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TPO 4 Lecture 4
United States government
Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a United States government class.
Professor
OK, last time we were talking about government support for the arts. Who can sum up some of the main points? Frank?
Frank
Well, I guess there wasn’t really any, you know, official government support for the arts until the twentieth century. But the first attempt the United States government made to, you know, to support the arts was the Federal Art Project.
Professor
Right, so what can you say about the project?
Frank
Um…it was started during the Depression, um…in the 1930s to employ out of-work artists.
Professor
So was it successful? Janet? What do you say?
Janet
Yeah, sure, it was successful. I mean, for one thing, the project established a lot of…uh like community art centers and galleries in places like rural areas where people hadn’t really had access to the arts.
Professor
Right.
Frank
Yeah. But didn’t the government end up wasting a lot of money for art that wasn’t even very good?
Professor
Uh…some people might say that. But wasn’t the primary objective of the Federal Art Project to provide jobs?
Frank
That’s true. I mean…it did provide jobs for thousands of unemployed artists.
Professor
Right. But then when the United States became involved in the Second World War, unemployment was down and it seems that these programs weren’t really necessary any longer.
So, moving on, we don't actually see any govern…well any real government involvement in the arts again until the early 1960s, when President Kennedy and other politicians started to push for major funding to support and promote the arts. It was felt by a number of politicians that …well that the government had a responsibility to support the arts as sort of… oh, what can we say?...the the soul…or spirit of the country. The idea was that there be a federal subsidy…um…uh…financial assistance to artists and artistic or cultural institutions. And for just those reasons, in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts was created. So it was through the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts, um…that the arts would develop, would be promoted throughout the nation.
And then individual states throughout the country started to establish their own state arts councils to help support the arts. There was kind of uh…cultural explosion. And by the mid 1970s, by 1974 I think, all fifty states had their own arts agencies, their own state arts councils that work with the federal government with corporations, artists, performers, you name it.
Frank
Did you just say corporations? How are they involved?
Professor
Well, you see, corporations aren’t always altruistic. They might not support the arts unless…well, unless the government made it attractive for them to do so, by offering corporations tax incentives to support the arts, that is, by letting corporations pay less in taxes if they were patrons of the arts. Um, the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. , you may uh…maybe you’ve been there, or Lincoln Centre in New York. Both of these were built with substantial financial support from corporations. And the Kennedy and Lincoln center’s aren’t the only examples. Many of your cultural establishments in the United States will have a plaque somewhere acknowledging the support – the money they received from whatever corporation. Oh, yes, Janet?
Janet
But aren’t there a lot of people who don’t think it’s the government’s role to support the arts?
Professor
Well, as a matter of fact, a lot of politicians who did not believe in government support for the arts, they wanted to do away with the agency entirely, for that very reason, to get rid of governmental support. But they only succeeded in taking away about half the annual budget. And as far as the public goes, well…there are about as many individuals who disagree with the government support as there are those who agree.
In fact, with artists in particular, you have lots of artists who support and who have benefited from this agency, although it seems that just as many artists oppose the government agency being involved in the arts, for many different reasons, reasons like they don’t want the government to control what they create. In other words, the arguments both for and against government funding of the arts are as many and, and as varied as the individual styles of the artists who hold them.
《美国政府》
旁白：请听一段美国政府课上的演讲。
教授：好的，上次我们讲了关于美国政府支持艺术的问题，有同学可以总结一下主要观点吗？Frank？
Frank：嗯，我想直到20世纪政府才开始正式支持艺术的发展。但是，美国政府第一次尝试支持艺术的行为是在联邦艺术项目上提出的。
教授：对，那对这个项目你有什么看法呢？
Frank：嗯，该项目开始于大萧条时期，嗯，二十世纪三十年代设立给无业的艺术家提供了工作。
教授：那么成功吗？Jenet？你怎么认为？
Janet：是，当然成功。一方面，该项目创立起了一堆，呃，像社区艺术中心，画廊和像没能接触到艺术的农村艺术。
教授：对。
Frank：对，但是结果政府不是浪费了很多钱在一些造诣都不高的艺术上吗？
教授：呃，有人会这么说，但联邦艺术项目的最初目的不是为了给人们提供工作吗？
Frank：是的。它确实给上千位无业艺术家提供了工作。
教授：对。但之后，随着美国参与二战，失业率降低，似乎这些项目就不再有存在的必要性了。那么，继续，事实上，直到二十世纪六十年代，我们没有见过美国政府再次参与到艺术行业中去。当时正值肯尼迪总统和其他政治家开始出力动用大笔资金支持并改善艺术行业。我感觉，一大堆政治家，呃，就是政府有义务支持艺术，作为一种，呃，怎么说呢，国家的灵魂或精神支柱。他们的目标是要有联邦津贴。嗯，呃，给艺术家和艺术的或文化机构的财政援助。而仅仅因为这些原因，在 1965 年，美国全国艺术基金会成立。所以，通过全国艺术基金会，艺术可以得到发展，全国性范围内得到改善。之后，美国各州开始成立自己的州艺术咨询会，支持艺术发展。这有点像，呃，文化爆发。而在二十世纪七十年代中期之前，我想应该是 1974 年，所有五十个州都有自己的艺术机关，他们自己的国家艺术咨询会和联邦政府，公司，艺术家，表演者共事。
Frank：你是在说公司吗？他们怎么会参与进去的？
教授：嗯，你知道的，公司可不总是奉行利他主义。他们可能不会支持艺术，除非政府给他们点甜头，所以通过提供公司捐税鼓励支持艺术的做法，让公司成为艺术的支持者，从而减轻其税负。嗯，华盛顿的肯尼迪中心，你们可能去过，或者是纽约的林肯中心。这些地方都是在公司的财政支持下才建立起来的。而肯尼迪和林肯中心只是其中之一的个例。美国的很多文化机构都有这样那样的铭牌以表明其支持艺术—不管他们从哪些公司获得的资助。哦，Janet？
Janet：但是不是有很多人认为政府不需承当支持艺术行业的责任吗？
教授：嗯，事实上，很多政治家，他们不相信政府，却支持艺术。他们要完全脱离政府机构，正因为这个原因，才能脱离政府的支持。但他们只能成功地不依赖年度预算的一半而已。就大众而言，嗯，不赞同政府支持艺术的人和赞同的人的数量相当。事实上，特别是艺术家，我们有很多艺术家支持这些机构，并从中受益。尽管似乎很多艺术家想政府机构参与到艺术行业中去，原因各种各样，像他们不想让政府限制他们创作。换句话说，对于支持或反对政府资助艺术行业的争论很多，原因也很多，就像各种艺术家拥有自己的艺术风格一样。
以上就是托福听力TPO4原文中Lecture 4的文本内容，希望大家能够用心体会，更多TPO文本内容小编稍后为您呈现。最后，小编祝大家在托福考试中取得好成绩！
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