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

Indeed, the technology provides all the luxuries of our life but the arts pacifies our aching body and soul from the hustle bustle of the daily life. Art can be described as a sabbatical, responsible for rejuvenation of the tired mind and body. While I agree that government funding is necessary for arts to flourish and for ordinary people to enjoy arts, the concern that government funding may compromise the integrity of arts is a valid one. In my opinion, therefore, it is important for the government to sponsor arts indirectly through an independent committee as an antidote to potential threat of government funding to the integrity of arts.

As a threshold matter, government funding and sponsorship are essential to the development of arts. Unlike popular Hollywood movies, which are often sponsored by big corporations through embedded advertising, many artworks could not attract a great number of audience who are willing to pay a large amount of money. If the government does not support the artists and their creative works, the public would not have the opportunities to enjoy high quality artworks. In addition, arts and creative activities related to arts require infrastructure such as art museum and art schools that can offer space and training programs to exhibit the works and cultivate artistic talents. Without the support from large corporations, the government has to allocate funding to build art museums and run art schools so that the public can access the museum and send more children to art schools at an affordable rate. With more members of the public interested and trained in arts, artistic works and activities can then flourish.

On the other hand, it is understandable to worry that the government's funding may threaten the integrity of arts and artists. It is well known these days that arts are socially constructed artifacts that do not exist in political vacuum. Any artworks can and must carry political meanings and messages, which may challenge the authority of the ruling elite. Meanwhile, the government always has the incentives to sponsor arts that may help advance its own political agenda. For example, in Mao's China, almost all the songs and movies were produced with a theme of revolutionary propaganda under the sponsorship of the Communist Party. For Chinese artists at the time, there was virtually no freedom or integrity for arts, which has become a tool for legitimizing the Communist regime. The last thing we want in China or any other countries is a government sponsorship program for arts that would silence the creative and political voices of artists.

Given the tension between the need of government support on the one hand and the threat of government funding to the integrity of arts on the other, I would argue that the best solution is to create an independent commission that distributes government funding in a politically neutral way. The commission should be run by a group of artists elected by their peers and receive government money regularly. But the government would have no power or influence over how the money will be spent to sponsor different arts projects. Sponsorships will be awarded to projects based on their merits, not their political or ideological stances. In fact, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, an organization created by the government to sponsor art projects in Hong Kong, has been operated under this model. As a result, artists in Hong Kong have enjoyed financial support from the government without any threat from the government on their integrity.

In conclusion, given the profound impact that arts may have on the society, it is, on the one hand, necessary for the government to support artistic works financially; on the other hand, it is tempting for the government to influence the artists and their activities politically through such sponsorship. To address this paradox, the government should establish a special funding agency for the arts and ensure its free operation, so as to avoid political deprivation of the freedom of artistic creation.