Today, I risked saying this in the comments section of that Bob Dylan post:
To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.That got linked over at Volokh Conspiracy (from the elusive Juan Non-Volokh), which led to a link at Crooked Timber, and now people are talking about my comment in the comments at both places, saying things like:
"Jesus, what an absolute load of bollocks. Artists are (in)famously left wing. Reading Althouse and Reynolds is like stepping through the looking glass. They say the most inane things as if they are just God’s own truth."And:
"Are they actually insane? Has it come to this, that the insane now have tenured positions in law schools across the country? It’s clearly a product of wrongheaded liberal do-gooders in the 70s who made it harder to commit the delusional."(I love the way Glenn Reynolds comes in for a gratuitous beating.)
Anyway, I was just trying on a little idea there in the back room, in honor of Right Wing Bob, giving you folks something to react to in the ranging conversation that is the comments page. So, react away. But try to focus on the actual point. I'm not saying great artists consciously adopt the agenda of the political right. I'm saying there is something right wing about the sort of mentality you have to adopt in order to be a great artist! Think it through people. Don't just blow a gasket!
UPDATE: Here's a comment that I'm going to leave over at Volokh in response to a commenter:
Dustin writes, "I feel somewhat disconnected from the discussion. How do 'left-wing' and 'right-wing', political classifications, apply to art and artists? Since 99% of artists who try to be 'political' an any which way, end up failing miserably and ebarassing [sic] themselves, I'm lincined [sic] to believe that good artists are neither left or right wing; and I don't mean that in a sesame street way."Dare I drop it over at CT too?
You're asking a question that very nicely represents the way people keep misunderstanding my statement. I'm not saying that the great artist adopts a right wing political ideology. If fact, I agree with you that the great artist needs to separate himself from politics and certainly to get it out of his art. I'm saying there's something right wing about doing that. My comment arose in a discussion of the Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan, which shows how he did not fit in with the left wing folksingers who tried very hard to keep him in their fold and felt betrayed when he alienated himself from them. My observation is that he was, at heart, a great artist, and it was not possible to do what was needed to be a good lefty, which would require a strong focus on group goals and communal values. He certainly wasn't switching to right wing politics. He was getting out of politics.
I'm calling that right wing. It's certainly antithetical to left wing politics, which requires you to remain engaged and would require the artist to include politics in his art. The great artist sees that those requirements will drag him down. That's what I'm theorizing. Feel free to debate that and reject it if you want. All I'd like to ask is that you get your mind around what I'm trying to say before reflexively rejecting it. I'm not surprised that lefty bloggers and commenters can't do this. They've got to enforce the kind of values that freaked Bob Dylan out and made him want to disengage from their clutches. And don't even get me started on my experience with lefty bloggers. They treat me miserably, and if I tried to get along with them, it would guarantee mediocrity. And thus, I am a right wing blogger – even though I don’t share many beliefs with right wing politicos.
UPDATE: I'm glad I've started a conversation. But why are the people on the other side of the conversation so boring? All they say is that I'm "stupid" or my comment is "nonsense." What I said is apparently interesting enough to respond to, but you don't say anything interesting in response. Say something about art! Say something new and unusual about why I'm so wrong! Dammit! I can see people are talking about me, and I go over to hear what they are saying, and it's a thuddingly dull remark.
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81 comments:
You're no shrinking violet, Ann.
Just make sure this kind of sparking plug remark in your comments section by you, doesn't get muted or killed in future -- simply because you don't want your words misinterpreted.
Who cares what people say. They'll say it anyway.
Cheers,
Victoria
Yikes, short on specifics and long on vituperation. If you read the posts one would have virtually no idea what the subject was. I still agree that the case could be made that great artists are right-wing for the simple observation of how selfish they are in gaining their greatness. Artists do not come from the caring professionals, they are not willing to sacrifice their vision for compassionate view of the world. At times the rent is not paid, the wife, or husband is ignored or tossed aside, the friends betrayed, etc. What is excused as passion is most often simply a sense of self that excludes all except the creative act.
I read the comments at Crooked Timber. Only one - radek - betrays the least hint of historical perspective. From, say, Lascaux to 1789, we have an enormous sweep of prehistory and history in which trying to descry left-right perspectives in art is a largely meaningless exercise. There are interpretations placing Euripides in the people's camp, or reading Moby Dick as a working-man's novel, or finding Defoe an apostle of the bourgeois state, but generally this is the sort of tortuous drivel that comes of being hired ABD, needing to publish, and knowing your most productive move is to buff up the committee's left perspective. And for art since then, the evidence is all over the place. Wallace Stevens, a VP at an insurance company? T S Elliot at the bank? Steinbeck? John Nichols? Sartre? Storm? Cole Porter? Woodie Guthrie? Nabokov? Even in the last 160 years there's not much to be gained in trying to deal artists into a couple of piles, each labeled with fairly jejune modern categories.
Ms Althouse, I reckon you jammed a stick into the anthill and are licking the ants off it. For that formic tang, that formic tang. If I might suggest a future topic, you could speculate on why consciously leftist lit - say, Grapes of Wrath or The Magic Journey - descends from mawkish to clatfart so ineluctably.
Ms Althouse, I reckon you jammed a stick into the anthill and are licking the ants off it. For that formic tang, that formic tang. If I might suggest a future topic, you could speculate on why consciously leftist lit - say, Grapes of Wrath or The Magic Journey - descends from mawkish to clatfart so ineluctably.
Ahhh, the escaped souls from Planet Blogosphere -- here to parry with dainty sabres what has gone unchallenged long enough!
Now of course, one could point out that Ann Althouse's deeply embedded commentary in a thread was taken out of context.
And that in so doing, people have formed all kinds of opinions of what she was saying, but without the courtesy of reading the thread to throw the Light of Context into the remark.
Alas, we'll never know what Ann was truly saying.
To quote a famous conspiracist (allegedly right-wing) as filmed by a director (allegedly left-wing):
"It's a riddle inside a mystery wrapped up in an enigma."
Cheers,
Victoria
What Pat Patterson said.
But I don't know that that kind of selfishness is "right wing." More libertarian, maybe. Right wing ideally not only stands for taking responsibility for yourself, but also for your word to and commitments to others, family and society. Great artists, not all but disturbingly many, sacrifice all that without a qualm. I think a lot of right-wingers might say that while their discipline, enterprise and drive may be right-wing, their narcissism is quite left-wing.
