Ferguson Response to Arts Council Questionnaire:

1. Yes. I think the government should play such a role. I think funding should increase, but that there should be higher standard for what gets funded. Friedrich Schiller said that the greatest work of art is the creation of true political freedom. I have been the Massachusetts coordinator of the Schiller Institute for 10 years. We have sponsored privately funded classical concerts, and programs on poetry and art. Art should be used to uplift people, and to elevate their conception of man above that of a beast seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. The aesthetic principle according to Schiller is not a passive idea, but one that compels people to take action in the interest of their fellow man. Good government requires great art.

2. I do not support the elimination of the Endowment, but of course, they should not fund pornography and call it Art.

3. C. See above.
4. EDUCATION AND THE ARTS
5. Yes. Classical arts based on Socratic principles of truth seeking should be an essential part of the school curriculum. "Beauty is Truth; Truth Beauty. That is all we know on earth, and all we need to know." I particularly support the training of choruses in polyphonic classical repertoire in the bel canto method; giving children access to learning an instrument early in their education; and the ability of children to participate in recitation of great literature, and involvement in producing and acting in dramas -- particularly Shakespeare and Schiller. This should be a part of the education budget. We must free children from the pessimism of modern culture.

   As a Congressman, I would, in consultation with my friend Lyndon LaRouche, and associates of the Schiller Institute such as William Warfield, Sylvia Olden Lee, Norbert Brainin, and others, write an Apollo-style crash program for classical education in the arts for the school system, which I would then fight to fund. Part of this program should include performances of Plato's Dialogues as dramas, as they were originally composed.

6. ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
7. 3. See above. By expanding the appreciation for classical art, also among a younger and younger audience, we will increase the activity of the arts. Government, businesses and arts can collaborate on this in myriad ways. In particular, we need a National Conservatory of Music, as proposed by Anton Dvorak, for developing American music, such as the Negro Spirituals, into an American classical tradition.
8. 4. In 1999, after the summary execution of Amadou Diallo in New York City, my friend and collaborator, Lyndon LaRouche called for establishing a "National Commission Against the New Violence." I participated in this Commission's founding. As part of that Commission, we considered the impact of the new, cybernetic culture in creating a dehumanization of our fellow man, and a creation of deep cultural pessimism in the American population. We must use both the promotion of classical art -- with its elevated conception of man as a cognitive, creative being -- the promotion of scientific experiment, and the development of great economic endeavors and projects to reverse this. Let's be frank. The garbage on the media is brainwashing and destructive. Colonel David Grossman in "Teaching Our Children to Kill" and Anton Chaitkin in "The Executive Intelligence Review" have documented that video games such as "Doom" were explicitly produced by companies involved in training killers. What do we do when we take their guns -- or knives, or ropes -- away? We need Plato not Pokemon; Shakespeare not Shooting; Beethoven, not Brainwashing.
9. Great achievements in art, literature and architecture -- from Brunelleschi's Dome to Chartres -- celebrate the optimistic idea of man's ability to understand and contribute to God's creation. We need a new Renaissance. This includes great economic projects as well, such as the currently proposed "Eurasian Landbridge Project", which collaborators of Mr. LaRouche have promoted worldwide. This project is based on creating a "Dialogue among Civilizations" -- from Islam to China to the West -- and is designed to promote the best in those and other respective cultures, which will contribute to new breakthroughs in science and art -- to seek Truth from different vantage points, and open up economic development in the poorest areas of the world. This will revive the American System idea of economies based on productive growth. I support this heartily. Such a perspective is particularly needed now to move the world away from manipulated war -- we need this idea of Peace through Development. Also, it is needed because the world is in the middle of a major financial crisis, which will move us into a crash of the current speculative financial system worldwide. Will we have a new Dark Age -- as threatened by the culture of violence and condition of economic poverty and reemergence of infectious diseases worldwide -- or will it give us the possibility of a new system, based on a new Renaissance, a respect for National Sovereignty and an economic and cultural collaboration among nations for development? One act of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the last Great Depression was the funding of WPA projects, which included major support for artists to contribute to the national good. I think we should revive this idea again.
10. I oppose such restrictions as ridiculous. I support the first amendment.