And the market needs to dictate that, in my opinion.
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So the government's paying these people instead of audiences.
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And if you're doing art just for the sake of doing it, and it's not a means to make a living for you,
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then don't accept government money to do it, just to stroke your inner creative.
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So the question is, can the arts survive on private funding alone?
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Yeah, absolutely they can. Absolutely they can.
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Now there's historical examples of that all the way back to the Renaissance, right?
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Michelangelo was supported by the Medici family, almost exclusively.
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But modern day what do you got what do
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we got we got crowdfunding right there's all
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sorts of means for crowdfunding now you got
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your kickstarters and and your indiegogos and you got all these things all these
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web-based things that help people and then you got social media where people
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can market themselves and help to raise money for their thing i'm a strong believer
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that if you put it out, there is an audience.
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There is an audience.
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You look over the lifespan of the Kickstarters and the Indiegogos and all that,
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and look how much money has been raised for various things, man.
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It's just millions and millions and millions of dollars.
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And private philanthropy outpaces government funding in the arts, I mean, already.
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So if it's already outpacing government funding, then why not, right?
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Then why does the government need to fund it? But there's plenty of sustainability
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through voluntary demand and not government.
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Now, this being said, investors and people who give up money usually want something
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in return when it comes to business investments and things like that.
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But I think when it comes to art, if your art drew the attention of someone
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and they're willing to invest in you, I think they're apt to let you continue on.
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Your art drew their attention to begin with, right?
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So if you're doing something that they're already attracted to,
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they're more apt to stay hands off and let you keep doing your thing, right?
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And that happens a lot when a private individual comes to an artist.
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I like your work. I would like you to commission a work. Here's the general thing.
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Put your flavor on it. You know what I mean?
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So I think private funding and private philanthropy is far more robust than
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people give it credit for,
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and arguably that some people just don't want to go out and do the work for
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that. It does require work, by the way.
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So in this sense of non-government funding, right, private, who defines the value of –.
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Yeah. Here's the ugly phrase that a lot of lefties don't like.
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The free market determines the value.
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Yeah. Government fingers allows politicians or agencies to impose definitions.
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And those definitions are influenced by congressional majorities or lobbyists or whoever,
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just like in the 80s with the restrictions on obscene art, because that was
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a bunch of hyper-conservative congressmen or senators.
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And they censored, yeah, based on, well, they censored sexually explicit stuff,
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but they also censored LGB stuff as well.
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So in contrast, the private markets, yeah, they let individuals value art via their dollars.
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If obscene art sells, then it has value.
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That's just it. If some dude or some couple goes to an art museum and pays $30,000
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for a picture of Robert Mapplethorpe with a tennis racket sticking out his butt,
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well, it had value to them.
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If a private citizen goes and commissions an artist to do a bronze sculpture
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of Frederick Bastiat, nobody else on the planet may give a crap about that statue but that guy.
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But that statue has value to that guy. Right? That's it.
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Artist. Now, I got to say this. I fancied myself an artist for a while there.
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Not in practice as far as making money, but in spirit.
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And nobody's harder on an artist's product than the artists themselves.
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But if an artist produces something that he values and considers,
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yep, this is a piece of me, then the art has value.
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If that art was manipulated by government coercion, then the value is tainted.
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True value comes from voluntary choices, not imposed standards.
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And why as artists would we want 51% to dictate to the 49%?
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That's what the government does, essentially. And then what's some of the broader
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harms coming from this government influence?
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Well, an artist is essentially self-censoring in order to secure a grant or
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to get X number of dollars.
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And whether it's subconscious or conscious, they are then undermining their
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own freedom of expression, folks.
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If you check yourself in order to get money, then, again, even if it's subconscious,
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you're still undermining your freedom of expression.
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And I think this is a good explanation for the old starving artist cliche.
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Those artists out there with, like, true hardcore integrity,
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yeah, those jokers are out there eating ramen and they're working three, four gig jobs.
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Yeah. So why would you want, I mean, one, maintain your integrity, I guess.
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That's, you know, also you got the starving artist. And what's the opposite
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of the starving artist? The sellout, right?
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People are quick to label people as sellouts also.
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Meanwhile, you're sitting in your shitty studio apartment eating ramen noodles.
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Now, look, the people who advocate for taxpayer funding, I can acknowledge that
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there are some benefits to the taxpayer funding in the sense that,
34:51
like, if my taxes, I'm involuntarily paying taxes anyway.
34:57
Anyway, if they got to fund something and promote the arts, then let's do it via the Constitution.
35:07
Okay. If the NEA exists anyway,
35:11
then I prefer to fund it over other agencies like, I don't know,
35:16
the CIA, the IRS, the EPA, the DOE, the DHS, the TSA, FCC, CPA, HUD.
35:25
And never mind UN and NATO, right? And all those.
35:29
There's only about, you know, 400 odd agencies out there that could disappear,
35:37
and that'd give us more money to fund the arts or whatever is stated in the constitution.
