Posted on 01/16/2009 6:09:36 AM PST by William Tell 2
Conservatives are having a St. Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus type conversion as of late. After spending decades eschewing the popular culture, they now realize the value striving to influence it.
For the past few years, organizations like the American Film Renaissance have been promoting conservative movies from established actors such as Patricia Heaton and Gary Sinise. These events also furnish an opportunity for unknown, conservative artists to present their works -- something Hollywood would never do.
Conservatives used to approach the pop culture with a laager mentality -- they prohibit their kids from watching television or listening to popular music. As if eliminating exposure to the popular culture would prevent them from being affected by it.
Unless they are prepared to live in a compound in Surinam, or join Rambo in a remote village in Tibet, they and their kids are going to be exposed to the popular culture.
Other reactions by conservatives to the pop culture have been to form their own subsets. They established genres like “Christian Rock” and “Christian Film.”
Christian rock is a good art form. So is chamber music. However, just like chamber music, Christian rock doesn’t appeal to a general audience.
Christian movies are first rate -- especially those made by former “Growing Pains” star Kirk Cameron and Stephen Baldwin. Just don’t expect them in a theater near you anytime soon.
Such art forms are analogous to the “voting with your feet” strategies used by the middle class a few decades ago. They moved to the suburbs from the cities that were being destroyed by liberal culture.
They did not realize those ideas and culture would follow them.
The liberals’ cultural conquest of America’s major cities is tantamount to the barbarians’ sacking of Rome. Once they ruined Rome, the barbarians needed to find other cities to sack.
Once the liberals made cities like New York uninhabitable -- they moved into the suburban counties - where the middle class conservatives fled long ago to protect themselves from the senseless policies of the left.
Meanwhile, conservatives thought that as long as they controlled the political machinery, they had nothing to worry about. They thought they could avoid the pop culture in their suburban enclaves.
It never occurred to them that politics follows the culture.
Now, instead of retreating and establishing their own entertainment enclaves, they are now campaigning to acquire the helm of the established media. Instead of -- metaphorically speaking of course -- busting the DVD’s, breaking the CD’s, banning the movies and burning the books, conservatives are now beginning to enter the established venues of music, literature, television and newspaper media.
Why have conservatives taken so long to see the light? Who knows. Just be glad they finally have.
As long as the left controls the society’s opinion-forming, cultural centers of influence, then liberal ideas will be enacted into laws. As someone once said, “I’ll let you write the laws, if I can write the songs.”
The liberals have always been a few beats ahead of conservatives about this -- actually a few generations ahead.
The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci realized this 80 years ago when he developed the concept of “cultural hegemony.” He believed that a state controls its subjects by force initially, yet eventually, it would need the consent of the people. Gramsci theorized this consent was accomplished by inculcating the political leadership’s values to the people -- i.e. cultural hegemony. Gramsci believed that as long as capitalistic values monopolized the popular culture, communism could never advance in a society.
He felt that the communists would have to control the opinion forming elements of society -- the “chattering classes,” as Judge Robert Bork liked to call them -- for communism to predominate in Europe.
The American leftwing recognized this and established The Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS) in 1905 to promote the study and advocacy of socialism in academia. Among the founders were Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Clarence Darrow.
Is there any wonder why American colleges, universities and public schools are leftwing?
Until now, conservatives never understood the concept that -- paraphrasing Victor Hugo -- an idea whose time has come is the most powerful thing there is.
Now that conservatives have entered the mainstream channels of movies, music, television, journalism and literature, perhaps one can conceive of a future Academy awards show where the hosts or recipients will not condemn American foreign policy as imperialistic simply because the Democratic Socialists of America was somehow able to convey this message to them.
Or the next time a journalist gives a college commencement speech implying those who serve in the military are losers, the audience will know in advance that he is an avowed socialist who does not like the American military.
Part of it is because they don't want to. It's not their taste. Well, as a classical musician, there's a lot that isn't my taste, either, but I'm willing to concede that if something is morally grounded and is "cool" at the same time (think classic good vs. evil like LOTR or Star Wars) that it will translate with enough repetition. And part of the problem is seriously a lack of patience. The societal mess we are in didn't happen overnight. It was a continuous campaign for decades. We have to think in those terms.
But not all of us. I've toyed with getting my voice performance masters and maybe one in vocal pedagogy. It used to be that art was all about illustrating the greater glory of God in the Trinity and various other Church events. We got off track when art patrons went another direction. Now, somebody erects rusty iron construction panels in a triangle and we call it "public art" (see, "Twain" aka "The Serra Sculpture" between Market and Chestnut in StL).
Christian movies are first rate.
Two false statements that reveal the root of the problem.
Somewhere along the line conservatives lost their aesthetic discernment and have now totally ceded that ground to the left. The left owns the arts because, sad to say, the left deserves to own the arts. As screwed up as their politics are, it is the left that is carrying forward and maintaining the arts in this country, and rightfully so because the left has most of the talent and the taste. If conservatives had had stewardship of the arts over the last 100 years, we would now be in an artistic dark age. Imagine if Left Behind were the highest quality movie you could go see. Imagine if you all you could find on the radio were country music. That is a very bleak picture.
People talk about the Stupid Party and the Evil Party but what we've really got nowadays is the Party of Truth and the Party of Beauty. The tragedy is that even though onservatives are right about almost everything, it doesn't matter, because people will prefer beautiful falsehood over unbeautiful truth any day of the week.
I look at those Obey posters and I think, why don't we have something like that? They are shot through with confusion and evil, but as art they are compelling and beautiful and speak powerfully in the modern visual language. This is important because one beautiful image can overcome a thousand true arguments that don't have the assistance of beauty.
Conservatives need to remember that human beings are wired to seek the true, the good, AND the beautiful. We will continue to lose ground until we reclaim the beautiful. We need to get with the program and drop the self-sabotaging asceticism and anti-elitism when it comes to the arts. Conservatives have owned the arts in the past and can own them again if we want them. The question is, do we want them?
Thank you.
That's why they need beauty on their side.
Hank Hill is the wisest man on television.
"I don't have an anger management problem. I have an idiot management problem."
Perhaps if mainstream Christian artists put as much thought into production as they put into the message the music would have wider appeal.
Am I a Vorkosigan fan ? I have a custom Nancy Liebowitz button, silver ink on brown background.
“I was VOR before it was cool. . . “
I’m also the guy who asked Lois, at Disclave in 1995, who she’d like to play the movie versions of all the Vorkosigan Saga characters.
A pity there haven’t been any new books since “Diplomatic Immunity”. . .
I think we need to have everyone read “The Grasshopper and the Ant” again.
Ain't it the truth? So much of what happens can be easily explained by Aesop.
In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.
"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"
"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."
"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "We have got plenty of food at present." But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil.
When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger - while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for days of need.
bump to all you wrote.
Conservatives can and have written books with that sort of cult following: check out best-selling author David Weber’s Honor Harrington books.
If Hollyweird had made some HH movies, IMHO, they might have had a franchise that rivaled Star Wars. (It would have definitely beaten the “new” Star Wars movies...)
Anybody know where I can get my hand on $200 million and some good directors and producers?
I didn’t mean to imply I thought it was an underground book. I knew it had a mainstream publisher. My reference to “cult” was the way that it’s fans follow it, sort of like the Harry Potter people.
.......Unless they are prepared to live in a compound in Surinam........
I have several friends who live in a compound that has rigid boundries called a church. It might as well be a compound in Suriniam because it is just as distant
“The Conservative Advance Into Pop Culture”
Where? Who? How?
This is one of the worst articles I have read from HE. It never addresses its own subject.
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