Which just goes to show that not everything can be convincingly politicized.
I'm not sure I agree with you.
I know what you are saying, that the artist embodies the invidualism that conservatives like to think of themselves as (of course, in historical context, this is classic liberalism).
What I see in modern conservatism, however, is exactly the opposite view. Modern conservatism is a conformist philosophy, trying to bend science as well as art into it's Judeo-Christian view. It is Conservatives, not Liberals who are always trying to get books tossed from the library, get internet sites censored, put stickers in your children's biology textbook telling them not to believe it, and trying to fine Howard Stern and others for what they say on the air (hint: if you don't like it, there is a knob that says, 'tuning.') In such a dogma-driven society, be it here or be it in fundamentalist Islamic societies, or in a cold, Stalinist communist society, art tends to become as cold as the spirit of creativity itself.
I guess it depends on which definition of 'conservative' you subscribe to.
But your comment suggests that lefties, to use the vernacular, do NOT take responsibility for their place in the world. This seems like a caricature to me.
Victoria:
It isn't a misquote (by Churchill). He wrote in in Volume III of his prizewinning 'History of the Second World War.'
He is a conservative, but one I really enjoyed reading.
Simon: The key thing for me is that being on the left seems to demand a communal perspective, concern about the benefit to the whole. On the right, you get to be in it for yourself. Whether you embrace that as a political philosophy or not, by turning your back on group as a whole and pursuing your own affairs in an individualistic way, you are behaving as if you believed in right wing values. These "right wing artists" I'm talking about will basically look apolitical, if they are honest. They may, however, in order to pursue their interest in getting ahead, outwardly display leftist values, because that gives you an in with the arts-consuming crowd. It's a strategy that I think Dylan pursued and knew he was pursuing. As soon as he got sucessful enough to do without their help, he shook them off.
Eli: You are correct that what I'm characterizing as right wing should also be considered liberal and that the real dichotomy that matters to me is libertarian and anti-libertarian. If you read enough of this blog, of which I suppose there are over a thousand pages by now, you'll find plenty of liberal opinion of mine. I am more of an artist myself and not at all a political ideologue. I dislike politics and care a lot about art and freedom. I blog as an art project and an exercise in personal freedom.
It does look like the kind of paradoxical aphorism that would be true, paradoxically, and I think I know what you're trying to say, but it's just so not close to being true. Except maybe for Bono, who hangs out with international bankers now. Way to capture the buzz, though.
Ann:
I've been visiting your blog for about two weeks, give or take, and have found some liberal opinions of yours (although, on balance, quite a bit more of what I would classify as conservative-- but then I make no bones about my Leftist outlook). I do find your blog open and thought-provoking enough that it made my relatively short list of 'non-leftist' blogs to include a link to.
And perhaps you are right about 'libetarian' vs. 'anti-libertarian' although I would posit that a liberal who wants to raise the artist's taxes to pay for a light rail system or for better paid schoolteachers impinges less on the artist's freedom of expression than a cultural conservative who wants to limit the artist in terms of what (s)he can write or paint.
Charles: What I'm characterizing as left wing is the belief that everyone ought to be concerned about everybody else's place in the world. I think individual lefties try to live a worthy life for themselves but don't see that as enough and would feel it is wrong to do only that. I'm not saying it's lefty to be irresponsible, but it is lefty to feel that it is necessary to be devoted to caring for other people who aren't responsible.
Eli: I agree that the social conservatives are worse than tax-and-spend liberals. I've never said otherwise.
(Does anyone have as much trouble typing in the verification word as I do? I get it right about a third of the time!)
One that seems right wing to me is:
A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
"Equality" is the left word, "liberty" the right, don't you think? He turned his back on them and was the better for it, he thinks.
As can be done for anything, say for instance the Bible, any one statement read with prejudice and/or without a larger perspective can be misunderstood. Its just funny to me that people invest so much in making a BFD about the comment. Even if Ann was trying to say Bob Dylan was another Newt Gingrich, it hardly ranks on the long list of things for which "tenured" professors could be criticized for.
I am more of an artist myself and not at all a political ideologue. I dislike politics and care a lot about art and freedom. I blog as an art project and an exercise in personal freedom.
- Right Wing Ann
(verification word always takes me at least two tries)
I linked to a story you recounted yesterday, which means that my entire blog readershp - which is to say, me - liked your story. ;)
lmeade: Well observed.
stever: Feel free to go over there and tell them that.
miklos: Yeah, I detest political art. Mostly because it tends to be bad.
Traditionally, elitism has been the province of the right wing, especially the Old Right, or Continental Right. One can argue about how much that is or isn't true today, and about how much sense that ever had in the US, which never had an aristocracy. I think that elitism, in quite a few different senses of the word, has often been a strong part of the mentality of great artists.
Crooked Timber wrote (emphasis added): "It’s obvious that to be a great artist is inherently left wing... there is a goddamn parasite constantly sponging off of friends with real jobs and looking for handouts from the Emperor Joseph II, Peggy Guggenheim, the local Arts Council or what have you."
The funniest thing about this minor foofaraw is that leftists on both blogs are defending all artists as leftists, but not one person has written one word of objection to CT's characterization!
Impressive; all of six hours before you came up with I'm sorry... I'm sorry you're too stupid to understand what I said!.
Sheesh.
First of all, to this business of a "comments persona": It seems sort of silly to me. If you've got an idea you want to try out, just say, "I'm not sure if I believe this, but..." The not-heretofore-mentioned category of Althouse's "comments persona" seems like nothing more than a smoke screen to say, "Oops! I may or may not have meant that" and if I get called to the carpet, I can say, "Psych! I didn't mean it." (Which may have been inspired by Dylan, come to think of it.)
But to your assertion that Dylan is "right wing" in lifestyle, it really depends on your interpretation of "right wing." It seems that you buy the notion that conservatism is inherently selfish which, in its Ayn Randish, libertarian incarnation, it may very well be.
