The Rants of Issachar
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Censorship? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I've been reading Raphael Alexander lately and continuing my tradition of finding good blogs from links blog comments, I hopped over the Red Tory this morning and this post about government funding of the arts caught my interest. It starts with a Globe and Mail article, and what I find interesting is how some people, (Ms. Swan in the article), do not distinguish between censorship, and a decision not to fund something. Basically it appears the government is changing the criteria which it uses to decide if something should receive government funding or not.
In the Globe and Mail article, author Ms. Swan is quoted as saying "We're not going to sit back and accept this" ... "We don't like being told what kind of art we can make by the federal government."
Well that's a perfectly valid statement except for the tiny little detail that that's not what's happening. They're being told that if they want government money they have to meet the given criteria.
People get upset when their money paid in taxes goes to fund art that they find offensive. And voters can revoke that funding. There's nothing unreasonable in this because they're not preventing those movies from being made.
This is not unreasonable, and it's certainly not censorship. It's an inevitable consequence of having the government fund the arts.
This is the problem with having government funding of the arts in a pluralistic society. Government funding would be fine if we all agreed on what should be funded, but we don't. And in a pluralistic society we never will. By funding the arts with government money we encourage culture wars and that's not good policy.
In the Globe and Mail article, author Ms. Swan is quoted as saying "We're not going to sit back and accept this" ... "We don't like being told what kind of art we can make by the federal government."
Well that's a perfectly valid statement except for the tiny little detail that that's not what's happening. They're being told that if they want government money they have to meet the given criteria.
People get upset when their money paid in taxes goes to fund art that they find offensive. And voters can revoke that funding. There's nothing unreasonable in this because they're not preventing those movies from being made.
This is not unreasonable, and it's certainly not censorship. It's an inevitable consequence of having the government fund the arts.
This is the problem with having government funding of the arts in a pluralistic society. Government funding would be fine if we all agreed on what should be funded, but we don't. And in a pluralistic society we never will. By funding the arts with government money we encourage culture wars and that's not good policy.
2 Comments:
Posted by: 
Raphael AlexanderYes, I agree with that notion. Government can fund some projects which promote Canadian heritage, but I don't know that it should be funding David Cronenberg films. It's not so much censorship as it is selective. I certainly don't like the idea that the Evangelicals have their grubby paws in this.
Raphael AlexanderYes, I agree with that notion. Government can fund some projects which promote Canadian heritage, but I don't know that it should be funding David Cronenberg films. It's not so much censorship as it is selective. I certainly don't like the idea that the Evangelicals have their grubby paws in this.
Posted by: issacharIt all comes back to disagreements about who the crazy people are. :P
issacharIt all comes back to disagreements about who the crazy people are. :P
