Why is the arts so hostile to conservatism?

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

"What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should write a song about nothing changing. Because nothing happening is intrinsically interesting"

"OK. That'll be good."

"What chords should we use?"

"Same ones as last time."

[Mugwump]

An interesting topic. Firstly, it is a fairly recent phenomenon. Many, indeed most, of the great writers of the first half of the twentieth century are broadly on the right - Kipling, Eliot, Yeats, Larkin, Conrad, Faulkner, Conan Doyle, Ted Hughes. DH Lawrence. Probably Thomas Hardy. There are many exceptions - Orwell, Auden and others - but the overwhelming tenor of poetry and prose writing up until about 1960 is on the right. after that it switches. So it is clearly nothing to do with leftism being intrinsically about change and this being essential to the creative act. Good writing, or composing, works happily with any material. Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson and the incomparable genius George Eliot wrote within, and about, worlds that were tightly bound with convention. Arguably they produced great work because of that.

there are of course great right-wing novelists today - VS Naipaul and (I suspect) Kazuo Ishiguro and Saul Bellow and Tom Wolfe would qualify as challenging the leftist orthodoxy, and being well-lauded for it. However, since the 1960s two things have happened which I think make Rightist art much more difficult. These are (1) the collapse of objective standards and a clear critical centre ; and (2) the fact that most serious writing (and other arts) is mediated and promulgated through the state-controlled university system, and these are overwhelmingly monopolized by Leftists. The state, and the Left, has effectively socialised the appraisal of literature. I think this was a project of Marxist intellectuals following Gramsci, and they found fertile ground with the consumerist cult of youth that emerged in the 1960s and the Vietnam War's effect on American youth in particular. Where America goes, most follow.

Great art is never merely Left or Right, of course, because these are very crude filters of perception and thus hostile to good art. But there is clearly a kind of anarchy of standards that suits the Left, since the Right tend to start from the position that tradition matters, and accordingly most public artists are nowadays inclined to pontificate from that viewpoint.

Finally, I suspect that most artists aspire to be regarded as supermen, above the ordinary run of humanity. It's in the nature of the beast. In the first half of the twentieth century, in the half-crushed aftermath of an aristocratic age, this led to a fashionable elitism. In the second half, in a more democratic age, the only way for an artist to assert their superiority to the common man or woman is by being "transgressive", and acting as a kind of cultural vandal, damning the existing order and asserting the right to judge and condemn the ordinary people who are attached to it. This, of course, suits the Left far more than the Right.

As you may expect, I regard this as a tragedy for our culture, but we are where we are. The Fall of Rome. The future belongs to China, which knows what it values, is confident in its culture and authority, and will defend both.

[Wokko]

A Conservative can have the second highest rating show on a network then get shitcanned after saying he went to Trump's inauguration.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/ ... ncelation/

[swoop42]

They're to busy shooting things like deer, road signs and black people to produce art.

Get with it David.

[Pies4shaw]

A Conservative can have the second highest rating show on a network then get shitcanned after saying he went to Trump's inauguration.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/ ... ncelation/

On another day, in a different context, you'd say that the commercial enterprise was free to contract with whomsoever it chose or not, wouldnt you?

Or are we at a stage where we need to have quotas to ensure that rich Republicans aren't excluded from opportunities because of discrimination against their immense wealth and power?

[HAL]

How did he get to Trump's inauguration?

[Tannin]

An interesting topic. Firstly, it is a fairly recent phenomenon. Many, indeed most, of the great writers of the first half of the twentieth century are broadly on the right - Kipling, Eliot, Yeats, Larkin, Conrad, Faulkner, Conan Doyle, Ted Hughes. DH Lawrence. Probably Thomas Hardy. There are many exceptions - Orwell, Auden and others - but the overwhelming tenor of poetry and prose writing up until about 1960 is on the right.

Sorry, that's just not true.In fact it's hopelessly untrue.

Even just picking ones from your list, there are at least two who were strongly radical (in, of course, the context of their times). Kipling's most famous and best read work was shockingly (and delightfully) respectful of and admiring of the "inferior" "primitive" races of India, and celebrated Indian culture in a way that was almost unthinkable in those times. (Today, we read it and cringe because of his almost unconscious but very strong underlying assumption of the innate superiority of English blood (viz Kim himself), but in the context of the times, Kim was a throughly radical book.

