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There seems to be an idea around many open discussions forums that the left has captured many cultural institutions. This perception seems so persuasive because certain leftist thinkers coined the idea.
While it’s undoubtedly true that many major institutions lean left, it’s also a convenient dodge from the right wing or conservative side in the culture war allowing them to avoid self criticism. In fact it seems that almost any time folks question why right wing values are not more represented in popular culture, the knee-jerk response by conservatives is that the left has captured institutions, so there’s no hope. When the reasonable point is asked as to why this state of affairs can’t be broken by right wing institutions or a similar capture by the right wing, I haven’t seen a good answer.
How has this state of affairs come to be the default? Why did the right lose institutions, and why is there so little discussion about how they can realistically take them back?
Institutions are the home of the elite. If the right wants to hold the institutions, it needs to self-consciously build a culture of elitism. Right now it's doing the opposite.
That is, it's not merely that the left has successfully expelled the right, it's that the right is messaging to ambitious young elite-to-bes that "we don't want you". E.g. both the left and the right embrace their fair share of unscientific nonsense - but the left proclaims "trust the science" while the right says "do your own research". The message from one side is elites are good, on the other it's that they can't be trusted. So if you're a status seeking institutional sort of person, which side feels the most welcoming?
It doesn't have to be this way of course. It used to be that the "old boys club" would look out for each other, turn up their noses at the unwashed masses, go to the opera, etc. Think Sir Humphrey Appleby - "This is a British democracy! Some things are too important to be left to the hands of the barbarians. Like the universities - Both of them."
Yeah I agree, the right in the US has no high culture. People can mock effete David French types (and to some extent they should), but when even patrician, well educated WASPs like Tucker Carlson are playing with some kind of folksy midwestern hunting lodge aesthetic it’s a little embarrassing.
In truth, any classical orchestral concert (except maybe video game music), any opera (even Wagner), any classical ballet or theater, almost all the audience are urban liberals. Any gallery exhibit, even the most staid, uncontroversial classical landscapes, say Constable, most attendees (certainly under the age of 65) will be urban progressives. Obviously some of that is because of the location of major galleries, concert halls etc. But also, young DR types will retweet long threads about classical art and architecture and music and theater but then not engage with the spaces that are actually keeping those traditions alive. Cons don’t become classical violinists or shakespearean actors or art historians, they don’t even recreationally see these things in many cases. How much money that the NY Phil raises in a year (from tickets or donations) is coming from conservatives? Is it any wonder these institutions are progressive as a result?
That’s the sad reality, it’s the right’s enemies that are keeping much of the heritage of western high culture alive while cons watch Nascar and Yellowstone.
I agree with this observation, but do you have any idea why this state of affairs came to be?
I'd idly hypothesize it's something about cities attracting more liberals, and conservatives generally being poorer over the last few decades while much of this 'high art' is expensive. That and the fact that high art has become increasingly decoupled from religion.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts though?
I am a very weird person so my feelings probably don't generalize, but for as long as I've remembered I've had the feeling of getting the implicit signal that "high" art is not for me.
Specifically, I've felt that one's supposed to interact with high art with preconceived notions of what's good and what's not, with the actual act of viewing/reading/listening to something being a bit of an afterthought. You're supposed to like the things that have been declared Good and Worthy, with little room for discussion. I'll take people slinging their personal flaming uninformed opinions about the latest vidya with great fervor over that consensus-driven stagnation every day.
Incidentally, there were attempt to bring that top-down consensus "its Art and it's Good" enforcement to the world of video games, but they failed miserably. Remember The Path, Graveyard, and Bientot l'ete? The auteurs that made them eventually quit game development after having a meltdown about the uncultured gamers. Meanwhile, people like Daniel Mullins prove that you can be high-concept without ghettoizing yourself.
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I don't really know why. I think the right's trend towards a low-class working man vibe and away from a distinguished-man-of-society vibe has been going on since well before I was born, so it's a little difficult to see how it started.
If I had to guess though, I would blame communism. The era when we had a conservative wealthy elite was also the era when the left wing unwashed masses were attracted to ideas about eating the rich and so forth. To fight the popular appeal of communism, the right started to emphasize the value of individualism and entrepreneurialism - embracing the values of "new money" over "old money". Efforts were made to cultivate ambition and to get people to strive for upward social mobility instead of gatekeeping the rabble out.
By the time you get to the 80s you have full blown Thatcherism dominating the right, proclaiming "there is no such thing as society". It's a formula built to appeal to small business owners and others with an image of making their own way in the world, rather than fitting into the august institutions of the past.
Is this true? I dunno. But it's the story I tell myself.
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Cons will spend $600 on their family trip to an NFL game or $750 for a family of four to go to a high attendance NASCAR race lmao, by contrast (as Hoff says) ‘high culture’ stuff is cheap unless you’re in the best seats in the house (which also cost many thousands at the above) or want to join the donor class, which is unnecessary. Many galleries and museums are literally free, and orchestras, opera and ballet (almost all nonprofit) are heavily subsidized by governments (in Europe) and wealthy donors (in the US). This means most attendees will pay much less than their share of the cost.
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Opera tickets in the UK are significantly cheaper than Premier League football tickets, plus you get treated a lot better at the venue too. The national gallery etc. are all free to visit too.
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Back-section tickets for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra cost like $25 apiece. This is not some ultra-expensive, exclusive experience. If anything, I could speculate that what’s really keeping a lot of conservatives away is that these are not kid-friendly experiences. When people bring their young kids to the symphony or to the theatre, almost inevitably the kids act up out of boredom at some point and need to be taken home. Unless you can get a babysitter, these are not places you can (or should) bring young families.
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