A Stitch in Haste

WARNING: The contents of the link are extremely disturbing.

There is a fiend on the loose named Nathalia Edenmont who is killing innocent animals for the sake of "art."

The Swedish gallery that displayed the sick creations (they do not deserve to be called "art") issued a statement:

One can, of course, choose to think that it is always wrong to kill animals in the name of art. That nothing can defend Nathalia Edenmont.

No point reading the rest. Those two sentences sum it all up.

I do like this response, however:

I will soon embark on a performance art piece in which I hunt Nathalia Edenmont to death, exploring the interstitual space where the artist becomes subject in the eyes of the audience. You may argue that this is immoral, but I say that I will be exposing the immorality that surrounds us all constantly. Anyway, I will aim for a clean kill and will not prolong her suffering in any unnecessary ways. I think that art is of vital importance.

Here is an online petition to protest Edenmont's depravity.

POST SCRIPT: Welcome readers of Class Maledictorian.

I can't deep fisk Amber's sophomoric post — because there's nothing to fisk. I'm not a real "libertarian" because...she says so. The animals are assumed to be humanely killed because...she says so (and apparently she's never heard of a no-kill shelter). The online protest petition is "amaturish" [sic] because...she says so. There is no reason to be indignant over this because...she says so.

As for the "fur/leather/Hardee's" argument about people using animals for aesthetic purposes: A leather jacket is not "an aesthetic purpose." A leather jacket is a leather jacket. A hamburger is a hamburger. The slaughter of the animal is not the end goal of the exercise — the leather jacket and the hamburger are. Perhaps the leather jacket and the hamburger generate negative externalities on those who oppose such practices, but those externalities are secondary and incidental.

Edenmont cannot say the same — she is slaughtering animals for the sake of slaughtering animals (as in "come and look at my slaughtered animals, which I slaughtered for no other reason than to show you that I slaughtered them"). The negative externalities are the point of the exercise. She is inflicting distress and discomfort for the sake of distress and discomfort.

That is indeed the behavior of a "monster." The inability to grasp that distinction says more about Amber than it does about me. Not only is Edenmont's goal not the goal of true art — it is the exact antithesis of the goal of true art. It is, to coin a term, anti-art. And the only people who value anti-art are those who are anti-human.

To put it differently: At least the leather jacket is, or has the potential to be, of good quality. So too the hamburger. "Good slaughtered animal art" is, I would submit, a contradiction in terms.

Company A, run by a libertarian capitalist, creates a sought-after product and generates pollution in the process. Company B, run by a lunatic, generates pollution for the sake of pollution "to make a statement." Moral equivalents? In Amber's silly little Harvard 3L world, yes.

Good old "not a true libertarian" me did not call for Edenmont's arrest or prosecution. I did not call for banning the practice. I did not, contrary to Amber's histrionics, compare Edenmont to Osama bin Laden except for the headline. And I included the "hunt her down" citation only as a good reductio ad absurdum demonstration of how Edenmont's (and Amber's) moral relativism collapses upon itself with even the slightest application of common sense or human dignity.

UPDATE: See also, Alarming News.

I think one of the best ways to tell whether you've won someone over to libertarianism is whether they'll admit that government funding of the arts is unjustifiable:

The tenth anniversary of the UK National Lottery is a good point to ask where all those billions allocated to "good causes" ended up. ...One result has been the rise of a new breed of arts centre. We have identified 53 new arts centres (or major extensions of existing centres) funded with lottery money, to a total cost of £471,451,587, nearly half a billion pounds...
...
Many of these centres' functions bear no relation to arts at all, instead taking on the role of restaurants, hotels or social welfare offices. There are bars that clearly aren't meant for just popping into after the exhibition or play.
...
New arts centres often aren't about the arts in particular, dramatic, visual or cinematic; they are about the arts in general, a sense of buzz and energy.
...
Talk about energy and creativity sells in PR circles; whether it sells to the punters is another matter. Lottery-funded arts centres that crashed included the Dovecot Arts Centre, comprising a theatre, mixed exhibition spaces, cinema, café and bars (£6,631,750 grant), which couldn't generate sufficient income. The National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield (£11,100,000 grant) included four exhibition areas in stainless steel drum-shaped constructions, a café, shop and public square for outdoor gigs - but attracted only 80,000 annual visitors, a fraction of the expected 400,000. Similarly, the Cardiff Centre for Visual Arts (£4,744,084 grant) closed after it attracted only 47,500 visitors in its first year, instead of the 220,000 hoped for.

