What began as a discussion of Martin Scorsese's role in a new Bob Dylan documentary evolved into a discussion of Dylan's politics and, eventually, the ideology of artistry. Sayeth Ann Althouse:
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.
[Quote from Ann's comment at 12:23pm]
UPDATE: Ann Althouse has a follow-up here prompted, in part, by misinterpretations of her initial remark. I thought it was clear that by "right wing" she meant individualistic, as opposed to communitarian or egalitarian. As she explains:
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!I also think she was making an interesting claim about the mentality that tends to produce great art — that truly great artists are, in some important ways, like the protagonist of an Ayn Rand novel. As for Kieran Healy's commentary, I am not sure the great artist who finds a wealthy patron who shares his or her vision is a "parasite." And while many great artists were subsidized by patrons, I cannot think of many whose careers were made by the NEA or "local arts council." There is a case to be made that great artists, in the end, are in it for themselves, not some broader community or the greater good. It seems to me that is an interesting, albeit contestable, claim — and that is what prompted the initial post.
SECOND UPDATE: If you are thinking about posting a comment, be sure to read this first.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Is Country Music Right-Wing?
- Are Great Artists Right-Wing?
I'll have to keep that in mind -- I lot of people who I used to think of as left will have to be reconsidered...
However, there will surely be comments here as to whether "individualism" constitutes the whole, or the majority of being right-wing or an artist. Extreme individualists have no use for an audience or a medium to work within. I suggest that tradition also constitutes an element of all art (and certainly things on the right), even (and especially) when tradition is challenged or innovated.
In Barcelona I had the most provocative discussion on the
topic of artists and politics. Gaudi, whose elaborate, massive homes, parks, and cathedrals give Barcelona some of its character, was a reactionary Monarchist, aligning with the rigid Catholic Church of his era against all democratic developments.
Gaudi's hope for a type of naturalism in urban aesthetics and more broadly for our entire civilization blended a form of progressivism, critique of modernity and ecology. Perhaps he beleived that hierarchies are more likely to instantiate such a transformation. Bourgeois existence is not know for its vision and follow-through.
- Josh
...riiiiight
Where do people come up with these glib, pop-psychology theories (that just miraculously vindicate their own political preferences)?
It's particularly silly in the context of Dylan, who may have been secretly conservative or indeed secretly anything, but started his career out of tribute to Woodie Guthrie. Who knows how Althouse is defining the "great" in "great artist," but it's hard to think of Guthrie as a conservative in any sense.
And of course TS Eliot wrote about the inherent conservatism of artwork quite a long time ago. Unlike Althouse, though, Eliot made a good point.
Armchair psychologists have striven since forever to noodle out a clear connection between one's individual psychology (or relationship with parents, exposure to early trauma, style of potty-training, blah blah blah) and one's resultant politics. Without noticeable success. To be sure, plausible and intriguing theory abounds, but of measurable accurate prediction I think there is zero to three decimal places. Psychohistory has not yet arrived (thank God).
And why should it be otherwise? Any successful political ideology must have a broad basic appeal to nearly everyone in a large population. A large number must be routinely persuaded to vote for its candidates, and nearly everyone else must be persuaded that its voice is at least reasoned and moderate (albeit perhaps misguided and incorrect, or less correct than other voices). That is, while many must agree the party's platform is the correct platform, nearly all must agree it's a legitimate platform, a platform that is not pure evil and which it's reasonable to allow to be promulgated. The American Wetworker's Party (which actively encourages and funds social advancement through assassination) can't be a successful party not only because few citizens vote for its candidates, but also because the remainder vote for candidates who promise to actively suppress it. That is, to exist politically, even in the minority, you must not anger the majority too much.
Ipso facto, nearly any psychological type must, at least over a decade or so, find major chunks of a successful political ideology appealing. Which means an attempt to predict political alignment from psychology is pretty much doomed.
Put it another way: the fact that the Democratic Party has been successful over the last century means that nearly all possible American psychologies find its ideology at least interesting, generally respectable, and occasionally compelling.
The same can be said about the Republican Party, of course. Indeed, the only parties we could be quite confident about linking to individual psychology would be single-issue parties ("The American Anorectics Party") where some outstanding psychological pathology causes the cohesion in the first place. Such parties are almost by definition fringe parties, and of marginal interest.