35:44
Now, that being said, folks, that being said, the 2005 budget for the NEA was about $207 million.
35:55
To the average human, $207 million is a lot of money.
36:00
And the scope of the federal budget, that is a piss drop in the ocean.
36:09
So the NEA isn't really taking up that much money.
36:13
I'm not excusing it, and I'm not saying we should fund flippant projects because
36:19
they're under a certain threshold.
36:22
I think all things that are considered waste, fraud, and abuse should go away.
36:28
But the NEA, well, it does exist via law, but so does every agency.
36:34
But as far as the constitution goes the there is it does say promote the arts at least,
36:42
useful arts it says so at least that's in there so yeah if it's got to exist
36:49
why not fund it i think art is as important as any of those other things especially
36:55
the department of education i I think it could all be privatized personally.
36:59
In an ideal libertarian world, well, ideally in a true free market,
37:05
support for anything comes forth without any coercion.
37:11
Could have individual and corporate sponsorship of things.
37:17
Everybody gets mad about corporate sponsorship.
37:20
And yes, sometimes there are strings attached with the corporations too,
37:24
but guess what? You're not beholden. You know what? If they don't want to give you money, fine.
37:29
Just like with the government, right? If you don't want to give me money, fine.
37:32
Be able to do without it. There are individual philanthropists out there who
37:37
will, If that's where you're at, if that's what you're looking for,
37:40
to get these artistic programs on the move.
37:45
And then there's the trade-off always. Sometimes you have to bend your integrity
37:53
a little bit on one project so that you can spend money on another project.
37:58
And that might be a little disingenuous to the people giving you money.
38:01
They think, oh, well, but, you know, there's always, I'm not mad on people that
38:07
work the system either, really.
38:09
I'm mad at the system for being workable.
38:13
But whether it's government or corporate, what's a core risk?
38:18
Yeah, that's right, that control, that censorship through dollars.
38:24
It's kind of a trap, isn't it?
38:26
You kind of beholden to whoever's giving you the money unless you,
38:31
you know, straighten those parameters out very early in the game.
38:35
And it gives the government or the corporation or whoever leverage to withhold
38:40
support if they don't like what you're doing.
38:43
And that creates, whether it's direct or indirect, it creates censorship.
38:50
Back to those examples of the NEA, you know, the censorship stuff in the 80s
38:57
and 90s, they ended up putting a decency clause on all that,
39:02
that eventually was ruled unconstitutional,
39:06
but it stood for 10 years or so.
39:10
But, you know, when you put the decency clause in there, somebody's got to define
39:14
decency. So who does it? Here we go again. Who defines?
39:20
If you guys are seeing a pattern, it always comes back to, well,
39:23
who gets to define what is art?
39:25
What is decency? What is value?
39:29
Yeah. Even the NEA, now we're not going to use the current administration.
39:37
Everybody hates Donald Trump. Everybody hates on Donald Trump.
39:40
Even within the agencies, they hate on Donald Trump.
39:44
Washington and Virginia and all that up there is just becoming a liberal mess.
39:52
But even conservatives are hating on Donald Trump. Okay.
39:55
So let's say just during a normal administration, right? The administration has priorities.
40:03
And the NEA, they're going to kind of They're going to go along with those priorities
40:09
and whatever panels of experts they have determining what peer-reviewed things
40:15
they get funded, they're still biased.
40:19
They're still biased.
40:21
So all this subjectivity that gets added on to your art based on who's funding it.
40:28
That's an affront to your liberty and freedom of expression because values shift,
40:36
especially with politics.
40:39
Imagine if an administration defunded your project that's been getting funded
40:45
for years because they found it critical of government policy or something like that.
40:52
And then you got a private gallery who's getting funded by the NEA who's freely
41:00
exhibiting, you know, pornography as art.
41:05
And look, folks, I'm not being judgmental here.
41:09
I still think erotic art is art, right?
41:14
I'm not going to attempt to put my definition on what art is,
41:17
but I'm just telling you.
41:20
And art, this is one of the goodness, the good things about creation is that
41:28
it does elicit strong feelings one way or the other.
41:34
So imagine you getting defunded by the government and then the government funds
41:38
your equal and opposite.
41:40
And that pisses you off. But then the administration changes and then vice versa.
41:45
Now you think, well, it's good that I'm getting funded and F that guy.
41:48
Yeah, all it does is create, perpetuates the blue team, red team stuff. We don't need that.
41:57
So from what I think is a libertarian perspective, the state really homogenizes art.
42:03
It really takes the juice out of it, right, and creates safe and bland works
42:10
of art over challenging works of art.
42:14
Whether whether they'd be pornographic or
42:17
violent or just topical on
42:20
political things what would be a
42:23
challenging work of art if a chinese man in
42:26
china painted a picture that was
42:30
clearly anti-communist well yeah what would happen what would happen so you
42:38
can have strong works of art it doesn't just mean pornography right so don't
42:43
get that in your brain And then nevermind music and things like that.
