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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.
First, define "good art" because we've been having this conversation for centuries and nobody's got a working definition universally accepted. What is "good" art - technical merit and ability? subject matter? what the public likes versus what educated taste likes? And is "good art" art in "good taste"? What's good taste, then, precious?
Artists are about being transgressive, challenging social and cultural established values and thought, novelty, and all the rest of it. You can't pay them to produce 'conservative' art, and those who do so will be and are derided as sell-outs. Think Thomas Kinkade, who certainly had some measure of talent, deciding to make himself into a brand and churn out product on carefully selected themes that were repeated ad nauseam. "The Painter of Light" who was wildly successful with the public and made a fortune, but he's never going to get the respect of the art world.
Think of Tracey Emin versus the Stuckists.
They may have started out championing 'traditional' painting, but they've become another sub-set of the performance/protest artists of modern art.
'Good art' is not going to be given that accolade unless it accedes to the values of the liberal and indeed progressive strain of cultural hegemony. "Norman Rockwell type art" is not intended as a compliment. Is Marcel Duchamp's urinal good art? I think Surrealism did produce good art and it did give a shock to the art world, which every new movement needs to do, but as tastes and values evolve, there's no going backwards.
I think for me, most of it would be down to technical skill and the ability to communicate a message to the audience (without having to explain it). What I love about the really good old classic art in various media is that it’s technically good. Old Renaissance paintings are master works that are made by people with a good understanding of how to draw, how to arrange things in the painting, light, shadow etc. old plays are well written and well placed, they show rather than tell, they communicate with their audience and so on. And I’m not against all modern art, I like some of the surrealist stuff personally. The stuff that bugs me are the technically bad, thoughtless, and often requires the artist to make up a meaningful title and backstory for their art because absolutely nothing in the piece communicates any sort of meaning.
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That seems to be implicitly conceding 'art' as a whole to the left and ignoring both contemporary conservative artists and a long history of conservative art because they don't fit into the stereotype of a starving/drug-addled/insert other caricature of left-wing artists here. I will grant that non-religious conservative art (at least in the Anglosphere) seems to be at a low point right now, but I don't think that is some timeless quality rather than a whole-hearted embrace of lowbrow anti-intellectualism (this is also why they're hard up for everything from political philosophers to bureaucratic subject matter experts).
You're unlikely to be celebrated by your adversaries, but that doesn't make much sense as a goal for a conservative art movement. If you can make good art, people will consume it, even people who don't otherwise agree with you. If you build it they will come, etc... Per my remark above, the problem with conservative art right now is that it is overwhelmingly bad, being too preoccupied with being conservative while relegating being art to a very distant second.
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I don't think the current Right in America can make good art that will save them. The bottom line is that the old Right in America is dying. Christianity is in terminal decline and old school classical liberalism just isn't that popular anymore either. This doesn't even get into demographic change where white people (the base for the Right in America) are aging and dying while non-whites move closer every day to a majority. What art could they possibly make that inspires young people?
We are in an era of huge amounts of change, and the die has already been cast. The Right is more or less in the position that the old Pagan culture in Rome was with Christianity ascending and the old ways were hated, persecuted, and forgotten. The current Left won't always be in power, but its true challenger isn't going to come from the Republican Party, Christianity, MAGA, or libertarianism. It may not even come from America and possibly not the West
No, it isn’t. The decline of Christianity stopped with the millennials. Now zoomers are a smaller generation, so actual church membership is still declining, but it’s just not true that future generations are continuing to get less religious.
I wouldn't be surprised if Christian belief among Gen Z is 30% or lower. And by that I mean that on top of regularly attending church, they actually believe Jesus was the son of God, rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven, virgin birth, etc. I don't think polls where they self identify as Christian are even remotely accurate. My theory is that there is a version of the shy Tory effect going on here in regards to religious affiliation. I think Christianity will be more or less dead in the West in 100 years, possibly much sooner.
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Wait, really?
I would be surprised if the terminally online zoomers were any more drawn to organized religion. If there’s been a sea change, I missed it.
