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Giving Offense
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20072 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
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12 / 1992 |
4,130 Words |
| Author
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John Frohnmayer
John Frohnmayer was chairman of the National Endowment for
the Arts. |
Thomas Paine, the great pamphleteer and author of Common Sense, said regarding the Constitution:
He that would make his own liberty must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.
This is an interesting quote because it calls not upon high-minded principle, but rather upon frank self-interest. I must protect another's liberty because someday I may need that person to protect mine. It recognizes the plastic nature of democracy; that it is constantly becoming, it is never fixed, secure, or comfortable. Each generation must reenfranchise both our democracy and the First Amendment, which I consider, incidentally, to be the absolute bedrock of our democratic system. It says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment tells us that religion, ideas, association, and criticism of the government all belong to the people. The rub comes, then, when the government supports this individual free expression under the general welfare provision of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8). All civilized governments through history have supported the arts, as should ours, but in doing so, the government must respect the speaker and provide a level playing field without blacklists or ideological preconceptions. When the artist, as speaker, expresses what some deem as dangerous, radical, blasphemous, or crude ideas, we encounter the kind of free-for-all we in the arts have been experiencing for the last three years. Congress has gotten more mail, most generated by right-wing fundamentalists groups, on the arts issue than on the savings and loan scandal. To put that into perspective, the S&L scandal will cost each of you $2,000, at least. The arts cost $.68 per year for everything we do. The amount that you will have to pay for "controversial art" is a microcent.
The argument I have frequently heard is: "Artists can do whatever they please, but not with my tax dollars." (Actually, it's "hard-earned-tax-dollars" or, as that great sloganeer, Dana Rohrabacher, put it, they can do anything they want "on their time with their dime.") But they didn't read Thomas Paine. Much of what the government does is not to our liking--the
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