What role do you think government should play in the arts?

[Michael Miller]

Government should support the arts, but it should not interfere with artists.

[Richard Harrington]

Michael,

I'll try to answer this in a balanced way. There are other countries around the world who seem to have gotten the equation right. But I have very deep suspicion that government intervention in the arts in the US, especially now would be a very serious blunder. The jazz idiom, for example, is one that grew organically, and was not "administered" from the top down. The perverse chemistry of that which is politically correct, which is our inheritance from the Puritans, has already seriously polluted genuine artistic freedom and has, I think resulted in a propagandistic climate that is a scourge that has tainted the climate of genuinely free speech for every museum, gallery, and public space in the land for at least twenty years now.

Appointing a cabinet position for the arts would be a serious mistake.

rh