The silly meme that, somehow, "the arts are different" persists generation after generation with no basis in economics or aesthetics to justify it. "Art," at least traditional art (painting, sculpture, etc.), is not a public good any more than any other long-lived product. There is simply no reason to subsidize it, even when it's "good" art.

In the U.S., public funding of the arts is perhaps the purest expression of the politics of pull: a politically-appointed elite, whether the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Public Radio or the countless state and local equivalents, are given taxpayer money, with few or no strings attached, which they in turn dole out to favored artists based on subjective (i.e., random) judgments about "worthiness" or "importance" or "insert unquantifiable haughty-sounding word here." Subjective favoritism goes into overdrive when it comes to art funding, precisely because no other criterion is even possible. Even truly benevolent, socially-motivated arts bureaucrats cannot help but reduce arts funding to an essentially random lottery of grants.

Still, at least in the U.S. we get bad art for our tax dollars. But how much worse is it when "public funding of the arts" doesn't even fund art, but instead goes to underutilized "art centers" (oops...art "centres") that are the cognoscenti equivalent of the local mall, complete with "artiste" versions of Starbucks or TGI Friday's?

The simple truth is that the reason there are so many "starving artists" is because most artists suck. Now, in the U.K., they have a half a billion pounds worth of empty structures in which to suck. Brilliant.

UPDATE #1: Marginal Revolution reminds us that it isn't just the visual arts that often are better off privatized, as a German orchestra tries playing a different tune.

UPDATE #2: Tim Blair has more from the U.K.

Related Posts:
A Whisper to a "Scream"
Osama Isn't the Only Monster

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)

I think we already know how Justice Antonin Scalia is going to vote on Rumsfeld v. FAIR, the pending case challenging the Solomon Amendment:

The government can decide what artwork is worthwhile without being accused of censorship as long as it is funding that art, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told an audience Thursday at the Juilliard School.

"The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the tune," Scalia said.

The justice, who limited his discussion to art issues, said he wasn't suggesting that government stop funding the arts, but that if it does fund artwork, it is entitled to have a say in the content, just like when it runs a school system.

But of course government isn't paying the piper -- taxpayers are. So the analogy is invalid. It's comparable to arguing that a couple getting married not only has the right to hire the band and choose the playlist, but also has the right to force you to attend and buy them a gift.

Oh, and I don't see "fund the arts" anywhere among the enumerated powers. The Spending Clause doesn't count, because it requires spending for the general welfare, not the limited welfare of politically favored artists in politically favored disciplines in politically favored locales.

Spending for the arts is the purest expression of the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling. The fact that every public dollar spent on "the arts" is really a taxpayer dollar spent on "the arts," against his wishes, means nothing. The fact that every public dollar spent on "the arts" is really a dollar spent on an artist, based on the subjective whim of bureaucrats deemed to have "superior tastes" or "higher knowledge" than the art market itself, means nothing (the simple truth is that the reason there are so many "starving artists" is because most artists suck). The fact that art is simply not a public good (i.e., it can be privately owned), means nothing. Someone "smarter than you" thinks otherwise -- now pay up.

Government funding for the arts is anti-capitalist, anti-American central planning. It may not be a lot of central planning; it may not be an especially dangerous form of central planning. But it is central planning nonetheless.

And that makes it just plain wrong. Which means that Scalia is also just plain wrong.

I went to Carnegie Hall last night to see Lewis Black, the funniest man in America and the most important comic since George Carlin. He was, as always, awesome.

