I would say that the content produced by many of these artists (or current pop culture) is more libertine than liberal/left. Certainly this makes it non-Conservative (unless you want me to make an Ancien Regime argument).
I suppose it depends on what we mean by polite company.
There have always been upper-middle class people of a liberal bent who are not exactly bomb-throwing radicals and fully participate in upper-middle class economic culture but do take a liking towards less than mainstream art. I grew up in a very well to do but also very liberal-Democratic (mainly because we were mainly Jewish and Asian with some Italian/Irish Catholic thrown in and part of the incomed-rich over the business-owner rich*) suburb. Many of the adults in the community were fairly artistically sophisticated and not the country club set. My parents encouraged my artistic life (though I think they are glad about the JD) and take my art recommendations seriously and were willing to see avant-garde stuff. They are still capitalists. My parents are liberal but far from bomb-throwing radicals.
Then there is the other half of polite company that needs the distance of history and even that might not work. Brecht has been dead for almost 60 years. He can still shock people. Genet still shocks. Some people still find Matisse, Picasso, Kaddinsky, and company to be too radical and out there.
*I think when it comes to the upper-middle class you can make a division in politics based on the source of money. The income rich like Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, Designers, Architects tend to be liberal/Democratic. The business owner/Capital rich tend to be Republican. I'm not quite sure why being income rich makes one more Democratic but it seems to be a good indication.
The below was meant to be a reply to this comment.
Bruce Willis and Kelsey Grammar are good actors but for the most part the others prove Tod's point. They had their moments and are no longer that relevant.
Gary Sinise is the only person hear I could consider to be a serious and significant artist above them all. Largely because he was a founding member of one of one of the most vital American theatre companies:
Also I've met and know quite a few of Conor's Cognitive Dissonant conservatives. They are deeply vexing as a group of people.
One woman I know in this group can get down and wild and wasted like any club kid but also makes posts on facebook begging Mitt Romney to install values back in this country. How do these things work? Unless the conservative elite think piety and restraint are only for the minions. See the recently called-out comfortablysmug from twitter. He spent Hurricane Sandy tweeting lies and falsehoods about the damage the Hurricane was causing. His most outrageous tweet was about flooding on the NYSE. It turns out the guy was a hedge-fund type and heavily involved in Republican politics. Further digging found that he had a wild, party hearty fratboy reputation.
This is why I find Republican politics to be so galling. There are too many Republicans especially young Republicans who will run the party that want all the benefits of secular and liberal society but only for them. For everyone else, they preach restraint, prudishness, and piety. I don't think James O'Keffee leads a boring life either.
As someone with an MFA in theatre directing, these are all good points. Though I also had the practicality to get a JD. They are not going to tolerate me talking about Sarah Kane and her deep and dark plays at the country club or mega church. They probably would not even tolerate or like Beckett and Chehkov.
There were some Republicans in my program but not many. One of them came from lots of money.
Today's conservative movement involves a Paul Lynde making semi-nuanced jokes about his sexuality? Who would have thought?
I love how all the butt-hurt conservatives are coming out in droves for this post.
More seriously, I think Conor is spot on. Much of modern art and culture or more broadly much of being an artist is directly contradictory to the modern conservative movement. We don't have conservatives, we have reactionaries trying to push back the clock to a time that never existed. They don't like birth control, they don't think art should be any racier than Ozzie and Harriet or maybe the Goldbergs.
That being said, you can probably find some really serious artists who vote Republican but most of them probably keep it under wraps. The art and culture industries are by and large very liberal. The book, The Republic of Dreams, is a history of bohemian life in Greenwich Village and covers the first half plus of the 20th century. In the book, Ross Wetzsteon talks about the Republican politics of such avant-garde darlings like Hart Crane and e.e. cummings.
e.e. cummings refused to attend the Kennedy inaugural and launched into an anti-Irish and anti-Semitic tirade at the administration.
