Beyond Labels

A 360° Discussion of Foreign, National and Local Policy Issues

Scott Miller

For December 5: The Value of Art

November 29, 2016
1 Comment

We’ve agreed to address this topic–long on the “docket”–next week. For our purposes, “Art” means the “Arts”–without limit to form.

From my perspective, I think the most interesting discussion will be around who should pay for artistic works and to whom should these works be available. The answer will obviously be a mix of several sources and venues, but I’m thinking:

  • How do we feel about private collections (i.e., privately owned and not available to the public)?
  • Under what circumstances should public funds be used to “support the arts?” Or should art intended for public display rely on private “patrons?”
  • Should public support be conditioned, in some way, on content? (I’m thinking of some of the controversial shows that have been (?) displayed in public spaces.)
  • How do we evaluate (and quantify) the benefit of art on society, etc. (the general welfare)?

Feel free to add a comment if you come across a good source for us to review before Monday’s discussion.

For Tomorrow: Identity Politics

November 27, 2016
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As a reminder, tomorrow’s topic is “Identity Politics” with two readings as a core focus (see this previous post for details. Today’s NYT has a “Room for Debate” discussion of the subject as well–since the original opinion piece has attracted so much attention.

I’m also posting this to confirm that the “subscriptions” emails are working properly–they don’t appear to have been sent out when Mike W. published the second-to-most-recent post.

For Next Week: More Post-Election Stuff

November 21, 2016
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Although many of us feel like we’ve discussed the recent election as much as we care to, we’re going to try to approach the election aftermath from a bit of a different perspective next week.

There has been a strong reaction from the Democrats/Liberals/Progressives (choose your preferred label) in the wake of the election, with questions such as:

  • What went wrong and who’s fault was the Democrats’ loss?
  • How should Democrats react to a Trump Administration with both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans?
  • What adjustments to the Democrats’ efforts to appeal to voters should be undertaken (which issues to emphasize, constituencies to target, etc.)?

Here’s some food for thought:

  1. Mike Wolf’s link to the “You Are Still Crying Wolf” slatestarcodex.com post.
  2. An opinion piece in Friday’s New York Times entitled “The End of Identity Liberalism.” As of this writing, the piece prompted over 2460 comments. If 2400+ comments is more than your attention span will accommodate, you might want to focus on the “Readers’ Picks” (1475 comments) or “NYT Picks” (42 comments).
  3. Another opinion piece from today’s New York Times, written in response to End of Identity Liberalism, entitled “Identity Politics and Its Defenders.”

If you don’t have a New York Times subscription, here are links to those articles in PDF form:
20161118-the-end-of-identity-liberalism-the-new-york-times
20161121-identity-politics-and-its-defenders-the-new-york-times

Have more related stuff? Make a comment to this post with a link to it.

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