criticalrant.com Alexandra Bonifield

Q: Many countries have ministries of culture. Does America need a Secretary of Culture or Secretary of the Arts? Why or why not?

This question gets us into an area we haven’t specifically dealt with yet in the contest, namely politics. The broader issue here revolves around government funding of the arts, which is a good question, but not one that I find particularly interesting. Why not? Because the responses to the question “Should the Government fund the Arts?” are completely predictable: if you’re a conservative, you’re dead set against public funding of the arts and we know the reasons; if you’re a liberal, you’re strongly in favor of public funding of the arts, and we know those reasons too. If you’re somewhere in the middle, then you’re a combination of the two. What’s to talk about? These topics have been discussed at length for decades. Every rationale, every possible angle…