Please review my essay on Visual arts
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22 Apr 2021, 18:31
Prompt: “In a recent citywide poll, 15 percent more resident said that they watch the television program about the visual arts than was the case in a poll conducted five years ago. During these past five years, the number of people visiting our city art’s museum has increased by a similar percentage. Since the corporate funding that supports public television, where most of the visual art program appear, is now being threatened with severe cuts, we can expect that attendance at our city’s art museum will also start to decrease. Thus some of the city’s fund for supporting the art should be reallocated to public television.”
Essay Format
The argument claims that People tend to watch more visual arts than compared to previous years. Stated in such a way the argument is a generalised statement and is inconclusive of the data, supporting the hypothesis, tends to manipulate the facts in a distorted way and is a leap of faith reasoning without clear outcomes. In sum the argument could have been presented in a much simpler and improvised manner with relevant facts and examples which could support the same.
First the author compares that viewership has increased in same fashion as the number of footfalls in city’s art museum. This is wrong correlation or a shell game fallacy as you cannot compare two items without proper correlation. Much of the increase in footfalls could be attributed to any new antique picture or arts in their gallery. Or else it could also be that there might be some interesting facts recently added which could have attracted school going children much more. So unless the author is clear in comparison and correlation of the facts, the discussion is ambiguous.
Second, the argument claims that with increase in corporate funding, the visual art program is undergoing several cuts. So, again there is a correlation issue that for corporate funding initiated cuts in TV visual arts, it is impossible to have same reason for decrease in footfall in museum. The reason in decrease of footfall can be attributed to some renovations or some staff trainings or some vacations of children. So the reason is still not very clear.
Finally, the major flaw in above argument is that there is a shell game fallacy and you cannot compare decrease or increase in TV visual art show to the decrease or increase in the footfall of the museum. Without proper analysis of the facts, the data remains more of a confused thought process.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons and is unconvincing as it fails to compare the industry it is referring to. The author should present the nuances of the visual art show with that of museum. Unless the facts are clear and stated properly, it would be unwise to compare the same and so the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to discussion.