GRE写作Issue模拟题4:How To Use Public Resources

The speaker asserts that using public resources to support the arts is unjustifiable in a society where some people go without food, jobs and basic survival skills. It might be temping to agree with the speaker on the basis that art is not a fundamental human need, and that government is not entirely trustworthy when it comes to its motives and methods. However, the speaker overlooks certain economic and other societal benefits that accrue when government assumes an active role in supporting the arts. The implicit rationale behind the speaker's statement seems to be that cultural enrichment pale in importance compared to food, clothing, and shelter. That the latter needs are more fundamental is indisputable; after all, what starving person would prefer a good painting to even a bad meal? Accordingly, I concede that when it comes to the use of public resources it is entirely appropriate to assign a lower priority to the arts than to these other pressing social problems. Yet, to postpone public arts funding until we completely eliminate unemployment and hunger would be to postpone arts funding forever; any informed person who believes otherwise is envisioning Apure socialist state where the government provides for all of its citizens' needs----a vision which amounts to fantasy. It might also be temping to agree with the speaker on the basis that arts patronage is neither an appropriate nor a necessary function of government. This argument has considerable merit, in three respects. First, it semms ill-concevied to relegate decision and choices about arts funding to a handful of bureaucrats, who are likely to decide based on their own quirky notions about art, and whose decisions might be susceptible to influence-peddling. Second, private charity and philanthropy appear to be alive and well today. For example, year after year the Public Broadcasting System is able to survive, and even thrive, on donations from private foudations and individuals. Third, government funding requires tax dollars from our pockets----leaving us with less disposable dollars with which to support the arts directly and more effciently than any bureaucracy ever could. On the other hand are two complling arguments that public support for the arts is desirable. whether or not unemployment and hunger have been eliminated. One such argument is that bu allocating public resources to the arts we actually help to solve thes social problems. Consider Canda's films industry, which is heavily subsidized by the Canadian government, and which provides various incentives jobs for film-industry workers as a result. The Canadian government also provides incentives for American production companies to film and produce their movies in Canada.These incentices hace sparked a boon for the Canadian economy, thereby stimulating job growth and wealth that can be applied toward education, job training, and social programs. The Canadian example is proof that public arts support can help solve the kinds of social problems with which the speaker is concerned. A second argument against the speaker's position has to do with the function and ultimate objectives of art. Art serves to lift the human spirit and to put us more in touch with our feelings, foibles, and fate----in short, with our own humanity. With a heightened sensitivity to the human condition, we become more others-oriented, less self-centered, nore giving of ourselves In other words, we become a more charitable society----more willing to give to those les fortunate than ourselves in the ways with which the speaker is concerned. The speaker might argue, of course, that we do a disservice to others when we lend a helping hand----by enabling them to depend on us to survive. However, at the heart of this specious argument lies a certain coldness and lack of compassion that, in my view, philosophical, and morel issues that this brief essay cannot begin to address. In the fianl analysis, the beneficiaries of public arts funding are not limited to the elitists who stroll through big-city museums and attend sumphonies and gallery openings, as the speaker might have us believe. Public resources allocated to the arts create jobs for artists and others whose livelihood depends on a vibrant, rich culture----just the sort of culutre that breeds charitable concern for the hungry, the helping, and hapless.