There are probably still serious and important artists like this somewhere. There are also probably more popular entertainers with conservative politics but they keep quiet on the endorsements. Also many consumers of culture are very apt at contradictions between their entertainment/culture choices and their politics.
But in the end, the contradictions pile up way too high and cause too much cognitive dissonance. How can someone in intellectual honesty and good faith enjoy Robert Mapplethorpe while voting for candidates pushed by the Pat Robertsons of the world?
"Realistically, it’s a veritable certainty that my state will go for Obama no matter what, and so I will likely vote for every R with a pulse on the ticket as a means of protest."
Why is this a good protest? Especially since you imply that you would not do it if your state would not go for Obama
Maybe but it would need to get a lot of play in the next two or three days.
Right now there are a lot of factors and Sandy was an epic disaster. This election is going to be super-close either way and it is nerve-wracking a bit.
I agree that Staten Island is suffering a lot of damage but I think you contradicted yourself a bit.
I don't see how this is going to be bad for Obama if Staten Island is already and always has been the Republican bastion of New York City. They weren't going to vote for Obama if Hurricane Sandy did not happen and there are certainly not enough people on Staten Island to switch New York's electoral college votes to the Republicans.
However, I still think Hurricane Sandy is a wild card in terms of Tuesday's elections. People generally seem to be giving the President high marks. However, I still think there is a strong chance of Sandy causing difficulties at the polls.
Otherwise, I think your sociological analysis of Staten Island is very spot on. I think they largely do align themselves with working class whites or non-college educated middle class whites. But there are some very wealth sections on Staten Island like Todt Hill and some professionals are slowly starting to make the move out to Staten Island because you can get a detached house and still be in the city.
These are the kind of pseudo-Middle Ages pieces of pre-Raphaelite art that I find to be pompous and pretentious but many people seem to find aesthetically pleasing:
The most interesting thing about the group is that they were all in love or lust with the same two women and used them as models in all their paintings.
I think that all art is social commentary of one sort or another. Even people who say they are doing "art for art's sake" are engaging in a form of social commentary because it is generally a reaction against those who think art must be social commentary or useful in some way.
Now I think there is plenty wrong with the art world and social commentary and it can largely be illustrated by the career of Damien Hirst. Also Bansky to a more limited extent. I agree that in the world of high art prices there is a lot of insular "knowing" that can be alienating to people. Is Damien Hirst pulling a joke on his buyers or are the buyers pulling a joke on us/Damien Hirst?
I think you are being unfair by calling the social commentary of art to be simplistic. It sounds rather glib. It is glib to say that Picasso's Guerenica can be reduced to "War is bad" or Edward Hooper's Nighthawks is about the lonely and alienating nature of the modern city/life but this cheapens the viewer's reaction and interaction to the work. There are real and raw human emotions in those pieces of art that reflect truth to the human condition and empathy towards human suffering and misery.
I meant the ones grabbed from movies andTV that are used to show emotional dismay on the Internet. And I consider them to be a sign of the end of civilization and discourse.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Why has Conservatism inexplicably become our generation’s Hollywood Squares?”
I would say that the content produced by many of these artists (or current pop culture) is more libertine than liberal/left. Certainly this makes it non-Conservative (unless you want me to make an Ancien Regime argument).
"
If I recall correctly he also enjoyed making anti-Semitic comments to Joey Ramone. I remember that from a documentary.
There has always been a kind of conservative libertine artist. Allegedly Jack Keuorac cheered for McCarthy while getting stoned and smashed.
"
I suppose it depends on what we mean by polite company.
There have always been upper-middle class people of a liberal bent who are not exactly bomb-throwing radicals and fully participate in upper-middle class economic culture but do take a liking towards less than mainstream art. I grew up in a very well to do but also very liberal-Democratic (mainly because we were mainly Jewish and Asian with some Italian/Irish Catholic thrown in and part of the incomed-rich over the business-owner rich*) suburb. Many of the adults in the community were fairly artistically sophisticated and not the country club set. My parents encouraged my artistic life (though I think they are glad about the JD) and take my art recommendations seriously and were willing to see avant-garde stuff. They are still capitalists. My parents are liberal but far from bomb-throwing radicals.