Unless this is a demographic transition powered by increased Hispanic population, maybe…
No, the last data I saw showed millennials and zoomers having virtually identical religious demography(both faith and practice), not a turn towards religion on the part of zoomers. Zoomers are a smaller generation, sure, so there’s fewer of them in pews, but the idea that the percentage of the population which is practicing Christian is in free fall is just not true. It looks like free fall because every generation shrinks due to below-replacement fertility.
Most plausibly, this is caused by apostasy being balanced out by higher religious fertility rates. And in fact the data shows that- every grouping of religious denominations in America has an above replacement tfr that takes a nosedive when you account for apostasy. It’s not implausible(although not certain, either) that future fertility gaps will be wide enough(or alternatively, apostasy low enough) that even with apostasy Christianity will be demographically expanding again. It doesn’t, however, seem like apostasy rates are about to rise again, because they seem to have stabilized after declining.
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It'll take some time, but the answer is the same thing as it always is: Things that piss off their parents and teachers.
The greater proportion of parents that are leftist puritans, the more the counter-culture will swing right. No, it won't be Christian right, but it'll be about freedom to offend, same as it always was.
No, it won't. The left has captured the culture and the counter-culture, simultaneously. I don't know how they managed, but they did.
No man, that's progressive sleight. The counter culture is not a movement or a type of clothing or a button you wear, it is the culture that is counter to the mainstream. This place is counter culture (this is a pre-emptive bup-bup to the objection I hear some preparing to type, yes this place is counter culture). You are counter culture. Hell, at this stage of the game, you are a counter culture hero*.
What I think the left have done is develop the controlled opposition model into a multi tiered system, so now below the RINOS is a fake counter culture that is actually mainstream - for people who want to leave progressivism but are still saturated in it. It's a clever move, because it allows them to bridge the gap between their new upper middle class audience and the older money hating hippies, and also maintain control over people who try for the first time to exit the mainstream, like my friend Bill.
Bill is an army guy who never really paid attention to politics until recently when he started to get fed up with how pathetic he thinks the (Australian) army is and how completely unlike anything his dad or uncles or grandfather said it was, how the modern army is like a larp of what it used to be. He started paying attention recently, and when I sent him a barrage of links to read he felt a deep connection to the writing of moldbug and land, but he won't talk about them except when we are in private, and he's thinking of abstaining from the upcoming voice referendum because he knows voting yes is wrong, but doesn't want to vote no and 'embolden racists'.
He hasn't yet become counter culture, he's still just controlled opposition, because thanks to censorship 'to protect the marginalised', he doesn't even know real counter culture groups exist, and so must still reach for the mainstream culture for belonging. But they do, they might only be small and local, or hidden and secretive, but they exist. We exist.
We can't expect to immediately see Woodstock, we lost all the institutions and have to build them up again. That might mean decades even of eking out minor, almost pyrrhic victories, and it certainly means very little mainstream recognition, but so what? You haven't given up have you? And your blackpilled status is a motte meme. But giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, is for losers, and so you're still here reminding everyone to temper our expectations and not expect miracles.
*Sometimes in my idle daydreams I like to imagine you as the motte's Burroughs. Because you're both bitter about being Cassandras, but still capable of finding humour in it.
Yes, but it worked. Counterculture is, and long has been, a product of the same progressive movement that runs the mainstream culture. There isn't any real "counterculture".
No, defeatists cannot be heroes; their own side hates them for their defeatism and the other side hates them for being opposed.
Woodstock was manufactured too.
It didn't work - pol is not controlled opposition, for example. Chan culture is a counter culture. It's more accurate really to say that it worked in the sense that they have redefined counter culture for most people, but it didn't in the sense that counter culture is any culture which is counter to the mainstream. The left might define counter culture as hippies and artists, but we don't have to accept that framing and we shouldn't.
Well, I like you.
True, but it is still a cultural icon of 'the left as counter culture'. Actually it might even be more appropriate now.
Hah, thanks for this little aside about @The_Nybbler. You've redeemed him a bit in my eyes. :)
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This is the truth. You can see this in shows like The Boys which mocks "wokeness" in theory, but what it's really doing is mocking people who aren't woke enough or just pretend to be to get ahead. It's a criticism of wokeness from the more woke. This would be like if Life of Brian mocked Christians from the Right for not being Christian and conservative enough instead of mocking it for being silly and superstitious.