This raises a final point suggested by a few of the comments. As a Christian, I'm really bothered by the connection made by some--Christians and others--between Christian faith and conservatism. Christianity is not a political program and it's perfectly possible for Christians to be liberal Dems as well as conservative Republicans. (By the way, I'm a Republican.) Jesus has no political party. Governments--and the varying philosophies about how best to run them--are what Martin Luther called "emergency measures" necessitated by the fallenness and consequent selfishness that exists in the human race. Government exacts by coercion what we would voluntarily give to one another if we weren't in rebellion against God's will for humans to live together with consideration, respect, and love.
For any Christian to suggest that one "ism" has a corner on virtue, truth, or divine revelation is to flirt with idolatry, subordinating God to human ideas, turning those ideas or philosophies into idols.
Christianity is inherently communitarian. For some Christians, this will seem to lead to a tilt toward private charity and away from the use of government for social ends. For other Christians, while still believing in private charity, there will also be a strong advocacy for government social spending. But for each, hopefully, God's call to love not only God but neighbor, will be equally important.
Just a few thoughts. I'm hitting the sack.
Mark Daniels
Lindsey wrote: "Also, while some cultural conservatives are crazy (Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell), the responsible sane ones I've met have some rational positions for why they think the way they do. They think you can draw and paint whatever you want BUT I should not be forced to pay for it via taxes, I should not have to have it broadcast (public airwaves are afterall leased from the consumers) into my home (Everybody should get behind a la carte cable as well!), etc."
LIndsey -- exactly. This social conservative (who teaches universoty humanities classes) loves all kinds of art (even non-representational!). I however, have a huge problem paying taxes for Piss Christ or Robert Mapplethorpe. I would have a huge problem paying taxes for new stained glass windows for my church too. I go back and forth on government patronage vs. private.
Re Lindsey's comment about Pat Buchanan, Buchanan is actually entirely sane and often exceedingly lucid. I have some serious policy disagreements with him (Pat opposes the war, which I supported and continue to support, and Pat opposes gay people, which in the words of Tim Yeo, I always thought "was about as menaingful as being opposed to the weather"), but I enjoy reading his column, and he does frequently offer some very good points. I was a subsriber to The American Conservative, but I forgot to renew my subscription.
Think it through people. Don't just blow a gasket!
Wouldn't it be pretty to think so?
Do left and right have much meaning anymore? Each side defines themselves in the most favorable light, while framing the other in the most negative way.
It's as if both sides have their own language.
I'm inclined to agree with Ann, but the sweeping terms are too broad. I don't think it's fair to say that selfishness is a right-leaning attribute, but I'm inclined to think that few artists rise to greatness without some degree of selfishness. Or something that looks like it.
But there's something about the art that rises above the personal and reaches outside the artist, or else it wouldn't connect with an audience.
Can an artist be great without the ability to connect with an audience? (I'd venture not, but I'd love to be corrected.) Same goes for politics. You can't win if you can't connect with voters.
On the radio a few years ago. Daniel Pinkwater reminisced about a loose group of artists and writers he hung out with when he was getting started. The only ones who made it, he observed, were the ones who worked. And worked.
I heard Lou Reed say something similar to Charlie Rose. Charlie asked him if he was taking it easy or considered himself "still working." Reed said something like "I'm working. Everybody I know is working all the time."
This "sort of selfish" atttribute goes along with the work ethic. And it's not just found in artists. Nobody got to the top of the heap in the mainstream media by being a nice guy, did they? Same with politics. But that's an aside. There's a huge distinction between artistic merit and rising to the top of an organization.
Another aside: any generalization about artistic greatness has to encompass Picasso and Emily Dickinson. They embody very different ways of going about being a great artist.
I believe the sentiment could have easily been described by saying all great artist (and the relavent detail is greatness) are individualistic, enterprising mavericks in orientation.
Part of being great is being one step ahead of the mainstream. Part of the defining ethos of left leaning politics is that they represent the mass muddle in the middle (though that is less true now more than ever, and probably has never been true as the left is defined in the United States).
So I believe the intent is clear, and I think part of the problem is that when people here right many see the demonic presence of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell condemning sinners and demanding an end to all things fun, but the right that would embrace the mindset of a Dylan, or Shakespeare, or Orwell, or Michelangelo is the right of the individual and of personal responsibility and of letting others live the life they choose.
The left that this is in opposition to an artist like the electrified Dylan is the overly egalitarian left with notions as best expressed by Hillary Clinton's book "It Takes a Village" with it's smarmy, paternal/maternalistic overbearing belief that the STATE or the collective should be the arbiter of what's best for any individual.
It would seem that the left leaning folks out there are the most likely to punish perceived dissent and decry it in the least articulate terms.
I blame the academy (too many years of having easily made assumptions unchallenged, when exposed to a competing viewpoint they recoil like a cave dweller that had never before been exposed to light)
Never let it be said that a casual off-the-cuff remark, probably written in haste to get our juices in that thread going, can be taken to such a degree as to spawn 3 blogs' comments section to go ape-caca.
The topic Ann raised is intriguing, but the actual subtleties of 'right-wing' or 'left-wing' sensibilities as commented on in this thread, has me laughing into my hankerchief.
It's funny what each of us believe is a "social conservative" or not, as well as what is left-wing or not.
I would for example view the extremely amusing writer of satirical novels, Kingsley Amis, as "right wing" for all of the usual stereotypical reasons. Likewise Evelyn Waugh, for the same reasons. I would probably view D.H. Lawrence as a repressed fascist, although I probably need to give that more airing. And so it goes ...
I would agree with what you wrote, almost entirely.
But please note that in Evelyn Waugh's case, he was a Roman Catholic convert (as were an overwhelming amount of British novelists, as most people know), and that gave him a veneer of traditionalism that goes hand-in-glove with Conservatism until the 2000s.
That's when old American liberals, perhaps even Ann here, transformed themselves into liberarians or similar, because of the encroaching State mechanism into the private sphere.
(And of course, 9/11)
Then it became less about traditionalism and the status quo, than about individualism -- which is the guiding principle of modern day Conservatism.
No one would call Dylan or Picasso, to use Ann's earlier examples, "traditionalists".
But individualists...well yes, very much so.
That's what I believe was her only point.
Let's file this entire thread discussion under: Much Adu about Poo.
Cheers,
Victoria
I've never been so thoroughly fisked before, thank you Mr. Ridgeway.
