Category: Culture

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I read Right Wing writers from time to time just in case lightening strikes and there is something valuable there. More often than not though it is a lot of whining about how the world used to be a better place before the modern world intruded on it. Roger Kimball represents this type of Right Wing writer.

Kimball knows what he is talking about. Some might even call him an intellectual. He has read all the right books, seen all the right art which enables him to throw the great names out with the best of them — Nietzsche, Marx, Van Gogh, Duchamp, Warhol and on and on. Dada that, Avant-Garde this. He gives the impression of someone who knows what he is talking about. But when all is said and done it is still whining and he reaches a shrill filled pitch in What the Right Gets Wrong About Art.

I provide the link above but don’t feel compelled to read it. It is difficult reading. He overwhelms the reader with his knowledge about art, history and philosophy. You might know a few things about art but he knows a lot of things. And I mean a lot but it rarely helps his argument. He is just rolling off facts at a rapid clip that I sometimes forgo what exactly was he talking abou. You can’t really argue with him which I think is the point. So be warned, don’t get too bogged down on reading this article, it will only make you crazy.

What I learned was that he truly hates modern art. He hates the artists who produce them. He hates the institutions who support them. He hates the politics the art is associated with. Modern Art is ugly. Furthermore, the art critic is unable to assess art as art because art is also political. The critic should only have to look at the canvas, the brush strokes, the colors and not consider anything about what might be going on in the artist’s life to make him paint this particular piece of art.

By this standard then Kimball would have you look at the statue of David without knowing any of the biblical history regarding David. In Kimball’s view, a person can be completely ignorant of the story of David and still be able to appreciate the art. Probably But that isn’t how it happens, is it? Most people who see the statue also know the story of David. Kimball acts as if artists before 1900 were simply creating beautiful art straight out of their heads instead of producing art that their benefactors wanted to see and, more importantly, buy.

From the title of his article, I was expecting a call to arms for right wingers to get out their paint brushes and canvases and start painting. Instead it really is a tirade against modern art without the context of how this is important and why a right wing movement in art would improve both culture and then politics. Kimball gives a weak analysis of why right wingers surrendered culture and art to the left. Apparently Right wingers don’t take art seriously because it isn’t necessary for life, not like business and science. Then, what is Kimball’s idea for changing this?

If Art is a luxury in the minds of the Right, an idea that Kimball obviously disagrees with, how does he propose changing what appears to be a very fixed idea among Right Wing people. Kimball offers the idea of beauty that art brings to life. The beauty of art gives human beings a glimpse at something greater than ordinary life. So why aren’t Right Wingers willing to give up on numbers and embrace beauty? Not a clue. More importantly, how does this change. Kimball has no ideas on how to change this dynamic.

I suspect Kimball sees the futility of his situation. The Right just isn’t interested in Culture. They are interested in Business and, to a lesser degree, Religion. They want a society committed to Capitalism and Christianity and have little interest beyond that which puts Kimball in a difficult position. The Left disagrees with him and the Right doesn’t care.

The truth is that there is nothing stopping Right Wingers from getting out their paintbrushes and having a go at it. As Kimball admits, it was the Right who abandoned culture, what then needs to happen is for the right to try and reclaim it and stop this awful whining. This also means that if politics is downstream from culture then Kimball is in big trouble trying to change anything until Right Wingers get out of the pews and the board room and into the art studio.

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Katherine Maher, the new CEO of National Public Radio, tries to defend herself against accusations of her First Amendment ambivalence. She awkwardly replies to her critics in the Wall Street Journal with the following, ““It is by no means a personal perspective; it’s a very bad faith distortion of a nuanced perspective on a policy landscape issue.”  WTF? I have absolutely no idea what she means here. To be fair, I am not sure how Christopher Rufo, one of her critics, determined her position on the First Amendment from this video link.

She speaks in an academic jargon that is meaningless to the vast majority of Americans. This is fine if she is sitting down to lunch in a university cafeteria with a bunch of Social Science professors. On the other hand, if she is trying to defend herself against the idea that she is an Ivory Tower Academic Elitist, she might try using plainer language because, unfortunately for her, every time she speaks she sounds like an Ivory Tower Academic Elitist.

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Nepo kids, a perfect term by the way, are the children of famous people who, supposedly of their own accord, also obtain a modicum of success in some famous person profession. There is some, not totally unwarranted, suspicion that these kids had a leg up in their climb to success. Well, the Huffington Post recently highlighted the struggles that many of these Nepo kids had when they matured. Many were financially abandoned by their parents and forced to get jobs. You heard that right jobs. Think about it. Just remember to have a hanky near you as the stories of their travails are heart rendering. Just in case you missed the link here it is again — Nepo kids. (Hint, please read the link)

I found myself laughing over this pathetic attempt to make these people stories even remotely like a real person’s struggle. The first story shows how really difficult these kids have it. Dakota Johnson had to ask her mother for money instead of her father after he cut her off financially. That was her big problem. I mean it sounds like Hell, I know. I am not sure how the poor thing survived.

Then there is the story of Jamie Lee Curtis. She was cut out of her father’s will which was pretty shabby if you were a 18 year old girl but she was 52 years old when her father died. I think she had plenty of time to milk her parent’s fame and fortune in her rise to the top. Tori Spelling also had will problems. Her take was only $800,000. What an insult, if I would have been her I wouldn’t even have bothered to collect it.

Then they talk about Prince Harry and this is when I started laughing uncontrollably. They are trying to say that that idiot’s climb to corporate power and a luxury home in one of the poshest, if not the poshest, towns in Southern California is the result of his talent and not that his father is the King of England. I mean isn’t the whole structure of the monarchy based in nepotism? I mean if anyone deserves to be called a Nepo kid, Prince Harry is the definition.

But Kourtney Kardashian gives away the game when she said her Dad told her he would help her find a job. Well, yes, there it is — the leg up. You got a break that a normal person wouldn’t get. Their stories are clearly different to the struggles of less connected and wealthy people. Their complaints are incomprehensible to me.

This points to a bigger problem which is a blindness to what is actually happening to the rest of the world who aren’t as fortunate. It is disheartening and more than a little disingenuous. Some of these people might be genuinely talented and deserve their success. OK. But the world is full of talented people. Most of them don’t have the connections these people have and it matters.

I don’t blame them for using these advantages. I would have used them too if I were in their position. But, a little humility about your good fortune would help. To be helped by your parents is not a terrible thing. People do understand it and most people accept that people will use these connections to get ahead. Just say yeah I did have leg up and put your fucking struggles into perspective before opening your mouth.