Don Satz writes:

>My opinion is that Government needs to stay far away from as many
>activites as possible, because it is inherently inefficient and
>arbitrary.  Since there is no compelling need for public involvement
>in the arts, this is an area for Government to vacate.

Anarchy is also inherently inefficient and arbitrary--indeed, that's why
we condescend to be governed.  Ever since the philosophizing of Parmenides
twentyfive hundred years ago we've been soundly instructed that every truth
is true only because it also subsumes its opposite.  And it is sensible to
check and balance the power of government for the protection of the liberty
of the citizen--experience teaches us that--but subsumed in this truth is
also the knowledge that private means should act mainly as checks and
balances in the great visionary tasks of a nation.  In places like New York
City the arts bloom because there's enough private incentive, knowhow, and
money around to husband them.  (Though every time I go to the Metropolitan
Opera and read the plates graven with the names of donors, I cringe, having
known personally known some of them as intellectual misfits to that sort of
setting.) But elsewhere the public must be made to make the arts flourish
lest high culture perish.  Typically, the per annum price of sustaining one
good symphonic orchestra is equivalent to the cost of purchasing a military
aircraft of the sort that's now engaged by NATO to operate in the Balkans.
(Whether Alburque, say, could handle such an orchestra is another
matter--but there are towns of comparable size, and wealth, here in Europe
that can, and wish to have the national public help them in that regard.
And their wishes are catered to, quite properly.)

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]