You take exception with the idea that leftism attempts to associate themselves with "the mass muddle in the middle". I can't see how that's a problem, any successful political movement must define themselves as being part of, or a guiding force for, the mainstream. Populist, we are the multitude, rhetoric has been part and parcel of Democratic stump speeches from William Jennings Bryan all the way through to Sen. Kerry (though in his mouth that rhetoric didn't come across so well).
As far as the left taking a position on Electrified Dylan I think when he plugged in is when he went from being a talented artist to being a major force in the world of music, and that move was controversial, widely derided, and decried as having dastardly "commercial" intent which was anathema to the committed folkies (who mostly were also committed lefties).
As far as the Left's position on post Purple Rain Prince, They thought he was becoming too commercial as well (see the Batdance album) and with the Sign O the Times album his dependence on sythesizers and his overtly Christian references in songs like "The Cross" were a betrayal of the cross-gender cross-racial identity he formed for himself in the early 80s (and you can find plenty of articles from the late 80s to back that up).
Now Stevie Wonder ceased being relavent after the Master Blaster Jammin (1980) album, everything after that was a pale imitation of what he had previously been capable of and utterly devoid of political content, so he also was derided through most of the 80s and 90s (as much as a legend can be derided) as a commercial sellout who was missing out on opportunities to use his platform and talent to oppose an oppressive society.
Now as far as the general tone of the fisking I see this aspect of left/right as being about statism/dynamism and any great artist is going to be a manifestation of the dynamic triumphing over the static, and the idea set represented by many on the left are Statist in nature no matter how you slice it.
Hopefully that clarifies what I meant and now you can disagree with what I think rather than with what you think I think.
I always get in late on these feisty issues...the driving ego of successful artists is of course inherently Right - for pete's sake look at their lifestyles, homes, toys, relationships and addictions. Publication, a platinum record, an Oscar, an Emmy - all for the betterment of mankind and the uplifting of beggars? Horseshit! They are dream merchants, plying despair and loneliness, hawking lust and limelight in a most vicarious and deceitful manner - vile Capitalists the lot of them!
lindsey:
On Global warming, all I have to say is that 1) certain elements in the private sector which have an interest in disputing it have been funding a number of scientists of in some cases questionable integrity very well just to dispute it, and 2) at this point, it is already happening (it is easy to see that here in Arizona, I have personally stood on top of a mountain where you can see burnt tree stumps from a fire some years back, but now instead of the forest growing back, only desert vegetation is growing there) so it is no longer a matter of how to avoid climate change-- the right wing already dragged their feet over the past two decades until that window of opportunity was closed, it is now a question of how to adjust to the new reality and hopefully ameliorate its effects.
As far as your comments on architecture and the 'art market,' 1) As you should know being a conservative, anyone can buy any art they want. So if there is a dearth of a particular type of art, maybe it is because not very many people want it?? If anything, a group like NEA (which funds tens of thousands of art projects of ALL types of art) helps lesser known artists get exposure and therefore promotes diversity in art (someone who is a patron of the arts is more likely to notice them that way and purchase some of it). Same for institutions-- if there was really a demand for more classical architecture, don't you think that some institution (and as I work for a college, I can tell you that especially in this day and age they are ALWAYS on the lookout for niches they can fill to make money) would take it? Funny that conservatives espouse the free market but don't want to see it at work when it hits them between the eyes, instead attributing the loss of their particular vein to some sort of widespread conspiracy among liberals (and in any case, if you knew liberals as well as I do, you would understand that one of the biggest challenges facing today's liberals is their inability to unify themselves enough to conspire over anything-- one progressive a few years ago lamented that trying to organize liberals was like trying to collect frogs in a wheelbarrow without having them hop out.)
School textbooks sans 'American'? I had one kid graduate high school last year and have two right now in elementary school, and I assure you that their history books use the word, 'American.' I don't know who told you otherwise.
Stickers in textbooks telling them not to believe it?
RIGHT HERE I intended to put in a photo of the actual sticker put inside textbooks by the Cobb County (GA) school board until it was declared unconstitutional-- but the HTML was disallowed. So you can click here to read it.
You should pay more attention to the news before you snicker.
I have been writing a lot about that on my blog with the trial now underway involving the Dover (PA) school district.
I think Ann called it quite a ways above. Probably more accurately libertarianism and anti-libertarianism.
The problem with terms today as I see it is that "liberal" and "conservative" have lost their true meanings.
The left today, and for most of the 20th century at least, has been communitarian / socialist in its economics while the right has been capitalisitic, which is much closer to individualistic.
On the other hand, as to social issues, much of the right, esp. the religious right, is more communitarian, and the left more individualistic.
I would put sucessful artists on the individualistic social side (left), and individualistic economic side (right) - which is probably closer to where Ann sits than either being a liberal or a conservative by today's definitions.
My one big problem with calling this a libertarian / anti-libertarian divide is that, at least in the past, libertarians eschewed a strong national defense. I can see some artists falling into this category, but that is where I, at least, part company with true libertarians.
Well Aidan, I could have drawn a finer and better distinction between artists and entertainers. The key to it all is the uplifting of beggars and the betterment of mankind, and a goodly number of Artists simply don't fit the bill and never will, despite their token and ever-so-public posturing and pontificating to the contrary.
On your footnotes:
I will look for the AL Daily link (although it would be courteous to include the link in your post if you want me to look at it). Are you sure she wasn't just a 'one-hit wonder?' That happens all the time, in all sorts of areas of life. Someone enjoys one big success, but then they never have another one at the same level. And as for books, again, you seem to ignore your own 'holy grail'-- the free market. No one forces anyone to buy a book. The reason, for example, that J.K. Rowling is now the most successful author living is not because she is female, or white, or British, or likes to write stories about wizards and magic, it's because people like to read them, and enough to shell out their pesos for the privilege.
Very few people will buy a book just because the author is black, they buy it because they like it.
For that matter, some years ago, conservatives were lived that Hillary Clinton's book sold a million copies at the same time that Hannity (who publically boasted he would outsell her) saw his books appearing in discount bins. They claimed all kinds of conspiracies. But it had nothing to do with that. There were a million people in the country willing to plop down $28 to buy Hillary's book, and not more than a few thousand willing to do the same for Sean. And there have been times when conservatives have produced a work of art and defied the critics and it has sold (the 'Passion of Christ' being a prime example).
