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Let's compare tax spending on poetry vs illegal wars that increase terrorism and instability while enriching the absolute worst of us. A wildly generous estima
by mandmandam 3y ago
Let's compare tax spending on poetry vs illegal wars that increase terrorism and instability while enriching the absolute worst of us.
A wildly generous estimate for federal and state spending that ends up going toward poetry is 10 million a year.
Our middle east wars have cost 8 trillion over 22 years, or 360 billion a year.
For every lone tax dollar spent on poetry, $36,000 is spent on destruction.
To match the proportional effort that went into your comment above, you'd have to write 360,000 words - about 4 novels - against war.
- hermitcrab 3y agoIf we could guarantee that every $1 spent on poetry was $1 less spent on war, then I would be up for massive funding for poetry. Sadly I don't think the world works like that.
- mandmandam 3y agoFunding of the arts certainly does reduce a population's tolerance for mind-numbingly expensive and stupid wars. And a 1:1 ratio wouldn't be necessary - as generously estimated above, the ratio is more like 1:36,000.
- hermitcrab 3y ago>Funding of the arts certainly does reduce a population's tolerance for mind-numbingly expensive and stupid wars. Not convinced about that. Athens and Renaissance Italy were both hugely centres for the arts, but also fought plenty of wars.
- mandmandam 3y agoAthens funded war much more than the arts. The arts in Renaissance Italy were funded by patronage, not taxes. ... Not that I ever claimed spending money on arts removes all possibility of war, mind you. Poetry, art, music, drama, etc, improve critical thinking, empathy, self-determination, awareness of history, political engagement, etc; all of which are reasons that one of the first things fascists will do is suppress any arts not related to propaganda. It's really weird to see someone try and argue that funding the arts has no effect on a populations mindless bloodthirst, in order to defend not paying a microsopic fraction of their income toward poetry. As I said, the most generous amount the US could be considered to spend on poetry via fed and state taxes is about ten mil. That's 10 cents per person, per year. That's what you're arguing over here. It's profoundly odd.
- hermitcrab 3y ago>It's really weird to see someone try and argue that funding the arts has no effect on a populations mindless bloodthirst So you are arguing that the general population are bloodthirsty beasts without exposure to the arts? If so, I find that quite odd.
- mandmandam 3y agoLol. That's your takeaway from this chat? Wow. I'm out. Bad faith conversations are strongly discouraged here, btw.