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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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The right wing should do patronage of good culture and right wing culture and abandon an ethos of disengagement and libertarian ethos.

Why?

Because if you know artists, they care first and foremost about doing their things and getting money and recognition. The reason the left has been so successful its because it is willing to provide support, and to deprive them for not aligning with them.

Secondly, people who are actually on your side will also act based on incentives.

And thirdly, because the end result is desirable. A culture of just whining, about leftist cultural output is impotent. There is nothing wrong with complaining about what is bad, but you should also promote what is good. We need a society that promotes good art and and good culture. There is more to life than line going up. And if you don't try to fill that vacuum, someone else will.

What this means effectively? A right wing goverment should defund leftist artists and promote rightist artists and allow people to join the side. Soon you will discover that many artists are actually rightists who were afraid to express themselves.

It also means promoting art programs.

Also some kind of art tends to be of a more negative and leftist form like rap and modern art. Not all but more commonly.

Beyond the goverment, right wingers and not leftists should care more about networking to promote art that isn't left wing. It doesn't have to be explicitly political. Lord of the Rings for example qualifies. Just accurate adaptation of great classics of western literature without left wing ideological blinders would also qualify.

Putting regulations in place to make them illegal or underpromote far left racebending art and make them less financially viable, and giving incentives for art that respects the source material for example.

Of course, someone could object to a certain particularly aggressive moves in terms of what you promote and not promote, and in being excessively far to the right and excessively intolerant. And I could even agree with them in some cases.

However, in the current status quo, things are so lopsized in the direction of the left that it is pushing the culture landscape in a more pluralistic phase to have less race bending far left culture being promoted and more right wing.

This means that more right wing patronage of art is good even from a more neutral, pluralistic standpoint. Which is a general pattern of the culture war, even outside art. If someone is fine with leftist domination and escalation then a position in favor of an impotent disengaged right makes sense. We don't have a sufficiently neutral and moderate status quo though for defence of the status quo to be the neutral position.

You haven’t made an argument that the right should discard some of its principles. Perhaps before the right goes that far it should in the first case eliminate left wing subsidies (which are massive).

I did make an argument in favor of patronage. And it isn't an inherent principle of the right not to support right wing art and it isn't going far also.

The funny thing is that you are the one who is not making an argument in favor of eliminating left wing subsidies first as a superior alternative. Why not both eliminate left wing subsidies (or some of them) and promote right wing art? There is no argument there why not doing that other than dogmatism in favor of not doing that and claiming that your dogma is the dogma of the right to force them to do as they want.

You might prefer a right that doesn't do things, but you haven't argued why that is a good idea. Agree with me or not, I did provide arguments in favor of patronage. That good art is a good in itself and more right wing art will be good thing and also there are other important considerations than line goes up. That vacuum is not a realistic alternative and will be filled by those willing to fund and support it as humanity cares about art. And an attitude against patronage also leads to artists aligning with the left which will give them the support they crave. Also it is annoying for right wing figures to just complain and not promote the change we want to see in the world too and not try to bring forth the good and non leftist art we desire.

Anyway, in addition to the arguments I already made, I would say that the same mentality that leads in being a naysayer against doing any of what I advocated will lead to the right not eliminating all the subsidies in favor of the left as well, like they haven't eliminated them so far and been complicit in their funding. Moreover, it isn't my principle that it is good for the level of subsidies towards art to be 0.

Actually, it is my experience that this claim that it is the principle of the right to not do x and go that far is predominantly a promotion of the right being losers that leads into the political landscape where the left dominates we have currently. Over the alternative of it being a sensible call for restraint. It is also annoying how you are trying to control others by telling them what is their dogma and trying to constrain them to dogmatism. Very manipulative.

