Good question , I’m an Artist we are supported in my country ( Republic of Ireland ) the support I get is that I’m tax exempt so everything I earn I’m allowed to keep

I've been on the fence about this for a long time. Strictly speaking, creative works encompasses a lot of stuff, today I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of human effort/hours is spent on 'creative works' and this just feels irritating to me. I'd like to think the ideal society would be very utilitarian with as man as possible all working and making progress as much as possible for the sake of self betterment of the species through science and solving problems and implementing policies and whatever. A society can't just exist, it has to progress, doesn't it?

These would hardly be human societies though, we collectively lack motivation, usually either to these specific goals or just entirely. Most people will want to do their own thing, why should they have to work in any particular field? Some will be incapable of certain tasks, why not let them be useful in their own way?

What's more, while I am no patriot myself, I don't imagine the love for one's country stems solely from the mechanics of it. In that respect, cultural identity is far more cared about and therefore is important, if not most important. Most of a society's cultural identity is generated through 'creative works'.

If you consider creative works to be movies, games, books, sports, paintings, philosophy, niche products or gifts or products for 'quality of life', debate sites, etc. Then it just becomes all encompassing in our life today, to the point where I think you could say based off of results that our collective purpose is producing and consuming this stuff. Given how essential and loved all this is in our lifestyle today I don't think it's all that crazy to support anybody at all doing anything at all. Given how much attention we collectively give creative works, it's a little insane proportionally how little support creators get outside of the free market compared to other things which are heavily financially supported like the military or scientific research or healthcare. Not that these aren't important for various sometimes complex reasons, just that the sheer amount of time we spend on entertainment has little representation in public spending.

Define "support?"

If support is you're funded for life so go have fun then no.

If support means spending occasional funds on public art, facilities that benefit lots of artists, additional training opportunities, then yes, some of that is good.

Hey, if it's an entitlement then screw that. But if it's an encouragement or a facilitation then it's up to communities how much of their budget they want to put toward that. Some communities spurn it, others want to be know as art communities and offer a lot. The latter group shouldn't be scorned by outsiders because truly the economy and culture of every location varies greatly in this country. Most places that make artists welcome have economies that are contributed to greatly by those artists.