10 mistakes conservatives make in art and entertainment

townhall.com ^ | 2/7/06 | Erik Lokkesmoe

[paudio]

Conservatives, by definition but not always by practice, are curators of the good, the true, and the beautiful. In the popular arts, however, we have become champions of the tame, the trite, and the temporal. (See “safe for the whole family” radio stations, movie reviews that count body parts and swear words, and paintings of nostalgic sugarplum cottages.) Wrong-headed in our approach, seduced by fashionable (and profitable) trends, debilitated by our passion for the cheap and comfortable, our “vision” for popular art and entertainment – if one can call protests and boycotts a vision – is doing more harm than good in the culture.

The remedy is easier than one might think. It begins by identifying and admitting our errors. Here are ten to start us off, no doubt there are dozens more:

Mistake #1: We try to improve art and entertainment from the top-down and the outside-in. For example, when well-meaning people, flush with cash but bankrupt on talent, attempt to “show Hollywood” by creating films that go around proven creative methods, the result is always the same: direct to video, a waste of time and money. Enduring change, meanwhile, comes from the bottom-up (working your way up from the mailroom) and the inside-out (working within the creative industries).

Mistake #2: We don't quite understand common grace – the idea that the good, the true, and the beautiful can be found in the most “unlikely” of places (Broadway) and people (liberal artists). Without a strong belief in common grace, we will either get angry at the culture or withdraw from it entirely.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Most great self respecting artists will realize their own greatness and, therefore, they don't buy into the radical egalitarianism that's demanded by the Left... not that they don't have a social conscience. I don't know how you can mention any of these names, especially Oscar Wilde, who perhaps had the greatest sense of his own extraordinary talents and, therefore, deserved social inequality. Artists have always realized that they are not equal to the masses... at least the honest ones. They may have hated the Bourgeois for being a crass philistine which is different from Marx hating the bourgeois for economic and social reasons. Neo Marxists have done wonders to co-opt and confabulate the two aspects of being Bourgeois... they also co-opted and distorted the views of perhaps the greatest Continental right wing thinker, Nietzsche, for their own use.

I like your theory. It is true that is great instability in the arts and not everyone can be an artist. The great ones are just that way by their own natural temperament with every little choice.

[Melas]

Most great self respecting artists will realize their own greatness and, therefore, they don't buy into the radical egalitarianism that's demanded by the Left... not that they don't have a social conscience. I don't know how you can mention any of these names, especially Oscar Wilde, who perhaps had the greatest sense of his own extraordinary talents and, therefore, deserved social inequality. Artists have always realized that they are not equal to the masses... at least the honest ones. They may have hated the Bourgeois for being a crass philistine which is different from Marx hating the bourgeois for economic and social reasons. Neo Marxists have done wonders to co-opt and confabulate the two aspects of being Bourgeois... they also co-opted and distorted the views of perhaps the greatest Continental right wing thinker, Nietzsche, for their own use.

Thinking that you're better than everyone else has little if anything to do with be on the right, or conservatism in general. As a matter of fact, the complete opposite is true. Radical egalitarianism is born from those feelings of superiority, not a misguided sense of equality. It's the very basis of the philsophy of Noblesse Oblige which was is the intellectual birthplace of much of liberalism.

[Heyworth]

Philip Anschutz and Disney split the production cost 50/50. In addition, Disney's Buena Vista distribution arm and Disney's marketing costs will come off the top. Disney execs were on the set every day giving notes to the director. That's hardly an "outsider" film. There's a better case that Anschutz's "Ray" was an outsider project, since he put up all the production money himself, then sold it to the studio as a finished product.

[Darkwolf377]

Chill. The writer mentioned outsiders coming into Hollywood with their piles of money and the attitude that they're going to show people how it's done. This movie would not be what it is without his investment, due to his personal religious beliefs which he insisted be represented in the movie.

I never claimed this was an "outsider" film, so you berating me for doing so is false. I merely mentioned an example of an outsider who did just what the writer complained about.

[Liberty Valance]

ping

[Borges]

It should be noted that Passion is much more violent then Pulp Fiction.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Left Behind.

And from what I've heard, those books sound like they could have been written by L. Ron Hubbard.

But, people seem to enjoy them...

*shrugs*

[Darkwolf377]

Yeah, they're scary propaganda, and hugely popular. No accounting for taste.

[Hildy]

Crash was a very good movie, imo. In the last two years, The only movie I can remember walking out of thinking I got my money's worth.

[Borges]

Also the film Capote was basically about what a self serving amoral person he was.

[ontos-on]

LOL

[Borges]

Great Art will always be claimed by both sides. Was Shakespeare liberal or conservative? He's been called everything from a Monarchist to a Marxist (before Marx) to a Freudian (before Freud).

[Navy Patriot]

I don't think much of what Eric considers art is actually art.

[Blind Eye Jones]

The intellectual birthplace of Liberalism in Europe began with Bacon, Hobbs and Locke and flowered into a mostly French Enlightenment on the continent. The aristocracy and the church held the reins of power... in other words, no self evident, universal, inalienable rights of man, just slavery and servitude if you were a commoner... just the crushing weight of great Chain of Being.

"Radical egalitarianism is born from those feelings of superiority..."

You're right. Liberals are such hypocrites!

[Oberon]

Ping for later.

[Blind Eye Jones]

"Great Art will always be claimed by both sides."

The right has more to do with liberty than equality... take a guess what artists really gravitate towards!

[TChad]

Mistake #2: We don't quite understand common grace – the idea that the good, the true, and the beautiful can be found in the most “unlikely” of places (Broadway) and people (liberal artists). Without a strong belief in common grace, we will either get angry at the culture or withdraw from it entirely.

Interesting point. He might be right about this, but certainly the Hollywood left finds no "common grace" in conservatives. The left does not believe in a shared humanity. It believes in victim groups and oppressor groups, and in an ill defined quantity called "personhood".

[Borges]

You'd have a hard time putting people like Blake and Melville on the Right. There's always something new that a great Artist has to say..and that's always disturbing to their status quo in some way. For instance Schoenberg's music seemed like the height of Modernity in 1910, today it sounds just like the logical extension of Romanticism that it was.

[lmr]

Movies are entertainment, that's all. They haven't been 'Art' for quite some time. The same thing applies to Music. American Idol is fun to watch, but I understand I am not watching 'Art'.

[Borges]

They haven't been 'Art' for quite some time.

Sure they are. Most movies are bad Art but Art nonetheless.