This is the one area where I often get in trouble with fellow liberals around my age. I am likely to defend high culture as being better more often and they tend to be of the relatvist mind set.
I don't have a problem with popular art. I like a decent amount of it but I get very snobby/unrepentant grad student when it comes to a lot of art.
"and haven’t had middle class teenage dropouts panhandle me for money"
To be fair, this seems to be exclusive to the San Francisco-Bay Area. I have never seen this be considered acceptable teenage behavior in New York, Boston/Cambridge, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Portland, Washington D.C. Philadelphia, or any other city I have been to or visited.
Of course when I go back to New York, I seen teenagers eating at restaurants with their friends and these are restaurant I could not afford on my own until fairly recently in my life.
I've never lived in a small-town. Only inner-ring suburbs and large cities. If I ever have kids/family, I would probably want to raise my kids in an inner-ring suburb. That way they can have a yard/park but the city is close enough for museums, theatre, orchestra, dance, and art activities. My parents took me to Young People and the Orchestra every weekend at Lincoln Center for a few years and I will probably do an equivalent activity with mine.
For engineers, it probably matters what kind of engineer they are:
Almost all the engineers I know are either civil engineers or work in computers/internet/Silicon Valley stuff. These are two of the least conservative industries out there. Silicon Valley might be the most Democratic leaning business outside of Trial Lawyers.
I imagine doctors politics deals with geography. Doctors in blue areas are going to be Democratic. Doctors in red areas are going to be Republican.
Though as far as I can tell, we inhabit two polarized sides of the Continental Divide. I grew up and have only lived in areas that can be described as the bluest of the blue. The only exception being that my undergrad was in a conservativeish area but my alma mater itself was very left. There were a few nearby towns with left-wing vibes as well.
As far as I can tell, you grew up and have lived in areas that are the reddest of the red.
We both seem to have grown up in upper-middle class professional areas and this shades our view. My hometown was Democratic no matter the profession even if it was a traditionally conservative profession. You seem to have grown up in an area where a plaintiff's lawyer might be Republican even though plaintiff's lawyers almost always swing Democratic.
Doctors in the NYC-Metro and San Francisco-Bay Area are going to be Democratic even if the profession tends to swing right.
And I still believe in the demographic trends of the Republicans scaring away professionals and people with higher ed degrees because of their constant pushing against climate change and evolution.
Well the Koch brothers are MIT educated engineers!
Seriously, a lot of the original modern conservative movement was done by engineers. Orange County in CA was a big home to the Goldwater-right movement and many of the core supporters were engineers. At least according to the histories on the modern conservative movement that I have read.
Out of all the professional groups, I think engineers are the most likely to split between strong-left and strong-right. I've known many liberal engineers and many super-conservative engineers.
My guess would be that engineers swing more liberal now because of the Christian Fundamentalist War on Science. I imagine most of them believe in evolution and other scientific theories that conservatives oppose. If they are in computers, they are probably against the rampant xenophobia of the modern conservative movement.
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.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Why has Conservatism inexplicably become our generation’s Hollywood Squares?”
I wouldn't call Eugene, Oregon a city.
Though I do agree it is one of the last remaining pockets of 1967 in the United States.
"
This is the one area where I often get in trouble with fellow liberals around my age. I am likely to defend high culture as being better more often and they tend to be of the relatvist mind set.
I don't have a problem with popular art. I like a decent amount of it but I get very snobby/unrepentant grad student when it comes to a lot of art.
"
"and haven’t had middle class teenage dropouts panhandle me for money"
To be fair, this seems to be exclusive to the San Francisco-Bay Area. I have never seen this be considered acceptable teenage behavior in New York, Boston/Cambridge, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Portland, Washington D.C. Philadelphia, or any other city I have been to or visited.
Of course when I go back to New York, I seen teenagers eating at restaurants with their friends and these are restaurant I could not afford on my own until fairly recently in my life.
I've never lived in a small-town. Only inner-ring suburbs and large cities. If I ever have kids/family, I would probably want to raise my kids in an inner-ring suburb. That way they can have a yard/park but the city is close enough for museums, theatre, orchestra, dance, and art activities. My parents took me to Young People and the Orchestra every weekend at Lincoln Center for a few years and I will probably do an equivalent activity with mine.
"
For engineers, it probably matters what kind of engineer they are:
Almost all the engineers I know are either civil engineers or work in computers/internet/Silicon Valley stuff. These are two of the least conservative industries out there. Silicon Valley might be the most Democratic leaning business outside of Trial Lawyers.
I imagine doctors politics deals with geography. Doctors in blue areas are going to be Democratic. Doctors in red areas are going to be Republican.
Though as far as I can tell, we inhabit two polarized sides of the Continental Divide. I grew up and have only lived in areas that can be described as the bluest of the blue. The only exception being that my undergrad was in a conservativeish area but my alma mater itself was very left. There were a few nearby towns with left-wing vibes as well.
As far as I can tell, you grew up and have lived in areas that are the reddest of the red.
We both seem to have grown up in upper-middle class professional areas and this shades our view. My hometown was Democratic no matter the profession even if it was a traditionally conservative profession. You seem to have grown up in an area where a plaintiff's lawyer might be Republican even though plaintiff's lawyers almost always swing Democratic.
Doctors in the NYC-Metro and San Francisco-Bay Area are going to be Democratic even if the profession tends to swing right.
And I still believe in the demographic trends of the Republicans scaring away professionals and people with higher ed degrees because of their constant pushing against climate change and evolution.
On “Four More Years, With Head Held High”
@ James,
Not if you live in the right school districts*
*Largely ones filled with Jews and Asians. This describes my school district growing up. Or in really blue areas which might be the same thing.
On “Why has Conservatism inexplicably become our generation’s Hollywood Squares?”
Well the Koch brothers are MIT educated engineers!
Seriously, a lot of the original modern conservative movement was done by engineers. Orange County in CA was a big home to the Goldwater-right movement and many of the core supporters were engineers. At least according to the histories on the modern conservative movement that I have read.
Out of all the professional groups, I think engineers are the most likely to split between strong-left and strong-right. I've known many liberal engineers and many super-conservative engineers.
My guess would be that engineers swing more liberal now because of the Christian Fundamentalist War on Science. I imagine most of them believe in evolution and other scientific theories that conservatives oppose. If they are in computers, they are probably against the rampant xenophobia of the modern conservative movement.
"
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.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.