Captains Courageous is another example: here we see Kipling lampooning the fabulously wealthy but stupid tycoon and his family, and writing powerfully and persuasively of the courage, endurance, strength and especially wisdom of dirt-poor fishermen. Here we see an early sign of the great social revolution of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the promotion of the quite radical idea that Jack could be as good as his master.

We saw this same theme running right through the literature of the 1920s, '30s, 40s (and it continued in different form and to different ends through the 50s, 60s, and 70s). In the 1920s to 40s, consider the wildly popular Lord Peter Wimsey novels, which are dominated by a mere servant (Bunter) who is erudite, intelligent, and wise. This was a great novelty - the notion that a member of the lower classes could be as clever and worthy as his master - and it helped Sayers sell untold millions of copies. Notice how ruthlessly Sayers exposed the evil corporate influence of the advertising industry in Murder Must Advertise, and her incisive mockery of the self-important upper class (Lord Peter himself excepted, of course - which was half the point: Peter was the exception to prove the rule.)

Or consider the massively popular Wodehouse novels in a similar vein. Again, the delight in these (for his millions of readers) was the role reversal where Jeeves (a mere servant) is the wise and clever one where Wooster (his master) is a charming but useless drone. *

Most of all consider the huge outpouring of anti-authoritarian literature in the wake of the Great War, not just in England but across all the languages of Europe.

I question your citation of DH Lawrence (conservatives don't have their books banned for being pornographic!), and flat-out deny the instance of Conan Doyle. I know nothing of CD's private political views, but whatever they were, his books show no trace of them. So, of the nine you cited, I happen to be familiar with the work of three, and of those three, one was clearly and famously radical, one wrote in as non-political a way as you could ask for, and the third has at very least questionable qualifications as a conservative. Given the score so far of zero out of three, please forgive me for assuming that some of the others you cite won't be valid cases either.

* It is interesting to see an earlier and similar egalitarian upending of the class system in works of people like Beaumarchais (and many others), writing in the years immediately preceding the greatest left-wing revolution of them all. Beaumarchais (and others) were very much a part of the change in thinking which led directly to the revolution in 17879.

[stui magpie]

I'm staying out of stuff here I know nothing about and sticking with stuff I know a little about.

So in response to the OP, I daresay there are plenty of centre/right students at uni, just not ding arts courses and generally keeping their heads down within the social scene.

Engineering, sciences, medical and law (even though that's a version of an arts degree?) would all have a population of less left than average uni students.

As far as left wing artists goes, if you want to make a living as an artist there's any number of ways to get the skills other than going to a university, which is nowdays a glorified vocational training institute. If you want to be an actor, you try to get into NIDA. You want to play music, you practice, improvise and learn. If you want to write books or poetry or plays, going to university to study it would have to be a sign you should choose a different career path.

You also need talent to start with.

Left wing businessmen? I'd argue that if you look at a lot of the wealthy people, they may not qualify as socialists but once they've made more than enough coin for themselves there's a lot who really get into philanthropy. Twiggy Forrest is a recent one, Bill gates is a great example. If gates just gave all his money to the worlds poor, 2 days later they'd be no better off and he'd be broke. Zero positive impact. Instead he has a foundation that funds things that change lives on a permanent basis.

[Tannin]

Left wing businessmen? I'd argue that if you look at a lot of the wealthy people, they may not qualify as socialists but once they've made more than enough coin for themselves there's a lot who really get into philanthropy. Twiggy Forrest is a recent one,

What a sucker. Did you reply to that free offer from the nice man in Nigeria?

Gates got his fortune by illegal and unethical business practices. It's not his money, it's yours - you were the one who, directly or indirectly through higher costs for other things for which software is an input cost - paid out for his wealth. This is not a matter of opinion, it;s a matter of fact. He was tried and found guilty of unfair and illegal business practices over and over again, and then "punished" by being told "Billy, please don't do it again until next time."

Forrest had just donated about a quarter of the tax he avoided. He's still sitting on mist of it. How about he pays his fair share of tax first and does the same thing you and I do for schools ands roads and hospitals before he starts big-noting himself?