There were two opening acts for Black: a very good older comic named John Bowman, and an atrocious new-age techno-"music" poser composer named Jane Ira Bloom, who screeched meaningless strings of almost-notes on a soprano sax while tapping out cacophonous counter-noise on a footpad synthesizer reminiscent of the F.A.O. Schwartz scene in "Big." I simply cannot adequately describe how utterly awful she was.

So why am I blogging about it? Because of this line in her Playbill biography:

She was the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program...

NASA Art Program?!? We need a "space art" program? This is somehow part of NASA's mission — not to contribute to scientific knowledge, advance new technologies or aid in national defense, but to make "space noise"?

Remind me again how there's "no fat left in the federal budget"?

And does this mean that the National Endowment for the Arts will be launching its own satellites?

So if you're at all tempted to think that the ludicrous NASA proposal to spend $104 billion on a "Been There, Done That" warm fuzzy feeling Moondoggle, think about how NASA has been spending its your money recently.

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Meanwhile, here are the various government bodies that took tax money from people who did not see Lewis Black in order to make tickets cheaper for those who did see Lewis Black. Because Carnegie Hall generally and Lewis Black specifically are apparently "public goods" and some "smarter than you" bureaucrats decided that subsidizing a well-off Manhattan investment banker seeing a potty-mouth comic was a worthy use of your tax dollars.

--City of New York
--State of New York
--NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
--New York State Council on the Arts
--New York City Council
--National Endowment for the Arts
--U.S. Department of Education
--U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
--U.S. Department of State

I love that last one — I guess U.N. ambassadors wanted to see Lewis Black too.

One of the few areas in which I am about as radical a libertarian as possible is when it comes to taxpayer subsidization of the arts. I am, to be succinct, unswervingly against it in any and all forms. Art is simply not a public good. The supposed positive externalities the arts provide are counterintuitive, hypothetical and minuscule at best. The bureaucratic apparatuses that administer arts funding provide some of the most obnoxious examples of the Politics of Pull imaginable. The reason there are so many "starving artists" is, quite frankly, because most artists suck.

On the other hand, at least we're not as bad as Australia:

Circus Monoxide, the grant-funded tumbling troupe that by last year had drained $653,349 in clown taxes from the Australian public (who were then asked to pay up to $30 each to see a show they’d already financed) is heading towards the $1 million mark.

This is not some "haute couture" Cirque du Soleil sort of troupe -- that would be bad enough. This is a run-of-the-mill circus: trapeze artists, gymnasts, clowns, people catapulted around, etc. Strictly entertainment, not at all "art."

And they've received almost a million dollars of Australian taxpayer money over the years.

If the government gave me a million dollars, I bet I could put together a pretty good circus. I already have the performing dog (and, some might argue, the clown).

Even Circus Monoxide admits it can't make an honest go at it:

Circus Monoxide would like to acknowledge and thank all our generous sponsors and supporters without whom our company would not survive.

Enough said.

"We are all in the center of a web, that pushes and pulls us, that is multi-faceted to it's [sic, damn it, sic!] surrounding connections, that may speed us up or slow us down, and that usually directs or redirects our path; which is what the web installations do to anyone that just happens to be there at the right time."
--Professional Idiot Artist Jasmine Zimmerman

You have got to be kidding:



This is not art -- it's kindergarten claptrap at best and dangerous vandalism at worst.



More:

If they are not looking at what lies ahead, they may just run into them and get caught in the web. ... I am altering the space and time that one may take for granted or view as predictable.

And what right do you have to "alter the space and time that one may take for granted or view as predictable" in a public space with unwitting and unwilling people? Since when is coercion "art"? Since when are booby traps "art"?

Do your "art" on your own time and your own property, you miserable bitch. Leave me out of it.

Here's a radical idea for you, Ms. Zimmerman: Rent some space in a gallery, set up your asinine rubber band crap there and sell tickets. You know, the way real artists do it?

Oh, no one would show up? They need to be forced, while merely trying to mind their own business, to "experience" your work? On public property and in a way that hassles, inconveniences and even batters them "redirects their paths"?

Go figure.

