by Paul Klemperer

The peculiar place of artists in the United States means we (the artists) are often both disgruntled and gruntled. Compared to other first, second and even third world countries (and one could argue there are pockets of all three within our national borders), our social position is often insecure. Governmental funding for the arts lies in priority somewhere below basic human services and sprinkler systems for the lawns abutting government buildings. Arts programs are among the first to be eyed for cutbacks in public schools during funding crunches, and overall the governmental philosophy toward the arts has always been one of enlightened pragmatism. That is, the arts should be supported if there are some real economic gains to be realized, gains such as enhanced status and legitimacy among rival governmental power or the potential to generate income and/or lure investment to the area within a particular regime's base.

Similarly, private sector support for the arts usually is pragmatically motivated, to enhance status, legitimacy and visibility for a corporate name (how much has Mobil's underwriting of PBS programs helped mitigate, in the public's mind, that company's execrable environmental impact?). The exception would be donations from wealthy individuals who see the arts as generally beneficial to humanity, rather than pragmatically useful. In defense of large and faceless corporations and governments, it is hard for them to treat people as other than statistical groups.

So much for the disgruntled view; what of the gruntled side of things? I have been frequently told, and have seen for myself, that the fact American musicians have to flail around as wage laborers (rather than as pampered recipients of state or private patronage), makes us hungrier, stronger, more vital than, say, our European equivalents.

Maybe folks are just stroking our egos while we play for peanuts and half-priced drinks, but in some real ways this is true.

A number of jazz scholars make the case that the vitality of jazz, blues and other African American based art forms resides in large part in the self-sufficiency of the artists and their loosely knit communities. These arts have survived and blossomed in spite of official social institutions, rather than because of them. While this may historically be true, should it continue to be the way things work?

Artists have become more organized over the decades, bringing a humanizing agen da to their local, state and national governments, advocating art as a basic need and right for all people, not just the affluent. Arts advocacy goes along with groups with similar social agendas, groups that care about the quality of life for all citizens, a quality that can't be measured in income and growth statistics alone, but has more to do with mental and physical health. Arts advocacy has an essential affinity for human rights advocacy. At its best and clearest level of organization, therefore, arts advocacy isn't just about increasing the rights and resources of artists, but about raising the quality of life for everyone. This is a good thing since artists can be among the most self-centered anarchists a society has to offer (though I do brush my teeth regularly).

The problem at this point is that artists by their nature encourage a pluralistic, multicultural society.

When an art form doesn't challenge, contradict and grow beyond existing ideas and practices, it becomes decadent and stagnant, resulting in kitschy artifacts destined for yard sales and thrift stores. Yet arts advocacy seeks to institutionalize arts patronage through governmental bodies which, with very few exceptions, enforce conservatism, standardization and statistical evaluation of worth. It is an apples-and-oranges situation. Not that it can't work, but it will require a high level of efficient grassroots organization and imaginative governmental flexibility to find a workable middle ground.