The libertarian cover story is that right-wing is about individualism, but conservative libertarians are almost always authoritarians in disguise.
That great artists would tend to be individualists, listening to their personal intuition, has some plausibility; that great artists would be authoritarians seems unlikely.
Then again, Johnny Cash was a lifelong democrat.
And may this reasoning infect, er, enlighten the next generation of American legal minds!
Lucky "a moment's reflection" is all that's required, Keiran, or you'd be shut out.
"Jesus, how lame. Martin Luther King must have been a big Goldwater man then, if not a brownshirt."
Perfect illustration of Ann's real motivation in posting such a silly comment: she wanted to see how far the lefty spittle would fly. As Henry here shows, the answer is: pretty far.
The very notion of connecting something so squishy as "great artist" with "political position" is very very adolescent.
I was wondering how long the i-was-being-provocative-and-ironic defence would take to surface.
1. is a strong individual,
2. takes responsibility for his place in the world, and
3. focuses on that (where "that" refers to 2, I believe).
Is this true? I'm not really sure, partly because these qualities are so vague. I think that 1) is the most plausible, since just about anyone who is a great success at anything requires a certain sort of personal strength. But of course there have been artists have all sorts of weaknesses: drugs, women, mental illness, etc. 2) is more dubious and especially vague. What does she mean by one's place in the world? One's role as an artist? Something universal? Or what? And how does a person take responsibility for that, whatever it is? 3) seems implausible - an artist's focus is on his work, not on himself. Is Ann saying that the content of the work is supposed to relate to the artist taking responsibility for his own place in the world? That does not sound like a requirement for great art. Is this more about how the artist approaches life, behind the scenes? Then 3) seems to collapse to 2).
OK, so maybe this question isn't that much more interesting.
On the one hand, I'm happy people who do not share Ann Althouse's political inclinations (whatever they are, I've yet to unravel them -- but perhaps others have greater insight than me) come to her blog and read...
1- Not only her blog
2- But her comments in her blog
3- Not only her comments in her blog
4- But see fit to extract one out-of-context commentary and posit an entire theory about her, and her beliefs
5- In doing so, slam other people who supposedly share her beliefs too
My Logic tutor at school would have called that a, "very thin line of reasoning, indeed."
But perhaps here at the otherwise exemplary Volokh, much less acute logic and a much wider net of scorn is called for.
Cheers,
Victoria
"I was wondering how long the i-was-being-provocative-and-ironic defence would take to surface."
Sparkling, Kieran. According to her blog, Ann was NOT, as I guessed, trolling for lefty outrage. I confess I don't understand her point in the first instance (nor your equally off-the-wall but more bitter response), but that doesn't diminish my amusement at the disproportionate reaction. The thread on your site reminds me of a mob of torch-wielding villagers marching up to Baron Frankenstein's place. Don't forget the pitchforks, lads.
There is that definite tendancy. Most of America's murders do vote Demon-cat or would vote Demon-cat if they voted. They come from a decidedly Demon-cat demographic.
As for the general issue-Ann is correct that there may be an ideological cognitive dissonance among great artists. Take Revenge of the Sith. The film contains tidbits of left-wing dialog while the core of the plot demonstrates the right-wing point that if you fail to immediately execute POWs, very bad things happen. [3 separtate mano-a-mano fights, 3 victories by good guys, 1 immediate execution of the bad-guy POW with no adverse impact, 2 failures to execute bad-guy POWs with very adverse outcomes.]
Interesting
Thanks for the reminder, Freezer. It feeds nicely into the "Why do conservatives have a better sense of humor than liberals" thread I link to from there. I'm sure they'll be coming for you next. Of course, being CT they'll only have pitchforks because they voluntarily surrendered their guns to the state. Bet they're sorry now.
She’s a wage slave, probably with tenure, for god’s sake!
What does she know —- except by peering over the fence —- about individual responsibility? She is taken care of....she is institutionalized.
Now don't get me wrong. She is probably a very nice person. But she is speaking way beyond her competence.
Berta Hummel, the inventor of the Hummel figurines, was a man?!?
Or perhaps you didn't know women can be inventors too, Hoosier?
Let me guess, you're not only sexist, but you're a right-winger!
