bet she was one-dimensional.nAt the trial in which I participated,nthe defense was more polished andnmuch better paid than the prosecution,nand it was a challenge matchingnwits with him. I did it, incidentally, innpart to match wits, to have that experi­nence, and because no one from SocialnSciences would do it, though it was tonthem that the County Prosecutor, onenof their graduates, originally appealed.nThey did agree to see the flicks, requisitento qualifying to testify one way ornanother. They all declined to witness.nThe Costs of Culture byM.E. Bradfordn”The choice of a point of view is the initial act ofnculture.”n—Ortega y GassetnStephen Miller: Excellence &nEquity: The National Endowmentnfor the Humanities; University Pressnof Kentucky; Lexington.nA Report to the Congress of thenUnited States on the State of thenHumanities; The American Councilnof Learned Societies; New York.nBecause I have spoken sharply tonthe general question of Federalnsupport for arts and letters, and becausenmy name is connected withncertain facets of the public business, Inreceive through the mails a mass ofnpublications designed to justify past ornprojected government funding for culturalnactivities. Some of these enterprisesncome under the heading of internationalnrelations or educationalnexchanges and are administered by thenUnited States Information Agency.nOthers are within the Department ofnEducation, such as language programsnand area studies. And there are manynmore—within the Library of Congress,nthe Archives, the SmithsoniannInstitution, the great museums, andnelsewhere. They all have industriousnand eloquent defenders. But with respectnto politics and the intellectualnatmosphere in these United States, thenmost important of these vvritings concernnthe National Endowment for thenHumanities — that now-20-year-oldnM.E. Bradford is professor of Englishnat the University of Dallas andnauthor most recently of RememberingnWho We Are: Observations of anSouthern Conservative (University ofnGeorgia Press; Athens, Georgia).n161 CHRONICLES OF CULTUREnagency of the government brought intonbeing to foster humane letters and thendistribution of such learning or wisdomnas proceeds from reflection ornresearch in those fields that make upnwhat we conventionally call “the humanities”:nin such studies as are occupiednwith men and manners, language,npersuasion, conceptual truth,naesthetics, the formation of character,nand historical explanation.nGenerally speaking, the promotionalnliterature I see minimizes the historynof whatever has been tendentious ornmerely partisan in the administrationnof this agency’s now more than $140nmillion budget and emphasizes insteadnthe utility and potential of the Endowmentnas a civilizing instrument operatingnwithin an area of the nation’snintellectual life that is still more thann90 percent dependent on private resources.nIn the pages of this literaturenthere is much “uplift,” puff, and burble,nall of it officially oblivious to thenfact that no public body can be expectednto agree on what constitutes appropriatensupport for the humanities. Butnsometimes (and more wisely) thesenapologies and appeals speak not ofnfond hope but of the political problemsnsurrounding NEH in its relation to thenCongress and the groups which makenup its constituency, the conflicts betweennsuch powers and the difficulty ofnsatisfying them all. It is these documentsnwhich interest me, for they raisenquestions about the character of anregime which has such difliculty inncalculating the costs of a commitmentnto culture and in determining thenessential nature of the humanitiesnas it relates to unavoidably politicalnconsiderations.nnnthough, in general, on grounds that ifn”that’s what people want to pay theirnmoney for. …” All of them werenliberals. It was fun to see them fornonce favor the Marketplace. ccnTwo works in this last category,nwhich I have examined recently, arenthe 1985 A Report to the Congress ofnthe United States on the State of thenHumanities, issued by The AmericannCouncil of Learned Societies, and StephennMiller’s Excellence & Equity:nThe National Endowment for the Humanities,na monograph of institutionalnhistory and functional analysis preparednwith the support of the TwentiethnCentury Fund.nThe ACLS Report offers a way intonthe narrative, which Miller provides,nand a justification for the caution ofnhis suggestions for reforming NEH.nThe purpose of the ACLS statement isnto encourage reauthorization of thenEndowment and to control what sustainednfunding will mean for thenmember organizations which make upnthe Council; to get their view of NEHnwritten into law by a Congress thus farnreluctant to be specific with its instructions.nAppearing in its several chapters,neach of which represents a particularnlearned society, is also much talknabout depoliticizing the Endowmentn—sententiae contra the Reagan regimenprovided by such “nonpartisan”nauthorities as are prepared to imposentheir own version of political activismnupon it through the use of academicn”experts”; sententiae presupposing (innthe face of the last two Presidentialnelections) some version of Rousseau’snobnoxious doctrine of the “GeneralnWill”—what we would want NEH tonbe if we understood matters so wellnas the savants for whom ACLS hasnspoken.nA sample of this collective presumptionnappears in the chapter speakingnfor the Modern Language Associationnof America: “The NEH should maintainnand if possible expand all of itsnprograms.” Elsewhere in the Report,nthe American Studies Associationncomplains of NEH’s retreat from “ansense of social purpose and idealism”ntoward support for the “more conven-n