THE ASSAULT ON CULTURE
"Killing cultural funding will leave future generations with an educational, aesthetic and spiritual deficit far greater than the financial one we currently face." LYDIA S. CLARY Bethesda, Maryland THANK GOD FOR ROBERT HUGHES. I have been waiting for an eternity for someone to blow out of the water the crackpot contradictions of Republican anticulturalists [COVER STORY, Aug. 7]. I wish more of us could slam with such verity and elegance. SYDNEY BARTON Chicago
ROBERT HUGHES' ATTACK ON CRITICS OF the NEA and NEH has an all too familiar ring. In its partisanship and preference for diatribe over argument, it resembles much of what today passes for scholarship and sometimes art. While a case can be made for preserving the endowments, Hughes' shallow, sneering polemic does it little justice. Indeed, the persistently ad hominem character of his essay only fortifies the impression of an intellectual culture too coarsened to be much worth supporting. Much more than the future of two federal agencies is at stake. STEPHEN H. BALCH, President National Association of Scholars Princeton, New Jersey
ROBERT HUGHES' COVER STORY WAS JUST what we all needed to hear. Hughes is one of our most gifted polemicists. This is the kind of message the NEA, in its attempts to point up the "usefulness'' of art, has so miserably failed to get across to the American public. I think most of us who work in the arts feel the ground slipping from under our feet day in and day out. As I write this, I'm looking across the street at the Metropolitan Opera House. Is it really too much of a stretch to imagine it 20 years from now being rented out for fancy dog shows and cattle auctions? BRIAN KELLOW, Managing Editor Opera News New York City
GOVERNMENT FUNDING OF THE ARTS breeds amateurism and fakery. It gives center stage to those whose only real talent is for moving in cliques and knowing how to get government grants. EDWARD STONE Brookline, Massachusetts
SUPPORT FOR OUR CULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS is an investment in our communities. Eliminating those organizations will deny millions of Americans access to the finest that art and the humanities have to offer. This is ultimately a debate about the ability of Americans to have access to their culture. Your cover story reinforces the belief held by millions of Americans that as a nation we must make the investment to bring the best art to the greatest number of people. ROCHE SCHULFER, Chair American Arts Alliance Washington
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COVER STORY BY Robert Hughes. Nothing more clearly illustrates the incestuous relationship between the self-styled cultural elite and their claque in the popular press or better epitomizes how out of touch with normal Americans you people are. "What would Tocqueville have thought of today's assaults on the fabric of America's public culture?" you ask. Well, he would first have spent no little time scratching his head over the "culture" so described, and then he would probably agree that if this is "culture," then America is better off without it. TIOMOID M. OF ANGLE Richardson, Texas
"PULLING THE FUSE ON CULTURE'' IS A brilliant case for continued funding of the arts agencies-and more funding, not less. It passionately spells out the incredible shortsightedness and downright stupidity of those who oppose them. JONATHAN BOLT New York City