Meanwhile, what if I suddenly decide to become an "artist" who expresses his creative impulses with a pair of scissors cutting rubber band displays that "just happen to be there at the right time?" Am I entitled to do so? How's that for "altering the space and time that you may take for granted"?

Finally, please let her not have received any taxpayer-funded grants for this obnoxious garbage.

And people wonder why I'm suffering from a Gradual Descent into Sociopathy™.

(Via Gothamist.)

Slow news day, so I'm reduced to blogging about chocolate naked Jesus:

A life-size sculpture of a naked Jesus made out of chocolate has angered a Roman Catholic organization and forced a Manhattan art gallery to reconsider exhibiting it during Easter week.
...
"This is an assault on Christians during Holy Week," said Kiera McCaffrey, director of communications for the [Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights], which describes itself the largest U.S. Catholic civil rights group.

"They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the prophet Mohammad naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan," she said.

I'm not so sure of that. Never underestimate the capacity of abstract artists to create sick, disgusting garbage.

Meanwhile — "Catholics for civil rights"? That certainly wins the "Oxymoron of the Day" award.

News flash: "Civil rights" includes freedom of artistic expression. If some jackass "artist" wants to mold a chocolate naked Jesus, then "Catholics for civil rights" ought, one would think, to at least abstain for throwing a conniption. Perhaps the Catholic League could clarify precisely which "civil rights" it cares about and which it considers offensive?

And as a matter of pragmatics, what does holding news conferences and calling for boycotts accomplish other than to give the jackass artist the attention he, like all jackass artists, so desperately craves? This stupid idea, like most modern recently created art, would have come and gone with little fanfare had the Catholic League not declared war upon it. Go figure.

I meanwhile, would be far more interested in asking whether this jackass artist received any taxpayer-funded grants. There is a vast labyrinth of bureaucracies that wouldn't think twice about squandering tax dollars to fund chocolate naked Jesus. It is the only way these jackass artists endure. Stated differently: The reason there are so many "starving artists" is because most artists suck.

At least this one can eat his junk art when he's finished displaying it.

---

POST SCRIPT: Any contradiction in Catholics getting uppity about showing, in chocolate or otherwise, Jesus' genitals when they themselves celebrate the Feast of the Holy Circumcision?

---

For Discussion: The jackass artist apparently wants the public to eat the sculpture upon the close of the exhibit. Would you munch on some Chocolate Savior? (Catholics of course would never eat ... oh, wait.)

---

UPDATE: That was fast — the exhibit has been canceled by the hotel that houses the gallery that was to display it. The gallery's creative director has resigned in protest. Remind me again who has a greater commitment to "civil rights" — him or New York's Cardinal Egan, who led the Catholic League's protest against the exhibit?

To review:

1. "Art" is simply not a public good. A work of art — whether a "good" (e.g., a painting or sculpture) or a "service" (e.g., a concert or ballet) is an entirely privatizable entity. A person can own a painting; a concert hall can charge admission.

2. The notion that "art is different" — or, worse, that "art should be above mere economics" — is an entirely subjective, political opinion that cannot be demonstrated (i.e., "proven") in any objective, universal way. There simply is no basis for the claim that "culture is a market failure."

3. The reason there are so many starving artists is because most artists suck. That is an objectively demonstrable fact: markets are their own proof, including the market (or lack thereof) for crap peddled as "art."

Armed with that, let's check Representative Mike Doyle's fiscal priorities:

At the Music and Intellectual Property Policy Day co-sponsored by [the American Constitution Society] and the Future of Music Coalition earlier this month, Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA) proposed an innovative program to "encourage the creation of new and different music" by "find[ing] some way to make a career in music more viable economically."

Noting that "even small amounts of money could allow many artists to ... build[] a fan base, spreading new music across the country and entertaining more people," he cited the NEA as offering attractive examples of similar programs. Rep. Doyle also discussed a Canadian program "to promote and develop modern music" that has "created a vibrant cultural renaissance in Montreal," as well as "a cultural center that's driving new investment and new jobs."

This is, of course, utter nonsense. Classic, insolent Broken Window Fallacy.

