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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30883 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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What's up with fiction?

I haven't read any since high school English class, but my fiancée does. She often buys the trendy stuff that has won some awards and is (I assume) prominently displayed at Indigo. Hanya Yanagihara and and Sally Rooney are two recent examples.

After asking her about her current book over the last couple years, I have come to realize that all of them are mostly based around the following things:

  1. Sexual abuse, especially molestation

  2. Homosexuality or transsexuality

  3. Main character is black or similar, everyone is racist towards them except the good guy(s)

  4. Main character is disabled somehow

While these plot points are basically mandatory to win a book award now, a lot of "classic literature" is just old books that happened to contain these themes. For example, Truman Capote would not be a big deal had he not been a homo who wrote about homo stuff.

None of this is that interesting, but it is weird how well the title of "literature" and book awards launder what is essentially gratuitous descriptions of homosexual molestation into something tasteful and classy. Is this widely known? I get the sense that this is something most right-wing men just have no idea about.

This has been happening for a while...

It's difficult to find an unbiased account but look up the sad puppies hugo awards controversy.

And before bad faith accusations come in; there is nothing wrong with those themes. But anyone who abuses art to push activism doesn't help the cause, they just destroy the art form.

And before bad faith accusations come in; there is nothing wrong with those themes. But anyone who abuses art to push activism doesn't help the cause, they just destroy the art form.

What counts as an "abuse of art"? It sounds like you're trying to say "If the message slots in neatly into a side of a salient culture war, then it's abusive".

What counts as an "abuse of art"?

Propaganda, perhaps.

Sure. So what makes a piece of fiction propaganda? That's what I'm trying to understand your position on. You clearly have some definition for propaganda or abuse of art.

Precise definitions are hard and are never going to capture every edge case. But I'd suggest a central-cluster definition of "art where the effort and skill put into crafting and communication of an ideological message is obviously greater than the effort and skill put into creating the portions of the artwork which are orthogonal to, or irrelevant to, the ideological message, or where the communication of the ideological message openly takes precedence over non-ideological artistic considerations."

It's the approach and if someone is good, it can be hard to see.

Do you (the author) see the art from as an expressive art form or do you see it as a way to push you ideology.

Granted there is gray area here and we can disagree on where that line falls but there is a difference that becomes obvious on the extremes.

I’m with you, but you’re responding to a different guy than @crushedoranges

Perhaps start by sharing your own definition of propaganda so that your own position can be better understood.

I don't see why it matters, but I'd say that propaganda is any material intended to persuade people of a position without regard to its truth. It may be true, or it may not, but the primary goal is convince people of something.

Good art is propaganda. As Moldbug says:

Man invented art for one reason: to mog. The only reliable way to change a regime is to impress it into surrendering of its own free will. Persuasion is beta; only the uncertain persuade. The strong perform.

Under this framework, abuse of art would be when political pressure is applied in favour of obviously bad art. Or, inversion of hierarchy.

To go by Orwell's formula: "All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art."

So when a person attempts to create something they simply find beautiful, or evocative, that's not art? I guess I fucking hate art then.

Beauty is not value neutral.

yes

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