Poll on NEA Purchases of Artwork May Have Asked Wrong Question

I am writing in regard to The Times’ Orange County poll of 600 voters concerning the expenditure of federal funds for “artwork” by the National Endowment for the Arts--”O.C. Opposes ‘Catch’ on NEA Funds, Poll Finds” (June 4).

The survey produced results generally disapproving of federal standards to control controversial or obscene . . . artwork, with 57% disapproving, 32% approving and 11% undecided.

In a society saddled with an obsessive preoccupation with daily living, addiction to entertainment and an unimpressive literacy level, it is unlikely that the average voter is aware of, much less concerned with, the controversy generated by the NEA’s past indiscretions. It would be interesting to know how those surveyed were selected. By what criteria were they chosen? Party affiliation? How many were even aware of the existence of the NEA? Also, it would be interesting to know if the 600 were actually aware of the NEA’s predicament and how many voters were contacted before enough knowledgeable ones were mustered.

A survey posing the question, “Do you approve or disapprove of the federal government setting control standards to decide what artwork to fund and what artwork not to fund?” is, to say the least, disingenuous. To be blunt, without detailed information on the survey itself, there is every reason to characterize it as a ‘stacked’ attempt at eliciting a desired conclusion--just another example of the propagandistic talent of The Times (which seems ever-eager to manufacture misleading public opinion).

The real issue is whether the federal government should fund controversial or obscene artwork when the NEA’s administrative machinery is so disposed. That is, of course, a matter of public policy in response to the fundamental question: What is good for society?

In that light, the survey is valueless. And one may well ask what would have been the results had the survey posed the question, “Do you approve or disapprove of the NEA exercising an unlimited privilege to spend federal funds on anti-Christian, pornographic or obscene artwork?” I suggest that more than 57% would have disapproved.

Although The Times has utilized the talents of Allan Parachini and others for well over a year to keep the controversy falsely presented as one of an unjustifiable limitation on artistic freedom, the truth is that the NEA’s past indiscretions are the cause of the controversy. And such a question as I have suggested would have presented the issue honestly and without any hint of purposeful obfuscation.

WILLIAM J. MCCAULEY

Santa Ana