How to make the beaten-down more downbeat

A front page story by the Philadelphia Inquirer's (and San Jose Mercury News') Chris Gray makes it clear that the government should preserve New Orleans music by supplying "affordable" housing:

But losing the recordings would be nothing compared to what could happen to the music scene if the city fails to replenish its now-waterlogged housing stock with affordable rentals and homes to attract musicians back to the city, he said. If that does not happen, the marching clubs where toddlers first learn to hold horns and the corner taverns where players form brass bands will no longer exist, he said.

"This music doesn't come from a recording studio; it comes from the people," Freedman said. "If the people don't come back, we'll be a Caribbean version of Atlanta."

Musicians, artists, and bohemians tend to live in cheap, rundown housing, much of which has been severely flood-damaged in New Orleans. Some of them will move to other places (Memphis was mentioned by one friend), but whether they keep playing music ought not to depend on the government supplying them with "affordable housing." I think the type of human creativity which produces art and music is stultified by government largesse, and I think subsidized art generally sucks. Of course, if you like socialist realism and watered down knockoffs of Diego Rivera murals, you'll probably think that such artists should be supplied with taxpayer-financed "affordable housing."

Conveniently forgotten is the fact that while they usually start out poor, bohemians by no means always remain poor. In New Orleans (as well as in other places), many bohemians are rich and successful -- and they made it without government help. I can think of no better way to keep "starving artists" from making it than government subsidies.

This reminds me of a simple question I posed earlier:

Am I alone in thinking that the New Orleans mess might turn out to be a defining moment (a turning point, even?) in the clash between communitarian and libertarian philosophies?
Even though I phrased this in my usual punch-pulling way, it appears I am not alone. Billy Beck makes me sound like a mealy-mouthed wimp!
I'll be very surprised if we ever know the full dimensions of transparently political calculation that went into this, in advance. And I have no problem with the idea that calculations in Washington were generally defensive -- calculating against the locals' calculations -- but I would also have no problem in pointing out that that is just about as far away leadership as one could get. I understand all the arguments over federalism. (I can stipulate to the constitution with the best of 'em, Martin.) And when I get up on my best "blame game", my first shots start with the mayor, and then the governor. But as I've said many times in years past: I would not hire the feds to walk to the end of the driveway to check my mailbox.

Like I said the other day: the investments in failure were enormous, and they have paid off handsomely.

Fully half the libertarian/rational-anarchist argument (the utilitarian half; not the moral half) has been writ large all over that poor city.

Socialists are already seeing and spinning New Orleans as a showdown. And while I'm not sure libertarians can win out against a tyrannical majority voting their own economic interests, I think New Orleans highlights what happens when government "help" destroys self reliance. I think a majority of Americans can still perceive the difference between self help and government help, between a hand up and a handout, and between being a victim and the status of victimhood.

I think there's a huge gulf between those who see New Orleans as an argument for socialism, and those who see it as an argument against socialism. These two ways of looking at the world are incompatible, perhaps irreconcilable.

As to the moral collectivists on the right, while they've so far limited themselves to blaming sodomy for New Orleans' travails, they generally dislike artists, musicians and bohemians -- government funded or not. (Some of them would, I imagine, hate successful bohemians even more than unsuccessful ones, as they'd impute "role modeling" to the former.) While I can't offer proof for my suspicions, I think they'd just as soon see New Orleans' loss as their gain, and would vote to stop all rebuilding efforts -- government or private.

If we're lucky, maybe -- just maybe -- these opposite forces of communitarianism will be so busy dukeing it out that freedom will slip in under the radar.

(In my view, the Enlightenment was an unintended consequence of religious warfare between moral totalitarians, but that's off topic....)

posted by Eric on 09.12.05 at 09:29 AM





TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://classicalvalues.com/cgi-bin/pings.cgi/2768






Comments

Yes, the moral collectivists want to control art through censorship. The economic collectivists want to control art by subsidizing it. A few months ago, you showed us the beginnings of a Stalin-Hitler pact when Hillary Clinton got together with Santorum to promote censorship. The moral collectivists, being much smarter, will no doubt eventually turn on their "useful idiots" just as Hitler did to Stalin.

Until Pearl Harbor, there were isolationists who suggested letting the two just duke it out. I disagree. What we need instead is an ideological D-Day, and then a General Patton to cream both camps of collectivists.

I also see future scholars finding this an interesting case study in... something. Probably a whole lot of things, depending on what happens. Does the middle class come back? If not, we have a study in what happens when they don't. Do the poor resettle elsewhere and fare better in their new loacles? If so, a juicy study in the errors of socailism awaits.

The wealthy might flee. It seems unlikely, if they have everything wrapped up in real estate. But they might. It happened here, in Hoboken, when local government became (overly) corrupt and oppressive. When they left, the town went into an economic tailspin (although one can point to many factors there). Now the wealthy are finally returning to what was one a middle-class-to-poor city, and now money is (as always) following money. Anyway, if the walthy give up on the town, tehre's another case study.

Yes, the tragedy in New Orleans does seem to present an unusual opportunity for sociologists.

And lawyers.

Mr. Snitch!   ·  September 12, 2005 01:40 PM


March 2007
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

ANCIENT (AND MODERN)
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR


Search the Site


E-mail




Classics To Go

Classical Values PDA Link



Archives




Recent Entries



Links



Site Credits