My favorite version of this is the Hitchensesque "Orwell was really a conservative" argument.
If the artist is great, their leftish political convictions are naïve. If their leftish political convictions are compelling and considered, the artist isn't great.
Thank you for calling Dial-A-Fudge.
Wow, I really don't know about that. I think artists are inherently dissatisfied—not (necessarily) in the conventional angsty sense of the word, but simply compelled by an urge to pass on publicly some observation. The conservative, the person who is satisfied with the status quo, is not compelled to make that observation. As for the "strong individual," I see nothing either rightwing or artistic about that, except by some really crappy jingoistic definition of rightwing or artistic strength. The rugged individual, clearing brush or painting still-lifes, barf barf.
'Cause no one on the left believes in personal responsibility! We're too busy riding our ponies (that we stole. from the libertarians who would otherwise have ponies, except that we taxed them to give other people ponies.)
See, it's really all about how she's defining her terms. strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that = great artist = right-wing. Let's just say that those are non-standard definitions.
And the naive vs. "where it really counts" stuff is, like SB says, just funny.
Mad Libs!
To be a great _____ (noun) is inherently right wing. A great _____ (noun) like _____ (name) or _____ (name of person in comments) may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
I'm old fashioned, but i always thought that with politics, "where it counts" is the ballot box. Craxxy lefty that I am.
To be a great bacon eater is inherently right wing. A great bacon eater like the apostropher or Gandhi may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
It's traditional in Mad Libs to supply the word "toilet" for at least one of the nouns.
Hey, when was Gandhi in comments?
Welcome to the world that Rand wrought.
OK, it's silly, but taking it a step further makes it awesome. "My work used to be primarily formalist, a lot of site-specific stuff, but then, the Clenis."
Hey Timbot, are you employed now or something?
To be a great onanist is inherently right wing. A great onanist like Harry Palms, the blind madman of legend, or Ogged, may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
Armsmasher, I think it's possible to be dissatisfied in the way you describe and still somewhat conservative. Before the terms got hijacked, I think I would have said that I, myself, was something of a progressively inclined conservative.
I still thrill to Burke's articulation of society as a contract between the living, the dead and those yet unborn. Wonderfully mystical, and don't tell me that no good art was produced by those with mystical inclinations.
And maybe satire isn't art, but I've always been fond of the Waughs (both Evelyn and Auberon), and they were both quite conservative. Auberon thought Maggie Thatcher's idolatrous fetishization of the Market was hideous and tended to be anti-countryside.
I realize that a lot of this is foolish nostalgia, and every real conservative, the kind who mourns the passing of time, knows in her bones that nostalgia itself was better in the past.
Okay, that was rambling. My main point is that I don't think (1.) this modern equation of absolute individualism with conservatism is entirely correct and (2.) I think that a lot of cynical romantics who are dissatisfied can be quite conservative even if the society for which they long never really existed.
The K is for Kool. Kool Mo Gone Dee. (ditto to 13)
Right Wing Is Purple
So long as it's not also flute, there's a chance we may yet resist them.
Y'know, my exposure to Ann Althouse has admittedly been quite limited, but every instance of it has hardened my conviction that she is either a complete tool or dumber than a sack of hammers.
I think I remember Jonathan Franzen making the point in some essay he wrote that the novel is an inherantly conservative art form, though I forget if he was talking about the medium or the message.
Point being, I think it's easy to get mixed up in what "conservative" means. This rugged individualism definition is by no means exhaustive.
I'm cuing up a Marshall McLuhan joke here, then realizing that I don't know what the hell I'm talking baout.
I love toast. I love my party. My party is virtuous. Toast is virtuous. Toast belongs to my party.
I concede that if toast could vote, it would vote Republican.
AA's Republification of Dylan is a common strategy in right-wing thinking. It goes roughly like so:
Conservative is good.
A is good.
Therefore, A is obviously conservative.
Liberal is bad.
B is bad.
Therefore, B is obviously liberal.
Needless to say, both A and B seldom have any inherent political ideology.
I concede that if toast could vote, it would vote Republican.
Not if it was burnt black.
