Talk about being careful what you wish for.

During the Grammy Awards on Feb. 8, Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy, stole the spotlight for several minutes to encourage President Barack Obama – a two-time Grammy winner himself – to create a Cabinet position for the arts.

The proposal received applause from the audience of artists who would, theoretically, benefit greatly from such a position. But would they?

A secretary of arts (or arts czar) isn’t a new idea. It’s been floated, in one form or another, since the end of World War II, as America evolved from an industrial power into a cultural one. Our main export today, maybe, isn’t our products, but ourselves.

Those who support a “secretary of the arts” think it would bestow legitimacy or influence on American cultural pursuits within the political process, by affording them equal footing with other government functions – say, the military – for precious funding.

It sounds great, in theory. The reality is “government arts” sounds as soul-inspiring as any other bland bureaucratic endeavor. One area this country is best to keep the government from interfering or controlling (now that the free market is out), is artistic pursuits.

Has American culture suffered without a voice in the Cabinet? Hard to say. Our cultural industries – music, film, literature – are the strongest in the world, and not just financially. These industries thrive because the quality of their products are unparalleled.

Even the threats to our cultural industries – like digital piracy and other technological devils – are American. iTunes changed our record industry. The iPod, the Kindle and the BlackBerry are changing many others. Our cultural industry is also our most competitive and cutthroat.

Arts thrive in America without formal political power, so a Cabinet-level arts position could crimp freedoms the arts now enjoy, and would likely miss, if sacrificed for the false prestige of a bureaucratic Cabinet post to control its activity.

If it even did that. The intersection of arts and politics often yields inconclusive results, such as Maine’s efforts for a “creative economy” – which were born here in Lewiston, a few years back in the Bates Mill. So far, this effort has held many slick functions, funded some smart studies and had some hip slogans, but has produced few actual results and is fading into post-policy-fad obscurity.

Culture and government don’t co-exist well. There are good reasons why our political capital, Washington, D.C., and our cultural capitals – New York and Los Angeles – are separate.

They are magnets of opposing polarity, gently resisting the force of the other. Is each reliant upon the other? Yes. Should this then require a formal intertwining of government and culture, to where culture is regulated like commerce, diplomacy, the environment or labor? No.

Arts free of political shackles should remain so. Those who support an “arts czar” maybe have their hearts in the right place, but they should be quite careful what they wish for.

They might get it.