Funny that a conservative should fail to see the hand of the free market in something like this.
Footnote #2: I will check the ISBN number of my kids' history books (they didn't bring theirs home last night) and get back to you on it.
Wow - this sure opened the floodgates (apologies to those in the Gulf!)
I haven't the time to read all the comments but I think, from those I have, 'right wing' and 'left wing' are defined more by each other than by themslves. The left defines the right as they see fit - especially to promote their own opinions of themselves - and the same with the right.
An artist - a true innovator - ignores defining others. They become the ultimate, societal observer - above/outside the fray. Able to see and present both sides for others to defend. When 'artists' take sides, their persona diminishes and they stop being of any great value to society.
As for Dylan taking on right wing attributes by going his own way, I think of that more as natural human attributes.
Bruce Hayden:
The problem is where you draw the line on what constitutes 'national defense.' Ultimately, not all threats to the nation and its security come from the outside, so arguably anything that strengthens society (such as educating the next generation better to be able to take care of the current one) could be considered an aspect of 'national defense.'
The recent debate about the role of FEMA and the revelations about budget cuts in New Orleans area flood control projects has really brought this issue into a sharp light.
What I see in modern conservatism, however, is exactly the opposite view. Modern conservatism is a conformist philosophy, trying to bend science as well as art into it's Judeo-Christian view.
It's just hard to see how that matches with modern conservatism. I'm a pro-liberty, pro-democracy, pro-defense, pro-choice, pro-drug legalization Buddhist. I feel a lot more comfortable in the Republican Party, where all my opinions are respected if not widely shared, than I feel among Democrats, where while some of my opinions are more in line with the Democrats, others fail what appear to be completely determinative "litmus tests".
Impressive; all of six hours before you came up with I'm sorry... I'm sorry you're too stupid to understand what I said!.
Jack, I'm sorry you're too stupid to understand what she said, too.
Jim: Great team players are not going to be great artists. And McCartney and Lennon were not great team players. Watch the movie "Let It Be" to get a sense of that. They were big individualists, and the miracle of the Beatles was that they managed to work together for a time. Then they just had to split up. They didn't have the mediocrity to stay together.
Charlie:
Look, I don't think it's an unreasonable interpretation people made. Prof. A did not, a la TS Eliot, use terms like "inherently conservative" to describe the artist, which would at least make some sort of sense.
Rather, she (i) employed a description of conservatism that really only applies to its electoral political aspect ("right wing" referring the the side of the legislature they line up on, if I'm remembering), and (ii) explained herself by excluding all liberals from the school of personal responsibility!
That doesn't sound like a statement about art so much as a statement about politics, to me and apparently to many other people.
But "you're too stupid to understand"? Ouch. Bravooo.
Jack Roy: You seem to be averse to trying to understand my point, but I'll just say I've never said lefties don't individually take personal responsibility for themselves. They just don't focus on themselves as individuals. They think that's wrong. It's kind of a compliment, actually, or should be taken as such by those devoted to lefty values. But they're too into hating on me to even notice.
By Prof. Althouse's characterization of right-wing human traits, there must be something "inherently" right wing about winning a Nobel prize in physics, about achieving membership to the National Academy of Sciences, about earning a PhD in any discipline, and about being a leftist elitist who enjoys pointing out that right-wingers are conspicuously and overwhelmingly outnumbered in science and in Academia in general. And since selflessness is a vice of the Left, there is something "inherently" left-wing about being a soldier. I happen to think--with all due respect--that this introduction of the left-wing, right-wing adjectives to psychology is "inherently"--pardon the pun--naive.
Back to the original observation about Dylan.
I've skipped a few comments, so maybe someone has already mentioned it, but didn't Dylan himself (in his recent biography) say that he would not have minded a "middle class" lifestyle, picket fence etc? Anyone here who has read the bio and can comment? (I picked this up in a review of the book).
Dylan has always struck me as someone who has had little real patience with the "political/protest" music scene. (Hurricane may be the exception). There is no question that he is outside of the self congratulatory folky/leftist music scene (Pete Seeger, P,P and Mary, etc).
To the point, Dylan may not be a right-winger, but I'd love to see someone try to defend him as a "leftist", particularly in the modern post 60s sense.
But they're too into hating on me to even notice.
Data please.
Prof. A:
You answer this:
I'll just say I've never said lefties don't individually take personal responsibility for themselves. They just don't focus on themselves as individuals.
Which I have a hard time reconciling with this:
To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
Now, it's true you didn't say that no liberal can ever take personal responsibility &c. But you did identify "taking responsibility for [one's] place in the world" as an inherently right-wing attribute; that's the only way to make sense of your original comment. Just as it's not true that none at all of the NBA players are short people, yet still success at basketball is in some way about height, I think it's more than fair to characterize your initial sentiment as ascribing to artistry something about being "right wing."
While it might be the case that "focusing on that" in the original post was intended to suggest that the true thrust of your argument was the focus on individuality, that's hardly clear from the bare text of your comment. (Certainly it wasn't so obvious as to justify your later accusation that all those who mistook you were simply careless!)
Additionally, as I've said before but it's rather secondary, "right wing" isn't the terminology commonly used for describing the conservative values of art identified by TS Eliot et al. It identifies by contemporary political terms an ideology that, strictly speaking, was not always about individualism and self-expression. The connotation if not strict denotation does support the interpretation of your comment that you find so objectionable.
Look, this is a blog, I don't think you need to defend yourself for short comments about long topics. The blog post, as a medium, is inherently sloppy. But your defense of your comment (first that there's a different persona who writes comments, then that it was only meant to provoke discussion, then that you meant what you said but idiot lefty bloggers wilfully mistook you) strikes me as intellectually dishonest.
"Pietro said:
By Prof. Althouse's characterization of right-wing human traits, there must be something "inherently" right wing about winning a Nobel prize in physics, about achieving membership to the National Academy of Sciences, about earning a PhD in any discipline"
I believe her point is that self-determination and ambition are "right-wing" traits, as opposed to the "left-wing" emphasis on individuals being crushed by social forces and environments beyond their control. The difference is one of personal responsibility for one's own fate, which is anathema to nanny-staters and the victimization pimps.