Every dollar confiscated by government is a drain on the economy. The fact that the dollar will be spent elsewhere (e.g., on unsuccessful musicians) neither negates that fact nor legitimizes the confiscation.

What good is a "vibrant cultural renaissance" in Montreal to a taxpayer in Vancouver? What (private) projects were eliminated, through taxes, from Vancouver and denied to its residents in order to fund a "renaissance" in Montreal? And, more to the point, why should a politician (or, worse, a bureaucrat) in Ottawa get to decide that, bottom line, Montreal is simply more important than Vancouver?

And this phenomenon is of course not limited to geography. For example, to tax prosperous physicians — in Montreal, Vancouver, Pennsylvania or anywhere else — in order to underwrite failing artists is to decide that artists (specifically, bad artists) are more important than doctors (specifically, good doctors).

That simply cannot be right. Indeed, it is the height of moral defectiveness to pretend that you know better than the market what is and is not "worthwhile" or "valuable" (To whom? Blank-out. In what context? Blank-out.) — to the point of levying taxes to "correct" the "mistakes" of the "unenlightened" free market (i.e., taxpayers).

It's quite simple really: The fact that people won't pay to see an artist is proof that his art has no value — not that he "needs a subsidy" in order that he may have an "economically viable career" (i.e., one without — gasp! — a "day job") in the form of forced consumption of his art through taxpayer appropriations. For a politician like Mike Doyle to arrogantly presume that, since he happens to think that modern music is neat-o and that, since he is a politician, he therefore has a legitimate sanction to impose his subjective tastes and preferences on his constituents (and everyone else) is the height of command-and-control hubris.

It is not the purpose of politicians to ensure that anyone is spared the insult of having to work a "day job." It is not the purpose of taxes to pick our playlists for us.

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

Fill in the blanks:

The most bizarre, yet most common, criticism of just about any kind of ___ these days seems to be the fact that a lot of it sucks. That's really not debatable by itself -- but it's not the point either. Sure, a lot of ___ sucks, but there's an awful lot that's quite good as well. In fact, what's cool about ___ is that what sucks and what's good really depends on the audience. So what sucks for me might be quite interesting and useful for you -- in which case, that's great for you and makes no difference for me. Thus, anyone complaining about some bad ___ as evidence that ___ has little to no value has pretty much missed the entire point of ___.

Regular readers of my blog would probably guess the missing word is "art."

But they'd be wrong:

The most bizarre, yet most common, criticism of just about any kind of user-generated content these days seems to be the fact that a lot of it sucks. That's really not debatable by itself -- but it's not the point either. Sure, a lot of it sucks, but there's an awful lot that's quite good as well. In fact, what's cool about user-generated content is that what sucks and what's good really depends on the audience. So what sucks for me might be quite interesting and useful for you -- in which case, that's great for you and makes no difference for me. Thus, anyone complaining about some bad content as evidence that user-generated content has little to no value has pretty much missed the entire point of user-generated content.

However, at the other end of the spectrum, there seems to be this mythology that those who commission user-generated content are exploiting those users to create this type of content. That's equally ridiculous, as shown by a NY Times article highlighting just how expensive it is for companies creating user-generated advertising contests to have fans creates ads for them. Basically, those companies are discovering that it takes a lot of work to find anything decent, and it may be cheaper to just go the traditional route of hiring professionals to create your content for you.

Here's my point: Would anyone seriously suggest that the government should start awarding grants to YouTubers to subsidize their creation of "user-generated content" that may or may not be useful to a business (i.e., that may or may not suck)? Would anyone seriously suggest that YouTubers, especially those who suck, have a "right" to a taxpayer subsidy, so they can practice their craft without the burden of a day job?

No?

Then don't seriously suggest that the rules for "artists" should be any different.

The reason there are so many starving artists is because most artists suck. Those who don't don't need taxpayer subsidies; those who do don't deserve them.

In breaking non-news, Congress is poised yet again to force you to buy something you don't want:

The House has overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The 357-72 vote last evening demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting. The outcome was never in doubt, unlike a fight two years ago when Republicans tried but failed to slash public broadcasting subsidies.