So I would add another argument. Succeeding in doing things makes it less easy for bad policy and bad dogmas to be promoted as constraints. Since there will already be the experience of doing things, which is better over the alternative that it actually goes far to support right wing art which is a very extreme claim. Libertarian dogmatism is a different ideology to the right. Limiting the goverment to an extend is a part of the right wing toolbox, but when it comes the utmost focus, we have the subversion of one movement and political faction by the agenda of a very different one. One that when it stands on its own two feet and directly seeks power and doesn't use the right as a vehicle goes nowhere and is supported by a very small amount of people. Although your general opposition to supporting right wing art as going too far, goes beyond libertarianism to an even more extreme area. Defying your dogmatism and this loser mentality is another good reason for the right to promote patronage.

You basically said the right should abandon their libertarian ethos.

I’m saying “before you do that, perhaps live up to it by eliminating subsidies.”

This is of course a conservative approach. Incremental change and see if it solves the problem.

I don't consider the libertarian ethos to be the ethos of the right both historically and presently since they have been willing to go along with the funding of academia, organizations of a left wing hue. This also is not the philosophy of the right but a tool to the toolbox. Not the philosophy of right wing voters neither. Which is to say that being opposed to excessive parasitism.

If you want libertarian as an ethos there is the libertarian movement, not conservatism.

Do you have anything that addresses my arguments instead of trying to force your way through by defining falsely your way as the conservative way? I don't appreciate you telling me I didn't make an argument in your prior post neither. As I said, the argument that like a robot the right should do something because the right should do something is a bad and cyclical one and the right should promote patronage also so this kind of bad logic will be taken even less seriously in the future.

This is of course a conservative approach. Incremental change and see if it solves the problem.

Removing all left wing subsidies including parasitism in private organizations that have created large diversity programs that relate to art will not be an incremental change but a large one. So someone could use your logic against doing it because supposedly it isn't the conservative way. Indeed, considering the lack of popularity of hardcore libertarianism, it actually helps promote an image of extremism to the right. You will be able on net to make a bigger change by trying to both promote patronage and reduce left wing art subsidies than focusing only on the later.

Incremental change is also very obviously not necessarily the conservative way. It depends what is your standing point. If you are in a very far left situation, and experience a huge change from a previous more conservative default, trying to change things again would be the conservative way. A large change to a conservative direction is conservatism even though leftists and other non conservatives would like for conservatism to be something different. Funnily enough I am not even very conservative but of more moderate conservative bent. So I am not even willing to always support the more conservative position, just cause that is what a conservative supposed to do.

The attempt to define conservatism as being a pushover, loser who isn't allowed to push too far as a defining aspect of the right is promoting both a falsehood and contributes to political left wing domination. Which rises the question of why you are doing this.

In Eastern Europe when Communism fell they didn't half ass it, but allowed huge change, and even blacklisted political commissars. But actually it is not necessarilly against incremental change.

Your logic here is very fallacious. The "cancel all left wing subsidies" is not an option that is in offer that can be done first. You are offering a false alternative. As the uniparty is not libertarian that aint happening. Like I have said in both my first post, and reply to you and you didn't care and bypassed, vacuum is unrealistic.

Trying to both reduce left wing subsidies and promote right wing art will work more in line with incremental change because there are constraints of how much political change can be done. While not doing right wing patronage at all will result in a lack of change instead of a higher % of artists supporting the right and right wing art.

Importantly, your way of thinking is corrosive in itself and restrains action in the private sphere too. It is bad for right wingers to be so unorganized and impotent. Both for society which does not benefit from their contributions and where left wing extremism is left unchallenged, and for themselves who know deep inside that they are failing their potential. Actually the right wing already does patronage to in terms of political content with podcasts, and shows. Your logic would lead to that being abandoned as well and left dominating even more hard than it does now.

Not that I am in favor of small change here though. I am also not in favor of unlimited change to the right, or even things being as lopsided in a right as they are now to the left. Especially of a right as far right as the current left and callers of right wing restraint in the current circumstances are far left.

If I were to follow the logic of the robot which must always choose the dogma, and in this case actual real conservatism and not what you call as conservatism, there would be no reason for me to oppose any institution, or media from going further conservative to the purest form. Alas, people ought to have more sophisticated preferences than that.