Then there is the other half of polite company that needs the distance of history and even that might not work. Brecht has been dead for almost 60 years. He can still shock people. Genet still shocks. Some people still find Matisse, Picasso, Kaddinsky, and company to be too radical and out there.
*I think when it comes to the upper-middle class you can make a division in politics based on the source of money. The income rich like Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, Designers, Architects tend to be liberal/Democratic. The business owner/Capital rich tend to be Republican. I'm not quite sure why being income rich makes one more Democratic but it seems to be a good indication.
"
Two years is a pretty long time for that kind of boycott.
"
I see your point but the Tea Party is plenty establishment in their own way and in most ways. Really, all they wanted as the establishment back.
Occupy is more anti-establishment than the Tea Party.
But you reveal an interesting conundrum.
"
I won't reveal how long it took me to figure out that DTF translated as Down to Fuck.
Except that this post sort of does.
"
Yeah. She found her shtick and it sells.
"
Sometimes there are academic jobs!
Though I imagine Oberlin is a different kind of small town than Bronson, MO.
"
The below was meant to be a reply to this comment.
Bruce Willis and Kelsey Grammar are good actors but for the most part the others prove Tod's point. They had their moments and are no longer that relevant.
"
Gary Sinise is the only person hear I could consider to be a serious and significant artist above them all. Largely because he was a founding member of one of one of the most vital American theatre companies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steppenwolf_Theatre_Company
"
Also I've met and know quite a few of Conor's Cognitive Dissonant conservatives. They are deeply vexing as a group of people.
One woman I know in this group can get down and wild and wasted like any club kid but also makes posts on facebook begging Mitt Romney to install values back in this country. How do these things work? Unless the conservative elite think piety and restraint are only for the minions. See the recently called-out comfortablysmug from twitter. He spent Hurricane Sandy tweeting lies and falsehoods about the damage the Hurricane was causing. His most outrageous tweet was about flooding on the NYSE. It turns out the guy was a hedge-fund type and heavily involved in Republican politics. Further digging found that he had a wild, party hearty fratboy reputation.
This is why I find Republican politics to be so galling. There are too many Republicans especially young Republicans who will run the party that want all the benefits of secular and liberal society but only for them. For everyone else, they preach restraint, prudishness, and piety. I don't think James O'Keffee leads a boring life either.
"
As someone with an MFA in theatre directing, these are all good points. Though I also had the practicality to get a JD. They are not going to tolerate me talking about Sarah Kane and her deep and dark plays at the country club or mega church. They probably would not even tolerate or like Beckett and Chehkov.
There were some Republicans in my program but not many. One of them came from lots of money.
"
Today's conservative movement involves a Paul Lynde making semi-nuanced jokes about his sexuality? Who would have thought?
I love how all the butt-hurt conservatives are coming out in droves for this post.
More seriously, I think Conor is spot on. Much of modern art and culture or more broadly much of being an artist is directly contradictory to the modern conservative movement. We don't have conservatives, we have reactionaries trying to push back the clock to a time that never existed. They don't like birth control, they don't think art should be any racier than Ozzie and Harriet or maybe the Goldbergs.
That being said, you can probably find some really serious artists who vote Republican but most of them probably keep it under wraps. The art and culture industries are by and large very liberal. The book, The Republic of Dreams, is a history of bohemian life in Greenwich Village and covers the first half plus of the 20th century. In the book, Ross Wetzsteon talks about the Republican politics of such avant-garde darlings like Hart Crane and e.e. cummings.
e.e. cummings refused to attend the Kennedy inaugural and launched into an anti-Irish and anti-Semitic tirade at the administration.