"...and about being a leftist elitist who enjoys pointing out that right-wingers are conspicuously and overwhelmingly outnumbered in science and in Academia in general..."
Conservatives are certainly outnumbered in the liberal arts Academia, but in the hard sciences?
I haven't noticed any scientific breakthroughs announced by the promoters of "Multicultural Math"!
The distinction between visionaries and others is not a communal/individual, or left/right, distinction. The best most people can do for the world, given their limited vision, is to pay the rent, take care of their families, etc. There is no conflict between world and self.
The visionary/artist chooses the larger, because to live within the bounds of a "normal" life would be a useless waste.
As for the rest of us, we can be upright, responsible, and play nicely with others.
If the left wing likes to think of classes and society as primal causes, e.g. crime is mainly societies' fault not the individual, I think they cannot have their cake and eat it, too.
If you think criminals are created by society and class, then by the same token, great artist's must be as well. Even more so since poverty and class inspire their art, no?
They are not individual talent, but simply an expression of society.
Let's be clear: any left winger who all of a sudden starts claiming individuals as mostly responsible for their own action in the field of art should apply the same logic to the criminal, to the unemployed, etc.
Hmm, I see, so reducing art to politics is inhererently "left-wing." So Michael Medved and Lionel Chetwynd are left-wingers? Who knew?
Jeff, the reason I mention the National Academy of Sciences, Nobel prizes in physics, etc., is that conservatives are indeed overwhelmingly outnumbered in the hard sciences in Academia. Libertarian economist Daniel Klein, from UC-Santa Cruz has published a study which details the extent to which that is the case in a couple of elite universities--department by department, including Math, Physics, Biology, etc. The extrapolation is not hard to make, and in fact it is verified by common experience. I'm a mathematician myself, and I don't know many right-wing mathematicians. On the contrary, most mathematicians I know are liberals. I don't know many of us who would recognize "multicultural mathematics" as a meaningful concept, but then again just what in the world is right-wing mathematics? Additionally, a large number of members of the National Academy of Sciences have indeed publicly denounced the science policies of this administration in the strongest terms, including 20+ Nobel prize winners in the sciences.
Essentialist conclusions of the sort "to be a scientist is inherently left-wing, because scientists are accutely aware of the relevance of environmental variables in the dynamics of phenomena, and because they embrace nuanced reasoning and reject simplitude" are of course wrong. And so are statements of this guise in general. To label human attributes as inherently right-wing or left-wing is just incredibly silly.
Self-determination and ambition are not "right-wing" traits. This is the point of my critique and that of many others. To apply the labels "right-wing" and "left-wing" to human traits like self-determination or selflessness is rather sophomoric, and would probably earn the collective scorn of serious psychologists.
Judging by the overwhelming dominance of liberal ideas in Academia (all across the board), a simpleton might conclude, using your logic, that intellectual ambition is inherently left-wing.
Jack Roy: "Which I have a hard time reconciling with this..."
A tip: the word "and" has meaning. Think hard enough and you should get it.
"...being a good leftist requires that a person believe in subordinating the individual to the group..."
That sounds like a description of the social conservatism of the religious right, doesn't it?
A logician, an engineer, and a journalist take a train trip to Scotland. The journalist sees from the window a black sheep, and he quickly declares: "Scottish sheep are black". The engineer corrects him: "No. Some Scottish sheep are black." And the logician retorts: "At least half of at least one sheep in Scotland is black."
Prof. Althouse sees a handful of examples of proud, famous, and individualistic artists, and quickly pronounces that being an artist is "inherently right wing", notwithstanding the 'superficial' things artists may have to say about their political leanings.
It would be wiser--if a bit more pedantic--to say, like the logician of the joke, that there is at least one superficial right-wing belief that some successful artists seem to hold in relation to themselves, namely that they got where they got because they deserved it. Of course, this does not necessitate that said successful artists believe that merit is equitably and fairly acknowledged in the free market, nor anything of that sort.
Quxxo: Is an android making a pass at you?
I'm Nobody: "I'd go further. The Left generally assumes that a person is mostly or entirely a product of the society they grew up from. While the degrees of their determinism vary, in general the Left thinks a person is produced by their society while the Right believes a person chooses to be who they are."
Well put. The strong lefties I've been exposed to in Madison will scoff at you if you think you are a self-made individual. You must acknowledge that the forces of society have made you and that if you've gotten very far it's because powers beyond you have elevated you above others whose oppression you must recognize.
Now there are plenty of liberals, of course, who care a lot about the individual. I consider myself one. But I've been told by lefties that I must use the term "right wing" for this. I'm trying to get with the jargon but sometimes they get cold feet about it. I intend to make it my business to needle them about it endlessly!
nice that, despite your attempts to come off as somewhat neutral/objective, you refer to liberals as "lefties" and their politics as "lefty," while simultaneously describing liberal platitudes as "naive." when you start calling those on the right "righties" and their politics "righty", then you can aspire to a mantle of non-partisan objectivity.
further, as to your comment, it seems quixotic to label artists, who are generally anti-establishment, as inherently "right wing," when, in any sense of the phrase that we understand it, "right wing" connotes conservatism, and, of course, conservatism = preservation of the status quo.
moreover, as to your method of execution, "trite" is the only word that comes to mind.
look, i can play this game too -- i arbitrarily ascribe a quality to my philosophy of thought, and then proclaim that all who, in my theory, share that quality must also share the principles of my philosophy of thought!
To be a great thinker is to be inherently liberal. A great thinker like Keynes or Rand may have some superficial, naive, conservative things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a rational individual, rejecting established dogma in the world and focusing on the rigorous examination of all possibilities.
wow, that was fun. what do i win?
Scott writes: "Hmm, I see, so reducing art to politics is inhererently "left-wing." So Michael Medved and Lionel Chetwynd are left-wingers? Who knew?"
To say that lefties meld art and politics is not to say that only lefties do that. Obviously, some social conservatives do that too. I don't align myself with them. There are many ways to be a mediocrity and to fail at art (and art criticism). My comment is only about reaching the peak of success. My category "great artist" is meant to be very elite, by the way. I don't put Pete Seeger and Joan Baez in it, though they are very good at singing. I'm not interested in their minds.