Forrest and his company boasted on oath before the Senate in 2011 that they had never paid company tax. In 2014/15, his company had $9,100 million in sales and paid a pitiful $13.2 million tax. That's equivalent to you or me paying 0.015 cents in the dollar income tax.

Yer right Forrest you leecher. I'll respect a philanthropist when he's earned the money, not when he's swindled and cheated his way to wealth.

[stui magpie]

You can argue about how they earned it, but can you legitimately have a complaint about how they're spending it?

[Tannin]

They didn't "earmn" it. they stole it. One from businesses and consumers around the world, the other from you and me and every other honest taxpayer.

Legitimately complain about how they are spending it? Well yes. At least in Bill Gates' case. One of the things he is funding with his millions is a program to mutilate little African boys on entirely spurious fake-scientific evidence that it reduces the incidence of AIDS. (Which it does not.)

There was another scandal about Gates' funding some other anti-social project too, but I've forgotten the details already. Doubtless you could look it up if you are interested.

[David]

A Conservative can have the second highest rating show on a network then get shitcanned after saying he went to Trump's inauguration.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/ ... ncelation/

Like with Abdel-Magied, hard to say whether it's a political decision or just the fact that the show is crap (not saying much for a free-to-air American TV show) and/or has run its course. But it could well be an example of the phenomenon I'm describing.

(P.S. not saying I never derail threads, but I have to say it's pretty remarkable that we've segued from conservatives in the arts to Twiggy Forrest's tax write-offs, and we're still only on page one! )

[Tannin]

Phillistine! You obviously don't know that tax avoidance is the greatest art of all.

[Tannin]

Time I attempted a proper answer, rather than just picking holes in Mugwamp's one or telling Stui he's got it wrong. Let's try a few observations and see where it leads us.

1: Artists are intelligent and (in general) educated. Most conservatives are towards the lower end of the IQ scale and poorly educated. This isn't prejudice, it's a fact, and a well-known one. People with a university education are much more likely to vote Labor or Green in this country, and similar studies show much the same thing in other Western countries. This is not to say that there are no intelligent or well-educated conservatives. Here on Nick's, for example, Stui is intelligent, Jack Spain is well-educated, and Mugwamp is both. Nevertheless, conservatives are, on average, not very bright as compared with normal people.

2: Art is the act of seeing something about the world in a different and insightful way, and communicating that vision to other people. All art does that: anything that doesn't do that probably isn't art. Conservative thought isn't insightful, and it certainly isn't new. I'm not saying it is impossible to create art from a conservative mindset, simply that it is very difficult to do so.

3: Current art (in any age) is mostly just glorified fashion. It's all about the latest trends and the most outrageous attention-seeking behaviours. This is something conservative-minded people tend to be not much good at. (Later on, we look back at the art of last year or last decade and start to sort out the 1% gems of inspiration and preserve them, meanwhile throwing away the other 99%, which tends to be ephemeral dross.)

4: Until about 30 years ago, nearly all educations involved a good deal of social awareness. Even if you studied accounting or engineering or dentistry, you almost certainly did quite a lot of history or language or politics or sociology or psychology or media or geography. Most people got a fair stab at a good, rounded education. These days, good little conservative sproglings go direct to law or accounting and major in Tax Dodging 101 without ever learning anything about the real world. Of course they are a bit thick and struggle to understand the second thing about art. (They do know the First Thing about art, of course, that there is a 150% tax write-off for certain forms of it.)

5: Don't fantasise that there is some sort of secret conspiracy to drive young conservative artists out of the industry. That's the sort of made-up twaddle that only a Herald-Sun reader could believe. The reason that there aren't many conservative artists is that there aren't many conservative artists. They are not bright enough and they don't think the right way, and they are too busy paying off tasteless McMansions and 4WD BMWs.

6: Art is essentially about human understanding and communication. It is a very personal, or I should say inter-personal thing. You can't write a great novel unless you are very good at understanding people and knowing what it feels like to be them. If there is one quality in this world which, by and large, conservatives are hopeless at, this is it.

7. Not everyone fits the mould. You get the odd conservative who is intelligent and educated (though you have to have a strange sort of mind to stay conservative for very long if you are those things), just as you get the odd reformer who is rather disconnected from other people and seems more like a natural conservative. Nevertheless, the overall pattern is clear.