Why the National Ballet should stay and Melle Daamen should become chairman of the Culture Council.

"If the National Ballet is superfluous, then the Ballet Academy is also superfluous, then art education is superfluous, then art is superfluous." Facebooker Alex de Vries doesn't mince words. "From whatever perspective you reason from the Daamen view: it is abolitionist politics. Anyone advocating this as a theatre director had better resign and leave the Council for Culture, because it should be for culture and not against it."

We have another little debate in the Netherlands. About culture. And the little debate has been derailed within a day. Theatre director and Council for Culture member Melle Daamen wrote a solid opinion piece, and immediately the tables were set. The disaster report of this derailment can be summarised briefly: someone from the art world wonders whether all that subsidy money is being well spent, and everyone gets angry. A pavlov reaction that we previously saw during the cuts by Rutte I, but which actually recurs every four years: subsidies are an acquired right, which cannot be tampered with. Whoever lifts a finger at the subsidy is the enemy. Milder minds say: of course so-and-so has a point, but let's do nothing for the time being.

And so, after a while, the circus starts all over again.

But what is it really about? Melle Daamen raises points that everyone knows, and actually agrees on: the public plays no role in the debate on art, there is far more supply than demand and the spreading idea has gone too far. At the same time, there is globalisation, and that means opportunities and threats: more export opportunities, but less chance for the 'small and vulnerable' department. The Dutch art supply is now as surprising and versatile as a random shopping street in a Dutch provincial town.

There is no solution yet, and there will not be one for the time being. We can therefore perhaps see the article by this prominent crown member of the Council for Culture more as an internal memo for the Council. After all, we have been missing the Culture Council for some time. Indeed, ever since the former president of the Council left the building with slamming doors, the Council has become a toothless tiger. Halbe Zijlstra appointed with Joop Daalmeijer a chairman who goes for the harmony model, which in the current political juncture means carefully drafted memos sent to the minister, who kindly but not too urgently asks her to think again - if she has time - about one thing and another, but preferably not too much, because she will only get tired of that. And then once the Council says something, the minister sweeps it away rock hard off the table because the proposal is so completely off the mark that no one can take it seriously.

Enter Melle Daamen, who saw this, and was annoyed. He has occasionally shouted something, as a crown member, in a meeting, but then it was considered too extreme, or too early, or too much fuss. Daalmeijer does not want a row in the tent, and certainly not with the field. So Melle Daamen writes it off in the NRC Weekend.

And quite possibly Joop Daalmeijer thanks him for his effort to take the hot irons out of the fire, but I suspect that the President mainly sees a PR problem ahead of him. To really get the debate off the ground, therefore, Melle Daamen should not be expelled from the Council, but rather be its chairman. At least it will be about something again.

In this country.