Cheers,
Victoria
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
And again:
Good and bad, I defined these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
This is one funny thread, and not all of the humor is intentional.
I suppose I would say that most great artists tend to have 'liberal' tendencies/inclinations in the social sphere, regardless of their thoughts about tax policy. Although one can probably point to many famous authors, and composers (especially of religious music) that are definite exceptions.
I didn't want to insult your gender by implying that the creator of tacky figurines could have been female.
But I stand corrected.
Hoosier
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.
This makes me glad I have never wasted my time reading your lunacy.
My mother the artist is as left wing as they come.
Of course, maybe in your opinion she's a lousy artist.
Art is, coincidentally, a left wing thing, and artists have to have at least a twinge of left wing to them for the most part. There's no coincidence about the leftiness of all the modern art movements. The reason for this is for art to be more than simple commercial aesthetics, it has to challenge something. Conservative movements, by nature (I do not believe that neoconservative is conservative in the traditional sense, but only in the fascist sense, but this is not the time or the place), are skeptical of challenging the current system in any significant degree. They are, by nature, the skeptics. Art cannot, in its purist forms, be limited by skepticism.
Ann's idea that art is right wing, even when one thinks about it, requires all of a foolish romanticism about liberterianism (that its the sole theory of individualistic accomplishments), a foolish romanticism about conservatism (that it embraces liberterianism), AND a foolish view of liberalism (that by embracing egalitarianism, it is also embracing conformity - a mistake that Ann is not the first to make).
1. Being disengaged from politics is inherently right-wing
2. Great art must be disengaged from politics
:. 3. Great artists are inherently right-wing
I am trying to decide whether 1 or 2 is more absurd. 1 has the advantage of being absurd on its face - someone who is disengaged from politics is generally considered to be neither left-wing nor right-wing, but rather disengaged from politics. But 2 has the benefit of an endless supply of counterexamples. Starting just with the two artists that you mention, there's Guernica, Hurricane, The Times They Are A-Changin', and the entire Freewheelin' album.
Perhaps what you're trying to say is that a great artist must be an independent thinker who does not toe to any party line. In that case, you are mostly just being provocative by using a highly esoteric terminology. Any thought that does not maintain a mind-numbingly high degree of conformity with leftist communal values is "right wing"? And here I thought that leftists were the subversives, trying to break the hold of tradition.
Do we have a winner?
The great thing about words is that you can use them to mean anything you wish, and then turn around and act indignant when no one thinks you make any sense. You then blame the confusion on the miserable personalities of your critics and run for the exits.
Ann, doesn't this destroy your argument? Aren't some of those left wing folksingers regarded as great artists, probably greater than Dylan, if not so popular?
What about Tom Wolfe? Borges? Octavio Paz?
What about Tom Wolfe? Borges? Octavio Paz?"
As I said, my comment about art being inherently "not conservative" first seperated paleocons from neocons. Fascism is clearly NOT paleocon right wing. It is, in my opinion, and others may disagree, neocon right wing. This is not the time or place for that discussion, however.
I'm also not saying there are exceptions. One can certainly turn conformity into an artform (imagine Andy Warhal, but with less sarcasm). I'm sure there are examples of many artists who became rich and, due to self-interest, support tax cuts. That's neither here nor there. The interesting question is why artists, even amongst the rich, tend to so vastly lean left.
If there's nothing inherently liberal about art, there needs to be a different reason...but rich artists, artists from various geographic areas, artists of equal sexualities, etc., all lean left, esp. compared to nonartists so classified. Furthermore, like it or not, great art tends to NOT FLURISH in parts of the country that are not politically liberal, independant of public support. As such, if art isn't inherently at least in part a liberal endeavor, why else? (The arguments that its trendy to be liberal or that artists only pretend to be liberal to be liked by other artists will not be responded to because they are silly on their face).
Professor Althouse also appears to be stating that "getting out of politics" is what she is "calling right wing." This is a more intriguing proposition, but yet sounds a bit contradictory since "right-wing" seems to be by definition a reference to being in the realm of politics. If Professor Althouse does in fact believe that one can simultaneously be "right-wing" and be "out of politics," I think it would be fruitful to hear an explanation of how that can be the case. Thank you.
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!