The closest thing you'll ever actually get to making fun of progressives/wokes in Hollywood would be from old school leftists who argue that it's gotten off the tracks and needs to be reigned in a bit but still mostly agree with it. You will never see a mainstream movie completely rejecting the modern Left's narrative because they all more or less agree with it.
"Life of Brian" was a movie whose actual function could be seen as wrapping up messages like "actually empires are good", "the masses are a bunch of sheep", "look at the idiot leftists and their infighting" and "trying to change things is futile, best just not do it" (the entire crucifixion scene, really) to a mildly transgressive and nominally anti-religious cover, where the Pythons took pains to make it clear that Brian is not supposed to be literal Jesus and they're not trying to mock Jesus. The scenes I linked are some of the most famous and most widely-quoted scenes from the entire movie.
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Everything has been debated forever. There is nuance but generally we could say that:
Good art is aesthetically pleasing. Elevates the human spirit rather than denigrates it. Promotes fundamental truths over lies. Promotes virtues. Is respectful of the original source material, and of the people from which it derrives.
And for the right, also has historical significance. Plenty of it would focus on themes that had been successful in the past, including especially in art before the 20th century.
Everything has nuances but there are also fundamental truths. Among films, The Lord of the Rings adaptation would qualify in a manner than most other adaptations we have seen in recent years don't.
Actually Lord of the Rings did have a character who was demoralized and ready to surrender in Denethor. https://youtube.com/watch?v=b7MCVm4XISc That attitude was treated by the protagonists with contempt which spoke of an important truth. Even greater truth is found in the scene were the advisor Wormtongue who has corrupted king Theoden is banished. Truly magnificent. Also wonderful to see Theoden from a sad shell of a leader returning to a noble king of men. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iQExgALv9wI
How many artists these days are transgressive about the dominant established values of thought? Musicians especially. Do you see them to decry it? Well there are a few who do with some success.
Conservative art was produced for much of history. And based on the weirdo definitions of conservatism I see here, maybe they still are if conserving the status quo is conservatism (it isn't).
Thomas Kinkade is an incredible painter and artist. You can create an environment mroe conducive to allowing artists who really care for their quality of their to create good art. Like Cormac McCarthy whose wives claimed they lived in abject poverty who wasn't a leftist either. Which I am led to believe is actually impossible by some of the comments here.
And you can make it easier for rightists or leftist artists too by creating an environment that promotes more the one, or the other in praise, status, positions to create art.
Yes, and? You are arguing with a strawman. I argue that rightists should fund art magazines, and artists themselves. In fact it is the sane reaction to a polarized environment.
Also, it wasn't always that bad.
Says who? Tastes can evolve in various directions. And who says there is no taste for continuous traditions? In actuality old artforms have continuing fans even today.
Actually, there was a film released recently about hunters of pedophiles that was rather popular and was denigrated by most of the media.
Plus, in American television rural tv shows were once all the rage but that ended one day when executives decided to cancel them.
As it happens the public can accept even garbage, although with more dissatisfaction than something better. Where do you gain that great confidence, especially as someone who has claimed to be a conservative that the current dominant strains are the epitome of unchanged sophistication? This faith in the unchallenged and hopeless progressive arc of history is really bewildering.
Does Guernica meet these criteria?
Well, it's not aesthetically pleasing. It looks like a jumble of ugly, mishappen, misproportioned figures. It's supposed to look like that.
Right, because it is meant to invoke the suffering of people in a city that had been bombed. So of course it isn’t aesthetically pleasing. So, perhaps good art does not have to be aesthetically pleasing. Nor does it have to elevate the human spirit.
They could've shown a mother mourning at her dead child and bombed house, they could've shown people laughing, crying and having mental breakdowns in an air raid shelter... There are enormous numbers of options available. That would've invoked the suffering of people being bombed without looking the way Picasso does.
Art can be aesthetically pleasing and still confronting. You can get pathos from paintings, that can elevate the human spirit. If you can't tell, I reject the notion that Picasso produced good art, know that I'm in the minority and don't care.
The point is that, however a work of art depicts human suffering, it is not going to be uplifting and aesthetically pleasing. If it is, it probably is not doing a very good job of evoking the emotions associated with such suffering.