George C. Wolfe once said that every piece of theater (and by extension every piece of art) takes a political stance, in that it either upholds the status quo or challenges the status quo.
Those conservatives, always mixing up their parts with their wholes.
Being racist anti-Semite is no big deal, of course, but during WWII Evelyn Waugh stole government anti-scurvy oranges from his own small children, and ate them (the oranges) right in front of them (the children).
Wait...were his kids black Jews? I don't understand.
John Emerson,
Evelyn Waugh was a terrible human being in a lot of ways, but I still like his novels.
I read this somewhere else, but I'm cribbing this bit from the BBC's obit of Bron Waugh:
"He said that the most terrifying aspect of Evelyn Waugh as a parent was that he reserved the right not just to deny affection to his children, but to advertise an acute and unqualified dislike of them."
From Evelyn Waugh's novels (haven't read many) I'd expect him to be terrible. That doesn't really dampen my enjoyment of Decline and Fall.
Really, I think everyone should read Scoop. His insights on the nature of war reporting are superb.
I guess not everyone feels about oranges the way I do.
Well, not exactly. I mean, it was a shitty thing to do.
I ate a child in front of an orange once.
Ever since, citrus has shunned me.
My dad and his siblings used to get an orange for Christmas, and only an orange.
I was only allowed presents if I could rhyme a word with "orange".
In my house, on Christmas, the beatings subsided.
Did they subside for Christmas, or was the subsiding part of some other seasonal variation, or what?
44. If it was part of some other seasonal variation, I woulda said so. Geez. When I was a child, thick questions like that would have gotten us beaten.
It's "I would of", Michael, not "I woulda".
Correction dialectical writing also would've gotten one beat.
It's "I would of", Michael, not "I woulda".
Maybe if you're some Yankee Jew college boy.
But, since you bring it up, shouldn't it have been "I would have"?
"thick questions like that would have got us beat"
Ben, I thought it was funny. These others don't understand you.
I dont't get 52.
53. That's the way to avoid beatings.
I think the explanation really belongs on Standpipe's blog, but note that the differences between 52 and what you said are not restricted to the italicized part. Also, it may not be funny. (I thought they were all funny.)
Properly, shouldn't it be "I done woulda said so" ?
the differences between 52 and what you said are not restricted to the italicized part.
That's what confused me. I am a commenter of little brain. Not a college boy like w-lfs-n.
Chopper, I'm not from Mississippi for fuck's sake.
Haven't w-lfs-n's kin been cursed by God, or something like that? That would account for it.
But Waugh's kids were not in any way cursed by God. That's why Waugh's act was so unpardonable.
Althouse may be a raving Randhead, but her Amsterdam diary was fairly cool.
Kieran's take on the inherently goofy claims made of great artists.
You guys are all being sacreligious.
sacreligious
At the Mineshaft.
I wish I knew whether SB was leaving "sac religious" implicit, or just not making that joke.
You and SB, always battling at the front lines of plicitness.
Well, I did know it was you. I just realized that due to the references on this blog I think of ben as "Young ben," when he is in fact likely older than I am.
I read this blog too much.
How old are you, silvana? You can say to me in English.
Ben is (unless he's had a birthday, not mentioned it on this blog, even when I implicitly asked) 23.
Why must you make this humble blog a house of lies?
I told an untruth. I'm XXIII, just like you!
Now that we've established and discussed this topic of mutual interest, let's exchange business cards and/or bodily fluids.
I have the business cards of other persons, but they're not available for exchange.
I hate it when one's range of options is limited.
Can I then infer that you have the bodily fluids of other persons available for exchange? Just more things you can't throw away?
w-lfs-n admitting to being 23, rather than yelling at me for ruining his trolling, makes me less confident that I know his age.
I don't think that inference is justified, no. I'm afraid I'll just have to exchange my own bodily fluids with yours (either from your own body or in your possession from others' bodies).
B-dub, remember that silvana's blog is "sexual chocolate." Get the good stuff.
That blog does not, in fact, belong to me. But I do have posting privileges.
My confidence has returned, unless this is a longer standing troll, which I strongly doubt.
