Some people believe that government funding of the arts is necessary to ensure that the arts can flourish and be available to all people. Others believe that government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts.
Art is the sensory manifestation of a culture and chronicles its evolution through the ages. The way history documents events, art captures the creative expressions and finer nuances of culture and civilisation. Whether it is music, paintings, architecture, pottery or poetry - art and craft provide a distinct identity to the culture they come from. The prompt raises the issue of government funding of the arts and highlights the two opposing viewpoints. In my opinion, I mostly agree with the view that suggests that government funding is essential for the proliferation of art in society for three reasons.
Firstly, art by its very nature requires significant investments in terms of time, effort and money before it becomes commercially viable. Music requires musical instruments and years of practice; handloom, pottery or tribal crafts require extensive training and the same is true for other art forms as well. Moreover, even when the expertise is acquired, various art forms need market linkages and promotion to become remunerative. This kind of investment can only be done institutionally through government support until the market forces evolve to make it sustainable.
Secondly, apart from creating a piece of art, recognising an art form too requires a certain level of expertise. A common man with no understanding of painting, cannot differentiate between a real and fake or even a good or bad painting. Hence, it is unlikely that common people would either take a keen interest in the preservation of art forms or even know how to go about it. Thus, in the absence of active financial support from the government, many such art forms may be lost permanently. For example, in India, government support to tribal arts is crucial to its continuity.
Thirdly, livelihoods of a lot of rural artisans are linked with such art forms. In the absence of government support, these skilled artisans would become an unemployed and unproductive component of the economy. This may foment wider malaise and angst amongst the artisans resulting in civil unrest. We have seen many such instances where the loss of livelihood has paved the way for anti-state armed movements in developing and underdeveloped countries.
Of course, one may argue that the government funding may threaten the integrity of art forms and hence, it should be best left at the mercy of markets. But history teaches us that markets are neither perfect nor patient. Pure commercial considerations would undermine the integrity much more than institutional support. Therefore, let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- The following appeared in a letter to the editor of the Balmer Island Gazette On Balmer Island where mopeds serve as a popular form of transportation the population increases to 100 000 during the summer months To reduce the number of accidents involving 68
- Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could 66
- The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner Over the past two years the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically Many Central Pl 60
- Claim Governments must ensure that their major cities receive the financial support they need in order to thrive Reason It is primarily in cities that a nation s cultural traditions are preserved and generated 58
- The following appeared as part of a letter to the editor of a scientific journal A recent study of eighteen rhesus monkeys provides clues as to the effects of birth order on an individual s levels of stimulation The study showed that in stimulating situat 58
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, firstly, hence, if, may, moreover, second, secondly, so, therefore, third, thirdly, thus, well, apart from, for example, kind of, of course, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 19.5258426966 61% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 11.0 12.4196629213 89% => OK
Conjunction : 21.0 14.8657303371 141% => OK
Relative clauses : 7.0 11.3162921348 62% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 23.0 33.0505617978 70% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 58.6224719101 89% => OK
Nominalization: 16.0 12.9106741573 124% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2196.0 2235.4752809 98% => OK
No of words: 418.0 442.535393258 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.25358851675 5.05705443957 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.52162009685 4.55969084622 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.9923357003 2.79657885939 107% => OK
Unique words: 252.0 215.323595506 117% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.602870813397 0.4932671777 122% => OK
syllable_count: 684.9 704.065955056 97% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 6.24550561798 112% => OK
Article: 3.0 4.99550561798 60% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 3.10617977528 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.77640449438 56% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.38483146067 137% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 22.0 20.2370786517 109% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 23.0359550562 82% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.1941704245 60.3974514979 48% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 99.8181818182 118.986275619 84% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 23.4991977007 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.54545454545 5.21951772744 145% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 10.2758426966 127% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 5.13820224719 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.83258426966 124% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.3455736202 0.243740707755 142% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0952593468042 0.0831039109588 115% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.073670231788 0.0758088955206 97% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.183051968586 0.150359130593 122% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0737210927937 0.0667264976115 110% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.1392134831 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 48.8420337079 107% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.1743820225 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.17 12.1639044944 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.45 8.38706741573 113% => OK
difficult_words: 129.0 100.480337079 128% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 11.8971910112 92% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 11.2143820225 86% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.7820224719 93% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 70.83 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.25 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.