Source : Globe & Mail

Even Genghis Khan valued the artist. Too bad Harper's government doesn't see it that way.

It's Use It or Lose It time for the artists of Canada. Thanks to the Stephen Harper government's Shoot the Piano Player policies, the Canadian creative community now finds itself pondering some rabble-rousing in relation to government non-support for the arts. Rumour has it there's even an Ottawa demonstration or two in the works. When was the last time that happened?

It's bothersome rousing rabble -- the writers would rather be writing, the dancers dancing, and so forth -- but the consequence of failing to act could be evaporation, since it seems to be the intention of the Harper neocons to bleed and starve Canada's cultural institutions until they croak. (Factoid: proposed Liberal top-up to the Canada Council before the last election: $300-million. Conservatives have delivered: $50-million.) Once it's lying in the ditch, Canadian art will be accused of not having been strong enough to survive in the Alpha Chimp social-Darwinist marketplace model favoured by Harper's Conservatives, thus justifying the contempt and scorn with which the arts sector has been treated.

Once upon a time, this scorn was general in Canada. If you wanted to act like a long-haired weirdo pinko fellow-travelling guitar-playing tap-dancing nutbar, you had to go to New York or London or Hollywood or Paris to do it; and Canadian artists did go, by the trainloads. That was why, for instance -- as revealed at the recent Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada gala -- so many songs we've thought of as quintessentially American turn out to have been written by Canadians. It was necessary for artists to go to a place where they might earn a living, and that place was not Canada.

But that changed. In the sixties, the Canadian government began to actively encourage individual artists through the Canada Council, and then Ottawa and the provincial governments began investing in institutions and infrastructure, and now we have an artist-stimulated "creative economy" that's worth -- so they say -- $40-billion dollars a year. Why invest money in the arts? Because -- simple answer -- it's a great investment: A few dollars in means a lot of dollars out. Without the arts, the average Canadian citizen would be poorer, and I don't mean just spiritually.

Why don't the Conservatives grasp that? Maybe they just feel in their disapproving bones that art sucks. If so, that's retrograde of them, because countries around the world now realize that a vital arts sector increases their energy in a multitude of ways. Even Alberta is reconsidering its strangle-the-arts stance: Alberta arts funding, frozen at $22-million for many years (as opposed to the $70-million Alberta pours into the support of horse racing), would appear to be thawing somewhat.

But -- to paraphrase Joni Mitchell -- I've looked at arts funding from both sides now: The relationship between artists and the politically powerful has always been an uneasy one. Plato wanted poets kicked out of his ideal Republic because he felt they were immoral, but Genghis Khan valued them: He killed the aristocrats, rulers, and rich people in the towns he was sacking, but saved the artists, artisans, linguists, teachers and intellectuals, and put them to work in his Empire. Exiles or salaried Yes-men -- are these the choices?

Stalin murdered a lot of dissident artists, but poured money into showcases like the ballet. Hitler was keen on Wagnerian opera and also on painting, though the paintings had to be of "healthy" subjects like heroic soldiers, mountains and bowls of fruit. One of his biggest thrills was designing the uniforms for his troops and the props for his rallies. If only he'd been accepted into art school, history would have been so different.

Then there's the United States. Unlike Canada, it's not a small country threatened by a supersized popular culture from elsewhere washing over it like a tidal wave. It doesn't need to fund its arts defensively. Nevertheless, during the Cold War, the U.S. dumped millions of dollars into the arts, both openly through institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts and clandestinely via the CIA. Why? To show that the United States -- unlike its rival, the Soviet Union -- was an open and tolerant place. But the funding crumbled along with the Wall, after 1989, and then it was open season on the arts.

However, now that the U.S. perceives another rival -- the Muslim world -- and now that its reputation has sunk so low worldwide, the funding is coming back. Writers and artists are being flown hither and thither, and told they can say whatever they want, as yet one more demonstration of openness and democracy.

Which raises the question of the artist's soul. If you hop into bed with power, how much snuggling can you do before you lose that essential item? If you're dependent on government money, will you become a captive dancing bear?

And what are your alternatives? Through the ages, they have been: 1) Artists as quasi-priests, feared and propitiated; 2) Artists as court entertainers, in the pay of kings and princes; 3) Artists supported by private patrons, hence the word "patronizing." Today we have corporations instead of dukes and lords, but it's similar; 4) Those peddling their wares in the marketplace (see "soul," losing of, above); 5) Those with day jobs that can destroy their talent; 6) Artists with money of their own. Government funding would seem to be a blend of (2) and (3).

There's a famous New Yorker cartoon that shows a painter holding out his hand to a man in a suit. On his easel is a portrait of the same man, with the letters A-S-S-H-O below. The painter is saying, "Can I have a grant so I can finish my picture?" That's the dilemma, for both sides. Why should the man in the suit help the artist to finish some art in which he himself features as an Assho?

It's always been a problem. But rid your society of the artists and you'll end up in Plato's Republic, which -- closely examined -- is a nasty little dictatorship. Who would want that?

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 volumes of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her latest is a collection of short stories, Moral Disorder.

© Globe and Mail

Related Documents:

February 12, 2007 - Online Petition: Restore Funding to Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
A grassroots petition has started in response to budgetary cuts to a fund that supports the creation, dissemination and promotion of Canadian arts, Canadian cultural initiatives, and business opportunities for Canadian artists internationally.