GRE Issue essay
Hello, please review, grade, point out mistake or suggest improvements on my GRE Issue essay. I timed myself and finished within 30 mins and submitted here without proof-reading, so you may ignore spelling mistakes or silly typos. Thank you.
PROMPT:
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.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.
My RESPONSE:
Government funding of the arts is a point of contention in many academic and general circles.
On one hand government funding of the arts can help to revive a dwindling field of practice, which is day by day losing its charm in the mass market due to the question of its practicality, and as a result failing to raise and bring in other sources of funding. On the other hand, the mere idea of government funding is blasphemous to a group who believe it would sabotage the true beauty and integrity of the arts, its ability to reflect and project the unadulterated views and feelings of the artists, and will be used for an agenda. But the problem is neither black nor white.
Art itself is a broad and nebulously defined word. Art includes music, literature, sculptures, poems and even the occasional street paintings can also be considered as arts and government funding can certainly help to foster the growth and ensure the quality in at least some, if not all the fields of art.
For example government funding is imperative in the University level arts education. Many of the universities currently in the US are slowly focusing on the more practically oriented subjects such as business, management or science. While these are undoubtedly vital for the society but so are the Arts.
Government funding and encouragement of the Universities to maintain the Arts education will encourage the departments to develop the education, promote the arts and encourage more young people to pursue it as a career.
The view that government meddling in the arts will degrade the quality of the contents is somewhat misguided. The arts can be a way to promote an agenda of the government, but that doesn't necessarily detracts from the value of the work. Take for example the Sistine Chapel, which was commissioned by the Church which was no less powerful than the present day government. But still the work that Michelangelo did was and is universally acclaimed even though the art clearly bears an agenda of the church. Or consider the case of the Mona Lisa, which was also commissioned by a group to Leonardo Da Vinci. What their funding did in fact was to give the artists a platform to ply their trade and showcase their talent, and that is what they did.
On the contrary, government funding in certain fields of arts, that sway public opinions, like literary works, can indeed be harmful and perilous, and the concerns about this funding scheme is rightly justified. Literary works and other forms of art that has direct influence over the public opinion should remain free from the government's or any political group's influence, because these forms of arts have the power to both drastically affect the lives of the people and also change the world we live in in a direct manner.
Funding of the government in arts can both spur the arts and help it to reach the general mass and also be used as a tool to control or at least influence public opinion. But we shouldn't discard the possibility of funding just because of an associated negative aspect. Rather accepting government funding in some fields and keeping some form of arts independent we can indeed help develop art and help make it accessible to the general mass.