Open Thread

Georges Lapchine, "Winter Landscape at Sunset" (n.d.)

@JohnPlunket sent me an interesting commentary about the modern art world. It's less about the art itself than it is about assimilating status. That explains why most of it is so bad.

Artistic quality isn’t an issue. Under the permissiveness of relativism, anything goes-as long it falls under the approved formulas of the establishment. Any aesthetic concerns are irrelevant compared to adherence to the agenda.

Scorn must be directed at the appropriate targets: God, organized religion, patriotism, free expression, Western civilization in general. Claiming grievance confers virtue and enables claims for retribution. Hostility must be displayed towards anyone who does not accept the priorities of the elitists, or rejects the march towards collectivism.

The culture industries are just part of the larger problem. Our establishment is enforcing a tyranny of oikophobia, the disdain of our heritage and traditions. From their strongholds in the media, academia, administration and the arts, they are applying their unified efforts to clear the slate of society for the Great Leap Forward: a jump right back into feudalism, where the new aristocracy of the well-connected will be secure in their unaccountable power.

But since the language of morality is used to disguise their authoritarian ambitions, it creates some confusing contradictions. Today’s establishment is a sorry display of hypocrisy. They are bigots for Tolerance, Anarchists for Big Government. They are so open minded they demand any dissenting viewpoints must be censored out of existence. The perpetrators acknowledge no paradox though, as the self-regard gained by espousing and conforming to the correct views overwhelms self-awareness.

When it's less about the art than it is about what I think about the art--pure subjectivity--the game turns into one of persuasion, with the winners enhancing their status. The art or the artist is simply a tool at that point.

posted by rdbrewer at 09:31 AM

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