There are probably still serious and important artists like this somewhere. There are also probably more popular entertainers with conservative politics but they keep quiet on the endorsements. Also many consumers of culture are very apt at contradictions between their entertainment/culture choices and their politics.
But in the end, the contradictions pile up way too high and cause too much cognitive dissonance. How can someone in intellectual honesty and good faith enjoy Robert Mapplethorpe while voting for candidates pushed by the Pat Robertsons of the world?
"
Alpha plus!
On “Four More Years, With Head Held High”
Yes and yes?
"
"Realistically, it’s a veritable certainty that my state will go for Obama no matter what, and so I will likely vote for every R with a pulse on the ticket as a means of protest."
Why is this a good protest? Especially since you imply that you would not do it if your state would not go for Obama
"
Jacob Javits was a liberal Republican.
He lost the 1980 Republican Primary to Alphonse D'Amato and could not win the general election on the liberal ticket.
He is dead now.
Fun Javits trivia: His wife absolutely refused to leave Manhattan
On “An Emerging Staten Island Narrative”
A plus
Says the Mets fan
"
Maybe but it would need to get a lot of play in the next two or three days.
Right now there are a lot of factors and Sandy was an epic disaster. This election is going to be super-close either way and it is nerve-wracking a bit.
"
From what I have seen Obama is getting high marks on his handling of Sandy.
"
I agree that Staten Island is suffering a lot of damage but I think you contradicted yourself a bit.
I don't see how this is going to be bad for Obama if Staten Island is already and always has been the Republican bastion of New York City. They weren't going to vote for Obama if Hurricane Sandy did not happen and there are certainly not enough people on Staten Island to switch New York's electoral college votes to the Republicans.
However, I still think Hurricane Sandy is a wild card in terms of Tuesday's elections. People generally seem to be giving the President high marks. However, I still think there is a strong chance of Sandy causing difficulties at the polls.
Otherwise, I think your sociological analysis of Staten Island is very spot on. I think they largely do align themselves with working class whites or non-college educated middle class whites. But there are some very wealth sections on Staten Island like Todt Hill and some professionals are slowly starting to make the move out to Staten Island because you can get a detached house and still be in the city.
On “Embarassing Annals of Libertarianism and Policy Writing.”
These are the kind of pseudo-Middle Ages pieces of pre-Raphaelite art that I find to be pompous and pretentious but many people seem to find aesthetically pleasing:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3PI4TMCMtds/TzVRWFDiLiI/AAAAAAAABaY/FlYO4itZ130/s1600/god_speed.jpg
http://painting-canvas.co.uk/images/gallery/Painting%20Reproduction/pre-raphaelite/creppre015.jpg
The most interesting thing about the group is that they were all in love or lust with the same two women and used them as models in all their paintings.
I think that all art is social commentary of one sort or another. Even people who say they are doing "art for art's sake" are engaging in a form of social commentary because it is generally a reaction against those who think art must be social commentary or useful in some way.
Now I think there is plenty wrong with the art world and social commentary and it can largely be illustrated by the career of Damien Hirst. Also Bansky to a more limited extent. I agree that in the world of high art prices there is a lot of insular "knowing" that can be alienating to people. Is Damien Hirst pulling a joke on his buyers or are the buyers pulling a joke on us/Damien Hirst?
I think you are being unfair by calling the social commentary of art to be simplistic. It sounds rather glib. It is glib to say that Picasso's Guerenica can be reduced to "War is bad" or Edward Hooper's Nighthawks is about the lonely and alienating nature of the modern city/life but this cheapens the viewer's reaction and interaction to the work. There are real and raw human emotions in those pieces of art that reflect truth to the human condition and empathy towards human suffering and misery.
"
I'd read them
"
at Mike.
I think Gatsby is only a bit over 200 pages. It is a third the size of a fantasy door stop.
"
Those are cool.
I meant the ones grabbed from movies andTV that are used to show emotional dismay on the Internet. And I consider them to be a sign of the end of civilization and discourse.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.