Actually, instead of being the comely young barely-legal coed I play on the internet, I am a balding, slothful, beer-bellied forty-eight-year-old.
Always microwave body fluids for at least 3 minutes before exchanging them. But even so, the prions will not be neutralized, though you won't be able to tell for ten years.
Like baseball cards, the actual value of body fluids is much less than the nominal value.
In the collapse of the orangery
who suffered more injury?
(ref 39)
It was a banana, actually.
The Evelyn Waugh right-wing kiddie torture fruit thing? Probably several bananas in fact, but not an orange.
re 13: I was torn between three responses:
(1) "Well, your mom left some bills on the night table, so I guess it's employment."
(2)"Now who's flirting?"
(3) The truth -"Sometimes my Masters tap me on the shoulder and make me do things. I don't think it's terribly fair either."
Fortunately, Weiner provides the proper answer: "I have my own blog to maintain."
As for Althouse - she's a hack. Given, minimally, the broadest Padilla claims, and the Administration's general tendency towards what looks suspiciously like collective punishment, it's hard to take any Bush supporter who speaks of individual rights seriously. Though I guess she could be offering an internally consistent explanation of why she's not an artist. Now if she would just admit that she's a Bush shill because they pay better.
Althouse admits, more or less, that her original comment was made without thinking too hard. I'd say that insofar as there's any truth-value to her new claim, it would demonstrate that great artists can't be comfortable in any organized political movement, which she seems to identify with right-wingness.
I'm not sure what to say about the complaint about how mean lefties are to her.
I think it should at least be repeated, MW; it needs to be read to be believed:
And don't even get me started on my experience with lefty bloggers. They treat me miserably, and if I tried to get along with them, it would guarantee mediocrity.
That last is some kind of lazy Randcult catch-all dismissal; throwing the word "mediocrity" around like Caufield wannabes peppering their diatribes with the word "phony".
Maybe she just means that she would be mediocre at getting along with them.
Nah, that actually makes sense; that can't be it.
The thing is I was going to say that Althouse strikes me, for some reason, as a basically decent person who often just isn't that thoughtful about politics. And then she basically fessed up. But that's also part of the reason I didn't say anything--I don't feel as much of an urge to mock her mercilessly as I do with Reynolds etc. I mean, calling us conformists is nicer than calling us traitors.
Maybe she means that, if classed with lefty bloggers, she comes off as distinctly mediocre. Certainly that's true if we restrict the class to law professors; if that's what she meant, I give her credit for some insight.
They treat me miserably
Poor, poor little Ann. Perhaps if she quit making stupid and offensive arguments like taking responsibility for yourself is inherently right wing (because all liberals just stand around waiting for our welfare checks), she'd receive less of that miserable treatment from us paragons of mediocrity.
I'm back to the original question: complete tool or dumber than a sack of hammers?
I'll bet the Bolsheviks thought they were taking responsibility for their own well-being.
Wait-a-minute - this came from a Law Professor? Oh no, and one at Madison? I'm paying hard earned money so my sprog can hear this?!
Son of a
I just barely caught myself before commenting on something Anne Applebaum wrote (that the NOLA hurricane marked the end of big government). If I'd been vague enough, probably no one would have noticed.
complete tool or dumber than a sack of hammers?
Well, nothing says she can't be both. I am a little curious about how she manages to believe that being a great artist is inherently political and at the same time profess to dislike "political art." The likely explanation being that she doesn't believe anything she says for longer than five minutes.
I'm calling my mini-van a time machine.
I will eat toast in your time machine.
If this time machine will have been rocking yesterday, don't have come knocking!
If this time machine will have been rocking yesterday, don't have come knocking!
Once we were knockers.
I will finish my toast and get up and open the door of the time machine. I will step out into a world that resembles the one I left behind. "Is that a pterodactyl?" I will ask myself. It will not be a pterodactyl. I will be homesick but mostly I will miss my toast.
I know what will happen because it has happened before and it always will, forever.
If a work of art is considered great, say, 100 or more years after its creation, odds are that most of its admirers aren't going to bother to inquire too carefully about the artist's politics, while most of its detractors who disagree with those politics are going to say that they discredit the art.