As for your LATEST point, taken ALONE (since most of your points are simply contradictory), the second paragraph is nonsensical and a run-on. If you mean that the left believes that being a great artist doesn't come with any moral superiority, that seems neither here nor there and I should once again point out that the ones burning books and complaining about Hollywood culture cannot be found amongst MY allies.
If you mean that the left believe that you shouldn't be different than anyone, then all you're saying is that great artists don't adhere to some absurd value that nobody believes in anyway.
"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."
Uhhh, there are plenty of "lefties" (more words with interchangeable meaning, eh) who believe that individuals do not exist in the vacuum and are interdependant on each other for a whole host of economic and social arrangements. I know of NO lefties who believe that caring about individuality itself is a bad thing. I also know of no lefties who believe that accomplishing great things is a bad thing.
So we're once again left with: people" have to be "adjectives" in order to be "nouns", and that conformity for the most part is bad for art. Also, you like art. We get it.
Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.
Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy!
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.
What I'd love to see is AA's pop-psych explanation of how Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Marc Blitzstein, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger--to name just a few fellow traveling musicians--were either a) not sincere in their political engagement (despite all evidence to the contrary), or b) not great artists (despite the critical and historical consensus regarding their shared excellence).
I'm waiting, Ann . . .
and attacked anyone they perceived as disagreeing with their artistic values as, among other things, uncivilized, un-American, anti-patriotic, anti-family, and sexually perverted.
Interesting how the mention of Dylan works as sort of a Rorschach test for people's view of the 60's.
RFGS
Ayn Rand went on to become an extreme individualist and a rabid anti-Communist. Definitely not left wing. She wanted to abolish the income tax and bring back the gold standard.
Liberals and Democrats are not really left wingers who want to institute a Communist state. Conservatives and Republicans are not really right wingers who want to bring back the monarchy. The spectrum is very broad.
Yours,
Wince
The equation of being "self-made" with conservatism is also odd. Do, for example, religious people see themselves as "self-made" as opposed to being part of God's plan?
Ms. Althouse apparently believes that in order to be leftist:
"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"
Well, I would agree that intelligent people generally understand that they are very much the product of the larger tradition and culture they were born into (while not being only that). Dylan understands it too. Read "Chronicles", where he is more than clear about the way in which he was a product of a culture that reaches far beyond him as an individual, and his own individual helplessness to recreate the work of his period of genius once his muse (powers beyond him as an individual) had departed him. "Chronicles" is one of the more anti-individualistic books I have ever read. But in a way that is far more sophisticated and deeper than any simplistic opposition between "self-made individuals" and "social creations".
Althouse has a record of saying really silly things and then coming out with elaborate "explanations" that only make the vapidity of the original statement more clear.
When Shakespeare wanted to describe something for which there was no good word already extant in English, he just created the word; thousands of them over his career, many of which we use every day. English is a bastard tongue and grows every day that it lives. We ought to just accept this and, instead of trying to sow confusion by using ill-defined and overly broad terms, invent new ones and then define them ourselves.
It seems pompous, but really, anybody with a blog (myself included) is admitting to a least a bit of their own pomposity. Do we all, all hundred-thousand-odd of us who blog, really believe what we have to say is all that important? We must. And if we're that important, we ought to admit that we can coin new terms if we like. So, Ann, instead of creating controversy with "right-wing," why not define what an artist is (a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that) and then coin your own term for it.
Unless the controversy is necessary to bring in readers... ah, and now I think I see why we insist on using broad terms.
After following this long and very entertaining thread for two days, I still have one burning question: would Bob Dylan himself endorse Althouse's interpretation of his early career moves? Does he see his conversion to electric folk rock as "getting out of politics" because he could no longer "do what was needed to be a good lefty"? On further reflection, though, I believe the question answers itself. Perhaps Althouse has a much better insight into Dylan's artistic development than Dylan himself has. Perhaps her interpretation is just a strained attempt by a conservative blogger to project the right wing's generally unaesthetic worldview onto one of the true giants of popular music. Or perhaps she could offer a more cogent reason for claiming to understand Dylan better than he understands himself. What about it, Ann?
Hello...it is all about the money.
I can't imagine why I wasted 10 minutes reading all this tripe.