42:47
Some of the best music ever produced in the rock genre came from the protests,
42:54
the Vietnam war protest music from the Vietnam war.
42:59
And right, wrong, or otherwise, whatever side of the war you came down on,
43:04
there are patriots walking the streets today who listen to, you know, Fortunate Son. Right?
43:13
So, yeah.
43:16
And then the people who are pro-government funding, they point,
43:19
you know, they say, well, you know, peer review, and it's going to prevent a view.
43:23
But history, if history shows us anything, is that if the government's involved,
43:29
there will be political interference eventually.
43:31
It will inevitably happen.
43:34
All right. So what do I say? Now, there's not a real problem.
43:39
So I'm not proposing a fix to a current problem unless you just consider government
43:45
funding of anything to be a problem. I mean, I kind of do. bit.
43:49
So how do we move forward with the arts free from government coercion?
43:56
Well, I say this.
43:59
I say that we, over the course of time, I don't know, three,
44:03
five years, we phase the NEA out.
44:08
Now, the states are autonomous, or they should be autonomous,
44:13
and the states can fund what they want to fund.
44:15
That will be a state battle. I'm talking about at the federal level here.
44:19
Phase out the National Endowment for the Arts. Get rid of it.
44:23
But maintain the constitutional, you know, protections for intellectual property
44:28
and free speech, because that's a redundancy, right? That's a redundancy.
44:33
The Constitution doesn't, the National Endowment for the Arts doesn't protect your art.
44:40
It just adds more restrictions onto it. The Constitution already has intellectual
44:45
property protections, and it already has the First Amendment,
44:49
free street speech protection.
44:51
So let's go back to that.
44:55
Promote voluntary funding, like crowdfunding or philanthropy or the free market.
45:02
And if I had any advice to give to artists, it would be, you know, diversify, man.
45:10
Do things like, a lot of these people have a Patreon where, you know,
45:14
it's like a subscription-based thing.
45:16
And, you know, even if it's a couple bucks a month or whatever,
45:20
that stacks up. And then you could sell your art.
45:24
The social media is a way to promote your goods.
45:30
And if you're trying to make a living via art, that's a good way to do it.
45:35
Post your stuff up in different places. One of my favorite coffee shops here
45:38
in Rome is Swift & Finch, and they always display art from local artists,
45:45
and it changes periodically, and it's an awesome thing.
45:51
So diversify where and how you're getting your stuff out there to other humans.
45:56
You know, and go pitch yourself to, you know, different studios and whatnot
46:03
and put out an all call for, you know, investors or supporters and things like that.
46:10
And then my advice or my, you know, my call to listeners, my call to action
46:16
to listeners is that go and support art directly.
46:22
I mean, literally, if you're at the coffee shop, buy a piece of art off the
46:25
way. If it speaks to you, support it.
46:28
Go listen to live music or go to a concert or go to a local theater.
46:34
And I don't mean the Cineplex, man. I mean, like, well, hey,
46:39
like it or not, the movies are art as well, aren't they?
46:42
But go to a local production of whatever.
46:47
The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My Fair Lady. Whatever it is,
46:52
go to these small, you know, spoken word, open mic spots, support these humans.
47:02
System that I'm putting out here, who defines value?
47:07
Yeah, the individual. And a bunch of individuals make up the market.
47:13
And each individual has his own personal guide, his own personal values.
47:20
And that right there, good people, is true diversity without coercion.
47:26
If your art speaks to someone without government coercion, without somebody pushing an agenda.
47:35
Now, if your art is specifically targeting a certain demographic,
47:40
then right on, man. You know, that's on you.
47:43
That's your prerogative to create art for whomever you want.
47:48
But I think doing it this way builds better resilience,
47:53
more innovation, and is more accurately aligned with individual liberty and
48:02
freedom. That's what I think.
48:05
All things voluntary, good people. That's what I believe. All things voluntary.
48:11
All right, we're going to wrap it up here. The people who propose the taxpayer
48:16
funding, you know, they emphasize the societal gains and the equity and the arts.
48:24
And then critics like me highlight the coercion and the inefficiency and the
48:31
inevitable censorship risks, especially around who gets to define the arts value.
48:39
So be skeptical of taking government money for sure.
48:44
And if you're out there, just support, you know, support the arts individually.
48:51
Let's all pursue voluntary, well, creativity, voluntary interaction.
49:00
All right, good people. I didn't leave on a high note.
49:04
Just boom, go support, right? Support voluntary creativity, voluntary interaction,
49:10
the freedom of assembly and association.
49:15
Support it, support it, support it. Find something that speaks to you and go support it.
49:20
Create something that speaks to you and
49:23
go promote it that's it good people share your feedback on the website thejuntopodcast.com
49:30
and all the social medias i do appreciate you folks for listening i really do
49:35
and i encourage you folks good people think critically and create boldly.