Zeroing In on a Comparison of the ‘90s Art Scene and the Nazi Era

Congressmen such as Dana Rohrabacher are guilty only of doing in public what NEA officials do in private: They make a judgment, based on personal aesthetics, of which works set before them are actually art and which of those deserve to be publicly supported. It is ludicrous to suppose that because the ministers of culture in Washington are “artists” they are tapped into the One True Aesthetic. If given the power, Stravinsky would have no sooner funded Arnold Schoenberg than would Rudolf Hess; Tennessee Williams was in fact turned down for WPA support.

By all means, if Mr. Knight is uplifted by photos of Robert Mapplethorpe with a whip handle shoved up his rectum, I would never want to awake him from his bliss.

But in this case, the emperor, literally, has no clothes.

JONATHAN DEGANN

Los Angeles