It's quite simple really: Public television might -- might -- have made sense when there were three television networks nationwide and perhaps four or five stations in any given market. It's downright silly when there are hundreds of channels in every market, a dozen or more of which do exactly what PBS does, and better. The metrics are comparable for public radio.

It is insolent paternalism to presume that people need to be forced to "buy culture" via tax-and-spend subsidies of PBS or any other manifestation of public arts funding. It is kindergarten naivete to believe that PBS is not politically biased (or at least politically susceptible). It is a disengenous bait-and-switch to insist that $420 million "isn't much."

If I were -- gasp -- a member of Congress, I would capitulate utterly on trying to fight PBS funding, simply based on opportunity costs: it's a futile gesture after two generations of propagandizing. I would, however, introduce legislation requiring PBS to rephrase its obnoxious gobbledygook mottos:

"A private corporation funded by the American people"
and
"by the annual financial support of viewers like you"
to
"A government bureaucracy funded by the American taxpayer"
and
"the annual taxes of people not watching this program"
Think my bill would pass?

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always -- always -- envisions himself as the central planner.

Some very confused malcontents at — where else? — a liberal arts college seem to think so:

Randolph College simply wanted to sell four highlights from its renowned American art collection to boost its endowment and protect its accreditation. Instead, it has fallen into a bitter legal battle with art lovers who consider the sale an unethical breach of public trust. That fight has led the Virginia Supreme Court to block the sale by the New York-based Christie's auction house.
...
The art community sees as a moral imperative to keep the collection intact at the college's Maier Museum of Art for the education and cultural enrichment of students and the community.

"There's an ethical contract between donors and a museum," said Ellen Agnew, the former associate director at Maier and a plaintiff in the art lawsuit. "You're using this for an educational resource. Museums do not think about objects they hold as a financial asset."

Randolph spokeswoman Brenda Edson said that two of the paintings were donated and two were bought by the college — and that none of them came with any restrictions.

The capacity of self-appointed "protectors of the public trust" to demand unearned money, expropriated from taxpayers against their will, to overproduce politically favored art by politically favored artists, based solely on the irrational fiction that, somehow, "art is different," is well-documented on this blog.

But this is a whole new plateau. We now see the artocrats™ transcending their insolent dismissal of the pesky notions of enumerated powers and fiscal federalism, and launching an all-out frontal assault on both the law of property and the law of contracts.

Note carefully that there is no dispute over ownership of the paintings, nor is there any issue of competing interpretations of restrictive covenants (for the lawyers: this is not a cy près action). Two of the paintings were bought in the open market; the donated works came "with no strings attached" (which, incidentally, the donors could easily have insisted upon).

Yet none of that matters to the artocrats™. Of what importance is a concrete legal contract when there is a nebulous "ethical" contract? Of what importance is the fact that museums buy, sell, trade and bail (and charge admission to view) their holdings all the time? No — museums, we are told, "do not think about objects they hold as a financial asset." Oh really?

And let's not overlook the pesky (but hardly dispositive) complication that Randolph College is facing financial distress and perhaps even de-accreditation. How does it further a college's educational mission to force it to misallocate its (dangerously limited) resources? Whose interests trump whose — the tuition-paying students, the paycheck-earning faculty and staff, or the externality-exploiting "community"?

Occasionally, property rights are indeed complicated by restrictions and limitations. Sometimes such encumbrances are created voluntarily; sometimes they are imposed by government coercion. But they are almost always (and only properly) created ex ante — as part of the bargain, with full knowledge beforehand. Imagine the chilling effect, by contrast, if every private transaction came with the caveat that "you can buy whatever and whenever you like, but you can only sell when 'the community' considers it acceptable." Imagine if you could never again be an owner, but only a "public trustee." What would you be willing to not-quite-buy? What wouldn't you be willing to?

All this again because, somehow, "art is different."

When, as is the case here, title is unambiguously held free and clear, private autonomy must be acknowledged and respected. Shame on any court that refuses to acknowledge this highest of all human rights — the right to own property.

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always -- always -- envisions himself as the central planner.