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PARTISAN REVIEW
The literary, noncommercial magazines in this country, for ex–
ample, which have always needed money but are particularly hard hit
now by inflation, have gotten few grants from the leading foundations,
either because they are not solid enough to please everybody or groovy
enough to make a splash. The reasons usually given for not supporting
the magazines either individually or collectively cover a wide range of
ingenious explanations, excuses, and rationalizations. Here are some
typical ones: how do we pick the magazines to give grants to; we don't
give general support grants; we give only short-term grants, after which
the magazines will need money again; why do the magazines have to
operate on a deficit.
On those rare, celebrated occasions when a magazine does get a
grant, it is usually for something other than what it is geared to do, and
which it doesn't have the staff or resources to carry out properly. Thus,
the foundations end up promoting those commercial aspects of the cul–
ture they were originally set up to compensate for, by letting the non–
commercial magazines fend for themselves.
The prudence of foundation policy is best indicated by the fact that
only two percent of the arts grants go to literature. Presumably this is
because writing is lonely, dangerous, serious, fraught with meaning, and
doesn't provide the bland social satisfactions that ballet, painting, or
music offer their patrons. A little magazine doesn't have an opening
night.
For those who still take at face value the rhetoric of grant giving, it
might be useful to list some of the pillars of foundation policy.
The cult of the new:
already described, but basically the assump–
tion that one new project is worth two old ones.
The myth of science:
the idea that the obvious can be demonstrated
only by large and expensive "scientific" studies.
The worship of the experts:
the belief that since a foundation is not
equipped to make a judgment in the arts it must poll the largest possible
number of "experts," whose opinions, if they are well chosen, always
cancel each other out.
The ideal of free enterprise:
the principle that institutions in the
arts, like magazines, for instance, must not be given direct support for
their activities, because that, like welfare, would stifle their initiative,
whereas a grant for something other than what they are intended and
equipped to do would stimulate their commercial appetites_
The principle of temporary support:
the deep conviction that
nothing should be supported for too long, since cultural institutions, like
children, are supposed to be weaned when they grow up so that they can
make it on their own in the big, competitive world. But, of course, this
principle doesn't apply to the powerhouse cultural institutions like
museums, orchestras, and ballets, which are entrenched enough to be
indispensable_
Pilot projects:
sometimes a pseudonym for any project to make it
sound scientific and controlled, otherwise it means funding a part if the
foundation is wary of the whole, and then subjecting the results to
