Big Think

Tim Ray on January 12, 2008, 10:45 PM

PBS is way below Discovery, History and National Geographic channels. The greatness of Europe was built on looting the New World. Government support of the Arts is how wealthy people steal from the poor and spend that money feeling good about themselves. The real support of the Arts is usually money stolen from the labor of the poor.

sahil srivastava on January 19, 2008, 2:41 AM

I think the point the person above me is trying to make is that, the artists usually get a lot less control over their masters/property and are usually the least to profit by their own work.

Andy Miser on January 20, 2008, 2:53 PM

I am not sure if more funding is needed – that depends on how much public funding is already out there. But, I do think that both public and private funding are healthy for the arts. Private funding promotes the art that sells which invites true brilliance. Public funding invites art that otherwise would not be seen because it is commercially not viable. You don’t want to make only commercially viable art available to the public.

The problem comes in when people need to decide what art to fund publicly. There is no objective criterion for deciding what gets funded, so we end up disagreeing over what we see our government fund and that leads us to conclude the government has no business funding the arts. And there in lies the debate.

Tessa V on February 1, 2008, 1:41 PM

I think more funding should be given to certain forms of the arts, because some are better off than others.In schools that do not specialize in the arts the funding is very poor and should be increased. Art is a great outlet for people, can be therapeutic, and for young/troubled children, it can keep them out of trouble.