I can often look at a piece of art, be it sculpture, painting, what have you, and immediately know whether the artist hates humanity or not. The purpose of art may be to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed, or however it goes, but I don't care for art when it is clear to me that whoever made it hates us all and would consign us all to despair. It is possible to show human ugliness without hating all humans, to reveal pain while acknowledging that it is pain--even to show despair without suggesting that despair is the just lot in life for all of us, or even for the despairing soul who is depicted. I never cared, for example, for Joel Peter Witkin's work, though he was celebrated in some circles. The term "uplifting" suggests a certain saccharine aesthetic that I think may not capture the right idea.
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Where is it written that suffering requires grotesque mishappen faces and inhuman bodies? What about clear human faces or expressions?
Take this: https://old.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/69vilr/north_korean_museum_painting_depicting_torture_of/
It's perfectly clear what's going on, you can actually interpret it in justifiable ways. Korean wearing white for purity, the composition of how they're all staring at her with malign intent, the guy with the cigarette casually contemptuous and approving of his colleague's hard work. Tongs being heated up for more torture.
Or take half of Caravaggio's work, lots of suffering there! But it's also clear, you've got light and darkness, you've got colour, you've got proper human faces and emotions. His work is not a giant mess of disconnected, ill-shaped images.
Or this - clear emotion, realistic imagery.
https://media.timeout.com/images/105652224/750/422/image.jpg
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And that work spawned a genre known as "high fantasy". It's called "fantasy" for a reason. In reality, there's no author ensuring the ultimate victory of the protagonists.
Essentially none. They often claim to be, but usually they're "transgressing" against the right, which hasn't been transgressive in decades. At most they're doing 50-stalins ultraprogressiveness.
Well, the left started from a weaker point and became more dominant because of faith to themselves and their ideology.
So did Christianity. Another word of more negative hue could be fanaticism and there can be a negative side to it. It is still an important truth that conviction matters and can lead to victory. Even in some cases from an underdog position. Especially if you have more conviction than your opponent and want it more.
In reality, faith is no guarantee of success, but without faith you got nothing. The blackpilled path you preach for leads nowhere. Better to strive for what is good both for pragmatic effects, and because it is a more honorable and just way to live.
Also, is it possible you are promoting the easy way out? If things are hopeless then it does justify doing nothing, after all. But this easy way outs eats at one's soul because deep down they know they could have done better.
There are some who align more with conservatism, or are hostile to the establishment even in the current political environment. Those who self censor might be more.
I do think most artists fall in line though in general.
In addition to the left becoming the establishment, doesn't this have something to do with the left's greater zealotry? Its part of what makes the establishment, the establishment and help define the zeltgeist. Essentially its a self fulfilling prophecy to be demoralized, which leads to further loss and more demoralization.
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Psalm 68:1, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and indeed most of the world, to this day and since essentially forever would pretty strongly disagree with this proposition.
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I dislike what the movies did with Denethor (I understand the choices being made and why Jackson made them, but I still dislike them). It changed book Denethor into a caricature; it weakened the character. But there was need for easy villains so Denethor and Wormtongue fit those roles. I also wasn't too happy with how they treated Brad Dourif, who I think is a good enough actor to convey Grima's evil without needing to be made up like "greasy incel creepy guy nobody would ever trust". Part of that character is that he looked and acted the part of the wise, responsible councillor which is how he was able to worm (ha!) his way into Theoden's confidence and why the rest of the court didn't rise up against him.
But that's personal aesthetic and artistic choices.
Yeah, I found that bit very weird too, how was it that all of Rohan wasn't able to see what an utter slimebag this dude looked like and allowed him to rise up the ranks and become the most trusted advisor of the king just like that?
At least the MTG card was better done, which is not something you can say for Theoden or even Galadriel.
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Denethor and Aragorn were in the books similar people. The difference seems to be that Aragorn was rightfully the king and Denethor was not but had the desire (the will to power). Yet both wanted Gondor to succeed.
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Reminds me of the Tolkien vs Martin rap battle. Isn't one of the reasons art should show unrealistic victory to inspire people in real life to make some similarly hopeless attempts that occasionally do result in victory?
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