A tip: the word "and" has meaning. Think hard enough and you should get it.
Or, shorter: You're still dumb. A cunning bit of rhetoric.
I stand by my earlier position; your comment to the initial post simply doesn't reasonably support the reading that you'd like to put on it now, that (only) the focus on individualism, rather than (in part) the individualism itself, is what makes someone "right wing." (Not that that alternative reading would be supported by any but a chary understanding of intellectual history. Is John Stuart Mill, he of the 'most stupid people are conservatives' toss-off, suddenly a right-winger?)
To the central point: You seem to have a rather crabbed view of what liberals believe. Understandably, given your circumstances, but I submit that not only those in the demographic of 18-22 year old undergraduates in media studies courses should count.
Hey a Star Trek joke! Good for you, and here you'd led me to believe you were a Star Trek hater.
I may have been mistaken about you. I've read you off and on for the past month or so, this is the first time I realized you were a member of the granfalloon of Totten/Simon/Jarvis: your wampeter being "bad old libs have excommunicated us falsely: I am a victim and the true liberal"
I like the nature of this discussion, and for that Ann should be both pleased and praised.
My only problem is that I don't buy the notion that behaving responsibly is inherently right-wing.
As an example, I think of my two biological brothers, who are both far east of Limbaugh. Neither have worked in excess of four years. I, on the other hand, am a classic trade unionist who generally has two to three jobs or money-making projects going at all times.
Hell, I'm almost French, except that my favorite country is the Netherlands.
Although never a great artist, I was a classic child of the sixties who spent 25 years in music, wrote 5 books and have written over 400 newspaper columns.
I will admit to one thing: It is inherently progressive to be this narcissistic. Oh wait, I forgot Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly.
Nope, I like left and right to apply to policy at best and to politics in its application. To personality, ethics and morality, apply it at your peril.
"To say that lefties meld art and politics is not to say that only lefties do that. Obviously, some social conservatives do that too. I don't align myself with them. There are many ways to be a mediocrity and to fail at art (and art criticism). My comment is only about reaching the peak of success. My category "great artist" is meant to be very elite, by the way. I don't put Pete Seeger and Joan Baez in it, though they are very good at singing. I'm not interested in their minds."
I actually agree entirely with this. I'm as opposed to reducing aethstics to politics when it comes from the left as when it comes from the right (the Village Voice putting together to heap praise on Dogville would be a good example of this), and I also agree that Baez and Seeger were vastly inferior artists to Dylan, partly because they say music as a primiarly political where Dylan did not. (And, as I said at CT, I haven't seen the Scorsese documentary yet, but the parts in which people blather on about Dylan being the "voice of a generation" or whatever certainly sound dreary.)
My only puzzlement, then, is why you think that Dylan's resistance to labels was somehow "right-wing." Defining the political right in such a way that it would include John Stuart Mill and Emma Goldman but would exclude Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk is highly problematic indeed. Broad political ideologies tend to be mixes of collectivist and indvidualist impulses; and while (as in your case) individualism can lead to the right, at other times (as with 60s Dylan, although certainly not the Dylan of Slow Train Coming and Infidels, both of which I play almost as much as Freewheelin'... despite my leftism) with the left.
Or, to be less prolix about it, I think you're entirely correct up until your claim that "artists are inherently right-wing," which I think contradicts the good arguments that preceded it (and is also transparently wrong.)
I'm going to hazard a corollary to Prof. Althouse's highly disputed hypothesis that GREAT artists are inherently right wing (many of the commenters objecting to her using those terms invariable leave out the great part when referring to the mein and mindset of artists).
here it goes:
The mediocrity inherent in modern Hollywood (both TV and Film) is a product of the inherently left-wing nature of the collabarative compromises that are forced upon individuals at every step of production.
In other words modern Hollywood is overly cautious, overly concerned with being innoffensive, overly collectivist in it's decision making apparatus, and most importantly often too concerned with making the correct message rather than making great art (see message movies like The Interpreter, The Constant Gardener or TV shows like Commander-in-Chief for example). In my mind all these are left wing tendencies and antithetical to great art (though occaisonally able to create good art).
Also great filmmakers or show runners like Judd Apatow, Shinichiro Watanabe, David Lynch, Alfonso Cuaron, Brad Bird, Joss Whedon or even Larry David all have politics (the one's who have been explicitly political anyway) from far left to center but their approach to art is one of defying expectations and charting their own course and fit in with Prof. Althouse's description of the right-wing tendencies of great artist.
Calvin: I've said several times that I'm not saying that behaving responsibly is inherently right wing. I'm only saying that having an individualistic attitude and focusing on that is right wing (as that term is commonly used in American political discussions these days, e.g., to describe this blog). Many lefties are responsible for their own behavior and care about that. But they are preoccupied with caring about how other people are doing and do not hold others to high personal responsibility standards. They expect good lefties to devote themselves to political causes, not their own self-regarding pursuits.
Ann: Thanks for your comments. I understand your parameters in the argument. One experience that alters my view--aside from having lived in lefties' paradise, Amsterdam--is my years in Japan. You might very well know that the Japanese are an anomaly: very communally oriented people that are inherently conservative, both in lifestyle and in values, except that to serve the community is to them the highest of conservative values. They know no other way.
I loved that about them, until it was us versus them, and then I was so out and so not Japanese and so not in their community. (I got over it and still love them.)
So: Shall I stipulate to your claim that individualism in America is a right-wing trait? Yeah, okay, John Wayne, George "Cleared a little brush, chopped a little wood, caught a few fish" W. Bush, that sort of cowboy mentality, yeah, okay.
But note that right-wing moneyed people live in compounds separated by high walls, okay, individualistic, and poor people live in neighborhoods WAY too close together for their own good, trapped communally in poverty. What's our point here? Values? Art?
Remember the stirring words (for some) of Woody Guthrie: "I ain't necessarily a communist, but I've been in the red all my life."
Now there's an individual, an artist.
"I have personally stood on top of a mountain where you can see burnt tree stumps from a fire some years back, but now instead of the forest growing back, only desert vegetation is growing there"
there's your proof! LOL
Artists are dictatorial - you have to be to carve a David out of stone, or command the mastery of light and shadow from your paint and brushes, of your lens and the submerged paper latent with image of a Moon over Taos, to impose your will on steel and glass architecture, to write and re-write and write some more - it's absolutely dictatorial and controlling.