Here's a summary of what I learned:
1. The original post was trivial, stupid, and wrong on so many levels that it took a while to discern any meaning.
2. Some of the ensuing refutations were on point.
3. All attempts by the author to "explain" the original post utterly failed.
4. All fridjits are frabbles, except when they are frambobbins.
I used to think words have a meaning, but now that "conservatives" break the bank and "Christians" support torture and mass murder, I'm beginning to seriously doubt it.
The reduction of the Left/Right dichotomy to the simplistic opposition of collectivism/individualism is one that can only thrive with a selective reading of history.
There's neither space nor time to recapitulate the developement of this terminology but a few observations are in order.
The terminology is European in origin dating to a period when monarchism and medieval theories of absolutism were very much the order of the day. Right and Left in this context did not represent an opposition between individualism and collectivism as we understand the terms. Neither side was interested in liquidating the primacy of communitarian interests, they were arguing for competing schemes for ordering those interests.
To the degree that we can talk about individualism in this conflict it would appear that those who called for abolishing Aristocratic caste and privilege, an end to Autocracy and state sponsored religion, in short, the demolition of the pyramidic social order inherited from the past, were objectively preparing the conditions for greater liberty for a greater number of individuals.
The whole notion of Individualism being the sine qua non of the Right Wing is of relatively recent vintage and has little currency outside of the U.S. Try, for example, explaining to a European that Franco, Mussolini, Hitler, et al were all Leftists since they subjugated the individual to the collective demands of the State. They would likely point out that in this, the above were doing nothing more than extending and expanding upon the model inherited from the old autocratic regimes. In Europe the Right has historically oriented towards defending the privileges of the few against the demands of the many. The only individualism ever embraced by the European Right was the individualism of the ubermensch.
Of course, being Americans, we don't normally feel constrained by history. Which is why we often find ourselves in a state of bewildered denial and incoherence when it catches up to us. I think Althhouse's formulation is a good example of this.
Althouse posits that the individual is at the heart of Right Wingness. From this presumption she proceeds to lump all individual distinctions under the same heading. It follows from this perspective that anti-individualism is the essence of the Left Wing.
Unfortunately for Althouse this abstract model doesn't stand up to the facts of American experience anymore than it applies to European history. Every great advance of individual liberty in our history has been largely opposed by the Conservative wing. From abolition through women's suffrage to the Civil Rights movement, the Right Wing has played an obstructionist role. In contrast, all these expansions of individual freedom were largely supported by the Left.
Given all this, the question remains, how can Althouse buy into the spurious algebra that equates Right Wing with Individualist?
I think the answer lies in the fact that there is more than one sort of individualism. There is, for example, the individualism of the exceptional personality as opposed to that which is rooted in the inalienable rights of the individual human being. The former is dear to the hearts of those who inhabit the heirarchies of power and influence since by it, each of them may define themselves as exceptional and therefore completely entitled to whatever perqs they receive or authority they may exercise over others. The latter is directly subversive to the first since it argues that every individual, however exceptional, is obliged to respect the rights and liberties of all other individuals regardless of personal distinction.
As the old adage goes, "The right to shake one's fist ends where another's nose begins." This definitely constitutes a limitation on the individual but it hardly amounts to anti-individualism. Except, perhaps, in the mind of the fist shaker. In some ways our entire political history could be read as a struggle between these conflicting schools of individualism.
All this aside, the assertion that "great artists" are Right wing by virtue of being individuals of distinction has more than a whiff of the mystical about it. It implies that political orientation is something innate, organic and irrational rather than the product of analysis and conscious choice. This is on par with arguing that a person's politics are dictated soley by national, ethnic, racial, class or sexual identity. The sly implication being that Right Wing politics represent some intrinsic natural order while Left wing politics are a perverse and authoritarian delusion.
I don't mean to suggest that Professor Althouse would necessarily follow her premise to its logical conclusion. In my experience people who embrace such Randian symplicities seldom do.
Nevertheless, to give credence to the notion that individualism (even that of great artists) is an exclusive characteristic of the Right, is to remove oneself from the gritty, often contradictory, reality of politics in favor of the airy regions inhabited by Platonic idealists and ideologues of every stripe.
As for The Ramones, Johnny was a hardcore conservative, Joey a hardcore liberal and Dee Dee was just a junkie and great songwriter. Maybe all great artists are junkies?