Andrew Stiller wrote:
I said:
It is an unfortunate but inescapable fact of human nature that if
you are offered something for nothing, you tend to assume that it
is of little intrinsic value or importance, and will pay little
attention to it. The big foundations understand this and will usually
refuse to subsidize any musical group for more than one year if they
do not charge admission to their concerts.
Tell that to people who are trying to get the necessary-but-free
tickets for U.S. Marine Band or U.S. Navy Band or U.S. Army Field Band
concerts when they are held locally!
Paid for by their taxes. Would they be trying so hard for tix if it were
just any band? Would they be trying so hard if they could hear the band
any day they liked? Or if the supply of tix were unlimited? The price of
something is not measured only in money.
There really is a basic principle of human behavior going on here, the
same one Joni Mitchell bemoaned in "Big Yellow Taxi."
The concert on the Esplanade in Boston on the 4th of July is another
example of a huge population placing a lot of value on something they
get for free.
Don't know about that one. Who pays the musicians?
The huge hordes of people visiting the Smithsonian each day is another
example.
Taxes.
The many people who use the Philadelphia Free Library is yet another.
More taxes.
And on and on and on.
And on.
Then by your example nothing is ever free, because the people who might
compose music and give it away are earning money somehow to pay their
rent and food, in the same way that people who are paid to be in the
military bands are paid for by the taxes of every tax-paying American.
So then people can't value things which are free, since nothing is free.
Somebody paid somebody so they could survive to create whatever it is
they're giving away supposedly for free.
To the audience members of the military bands, to the folks who go to
the Smithsonian, many from foreign lands and so do NOT pay taxes to the
USGovernment and so to them the Smithsonian really IS free, the concerts
are free since they are not forced to pay anything more to go than all
Americans are forced to pay, which is our taxes.
I don't pay taxes to Philadelphia or to the state of Pennsylvania, yet I
can go use the Philadelphia Free Library when I'm in town. So to me it
is free.
I don't get your point. I guess it comes down to the semantics of what
constitutes something which is "free." But since everybody needs to get
money from somewhere to survive, thus any income they get could be said
to underwrite any and everything they do, I'm not sure there is any such
thing as "free."
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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