"...it's absolutely dictatorial and controlling."
Hmm... that sounds more like left than right.
As far as I can tell without spending the rest of my life reading these comments, no one has responded to the issue I raised of the crappy way so many artists treat their families and loved ones, and whether that can be characterized as either right- or left-wing behavior, or not.
Obviously, both left- and right-wing public (and private) figures can behave that way . . . Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich no less than, say, Picasso. (I don't know enough about Dylan's life to say anything about him in this regard.) But it seems to me a massive omission in this discussion.
Keeping one's commitments and not putting self-gratification before responsibility to others (friends, wife, children) was a big part of conservatism (= classical liberalism) in the view of the conservative I helped to write a book for teen-agers, Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz's Dear Patrick. This kind of behavior is justified, or at least accepted with a helpless shrug, in the case of artists as the price of greatness. Their work is so important and demanding and difficult -- and such a greater gift to us all than, say, mere marital fidelity -- that they will and they must feed their genius with whatever sorts of heedless gratification it requires as fuel for creation, family and vows and all that be damned. (This is not "all" artists -- it's not J.S. Bach, I guess. It may be a Romantic idea.)
I'm not saying this is good or bad. I'm asking if it can be called right-wing or left-wing. Libertarianism seems to ignore this whole aspect of things, possibly even to view the concern as social-conservative oppression. In my first comment I wrote that "I think a lot of right-wingers might say that while [artists'] discipline, enterprise and drive [add independence] may be right-wing, their narcissism is quite left-wing."
Dear Ann Althouse,
I'm one of many people who consider your original comment, and your explicaton, a pathetic bit of illogical special pleading. It resolves itself into this:
I (heart) "artists" (whatever that means) and I (heart) the "right wing" which means whatever I want it to mean at any time useful to me. So the two things must be "The same." Why can't everyone else see it like that.
Please tell me, is Goya left or right wing? Please tell me is the strong indivdualist with great artistic sensibility who also has a strong belief in social justice "Left" or "right" wing? Is a "sense of personal responsibility" and of individualism the only thing that most people associate with the right wing? Does it even legitimately fall into the category of right wing or is it simply a right wing self fantasy? Looking at the exponents of the right wing today:
Tom Delay
Bill Frist
George Bush
Dick Cheney
I see strong, greedy individuals who never take "personal responsibility" for any of their errors. Which part of that will you arbitrarily label "right wing" (the strong individual part?) and arbitrarily label "left wing"?
You are an absolute fool, and I am ashamed that someone as shallow and manipulative as you could end up being a professor of law. I dont know whether to be more embarrassed for you as a woman or as an educated person. Is this level of fantasy and self love the best the right wing can come up with in analysis?
aimai
Aimai: Like many others, you've failed to understand my point. I'm not going to keep re-explaining. Go back and read what I've already written. You're boring me and you're being rude.
Satya: I agree with you about redefining the relevant lines, but I don't think the distinction between progressive and social conservative captures what I have been trying to get people to talk about. The artist will carry on and embody tradition and at the same time challenge conventions. The key is individualism on the one hand, which should include most liberals as well as many conservatives, and on the other hand, the collectivist, communitarian types, who, I believe, drag the artist down. I used "right wing" as the term for the first category, but I would accept the use of the word "liberal" for what I am trying to talk about. My problem isn't with liberals but with the far left. The lefty bloggers who are fighting me on this are reinforcing my belief that they are a drag on creativity, bent on keeping people in line with ideology, and remarkably boring.
Satya: I think you're just wrong on the facts when you say that focus on oneself is not the way to great art. Look at the life stories of the greatest artists. They tend to be shockingly selfish. Someone interested in the good of the whole world -- and actually devoting himself to that, as opposed to merely mouthing it -- might manage to be arty and to get some artwork done, but greatness? I think not.
The thread that wouldn't DIE!
(coming soon to a drive-in near you)
To sum up the status of the competing arguments so far.
(centrist to right leaning commenters)
Interesting point Ann, I've been thinking along those lines but I've never thought to put them down before, thanks for starting an interesting debate
(left of center to far left commenters)
Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!
You and all the other evil Republicans eat children, choke puppies, and are destroying the environment, how dare you (DARE YOU I SAY) sully the name of any artist or art in general by saying that a single one of these long suffering souls has even an ounce of similarity or sympathy for anything remotely resembling even a small part of the Chimpy McBu$hHitler crowd.
SHAME!SHAME!SHAME!SHAME!SHAME!
(monotonous ain't they?)
Now who would you rather to continue a conversation with, this is why I believe that those on the left can so easily believe that noone that matters thinks elsewise of the way they think, cause at a dinner party or at a coffee house if you display an inkling of dissent from the accepted dogma you will be punished with screed upon screed upon screed, far easier to nod your head and smile
(just like in this comment thread, with some exceptions, and to those on the left that my comment doesn't refer to thank you, to the rest, meh)
[the commenter formerly known as LeRoy W]
XWL: Yeah, exactly.
Dear Ann,
I'm being rude? You must be joking. Rereading your original comments, or your weak defense of them, doesn't make them any more logical or intelligent--any more than staring harder at an ugly picture makes it prettier.
Here's the thing--I'm as well educated as you are, if not better. I come from the same social strata as you do, if not better. When I say I'm ashamed of you--I really mean it. Your abysmal, boot-licking, craven attempts to appropriate everything good for "your side" and to imply, however foolishly, that everything bad belongs to "The other side" is what it is--a childish, weak minded, piece of special pleading. You well deserve the contempt of those who read you.
aimai
Oh, sorry, was that rude?
I was just reminded that you once wrote the dumbest thing I've ever read on the Internet (and I read Dean Esmay ):
To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
Thanks, Ann, for being uniquely, inanely, you.
Thanks for reprinting that quote, which I stand by. This post is about exactly the same subject. I feel sorry for you that you don't get the point. No, I don't. You're an ass!
I cannot tell you how glad I am to be called an ass by the likes of Ann Althouse. It is one of the greatest compliments I have ever been paid.
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