Embrace your inner liberal!

Ann Althouse, middle-aged conservative law prof by day, teenaged rock and roller by night, blogging in between to try to reconcile those two sides of herself, and somehow always managing to discover that to be a conservative is to be a teenaged rock and roller, says that all great artists, from rock and rollers to painters, are conservatives.

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.

(Scroll down when you go to her post; she makes that assertion in her comment section.)

Someone must have given Althouse a copy of The Fountainhead at a too impressionable age.

Great artists in her mind, apparently, are all Howard Roarks, tall, manly, strong-willed, independent, healthy-minded, violent, anti-social proto-fascists, not a Mozart, a Van Gogh, a Henry James, or a Miles Davis among them, nor a reality-based version of Picasso or Bob Dylan neither.

And apparently she has extrapolated from this Randian fantasy the notion that the American Right is made up of an army of Howard Roarks and isn’t the club of Babbitts and Elmer Gantrys it appears to be to the rest of us.

Nevermind that an army of Roarks is an oxymoron, that in fact the world would be better off if all Right Wingers were Howard Roarks because they would not have anything to do with one another on principle and there’d be no organized political movement mucking up the governing of the country right now.

Althouse isn’t really thinking like a conservative, or a Randian, here.  She’s thinking like a third-rate literary critic.  She has decided that great artists like Dylan and Picasso don’t know their own minds, that she knows them better than they know themselves, and it turns out they happen to think just like Ann Althouse.

We’ve all met people like this.  People who can’t appreciate a work of art except as a mirror.  Heck, we’re all guilty of this sometimes, usually, though, when we’re 20.

It’s not peculiarly conservative of Althouse to believe that because she likes a work of art or an artist that work or that artist must reflect her own beliefs, virtues, ideals, prejudices, and vanities.

(Didn't G.K. Chesterson try to make the case that Dickens was a closet Catholic.  Was Chesterson a conservative?  That’s not a rhetorical question.  I’m asking for my own information.)

It’s immature to think that an artist or work that she likes, and which therefore is an image of herself, cannot also reflect things she doesn’t like about herself.

If she likes a song by Bob Dylan, but that song seems to express some “naive,” “superficial” lefty politics, then that message can’t possibly really be there, or Dylan can't really have meant it, because Ann Althouse wouldn’t like anything lefty.

This would be like me deciding that Dostoevsky wasn’t an anti-semite because I like Crime and Punishment.

As I said, this isn’t peculiarly conservative of Althouse.  But what is, is her assumption that certain virtues---being a strong individual, taking responsibility for one’s own place in the world---are not simply conservative, but exclusively conservative.

Liberals don’t have ‘em.

The idea that Liberals are anti-virtue---anti-family, anti-religion, anti-American, godless!---has come more to the fore since the Right Wing Fundamentalists joined the party, but it has been a driving force of the American Right for a long time, a long time.  In fact, that’s how the Republicans attracted the Christian Right.

To be conservative is to be good and to be for what is good.

Conservative would-be culture vultures like Althouse, Jonah Goldberg, and John Podhoretz tie their minds into knots---and paint themselves into corners---because of this assumption.

If you can only like and admire what is good---what is conservative---you are forced to find political meanings that aren’t there, ignore political meanings that are there, and, when you can’t do either you, like or dislike movies, books, songs, paintings, comic books, TV shows, and cereal boxes because of and exclusively for their political meanings.

In this way, Cinderella Man becomes the best movie of 2005.

(The hero, boxer Jimmy Braddock, gets back into the ring to keep his family together and then uses his winnings to pay back the dole money he got from the New Deal because real men don't go need no government handouts, they stand on their own two feet.  Get it?)

This kind of ideological self-straight-jacketing is perfectly demonstrated in the National Review’s list of the top 50 conservative rock songs, as Amanda showed here the other day---Jon Swift takes it a step further, hilariously.

Many things in life are not political, or at least not primarily so, and should not be politicized.  One’s own taste in art and music, for instance.

And an individual’s public political actions have never, ever been proof of that individual’s personal virtue.

It’s just plain foolish to say that because people are liberals, or conservatives, they can’t be good persons (or great artists).  Virtues aren’t gifted upon us by ideological angels.

For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that some beliefs, ideals, virtues even, are inherently conservative.  Conservative in that they support and enforce the status quo and legitimize established and traditional authorities.

A conservative might put it that conservative values support and enforce a stable society, but liberals can reply that if that’s the definition of conservative than liberalism is more truly conservative than the corporate capitalistic ethos of the American Right.  Another time, another post.

Althouse’s definition of great artists as Howard Roarks makes them very much not conservatives.  Howard Roarks are not stablizing influences on society, nor do they go in much for legitimizing traditional authorities.

But let’s say that to believe certain things and practice certain virtues is to be conservative.

I can be conservative.  I can believe that a two-parent family is best for raising children, I can believe in God and go to church, I can admire policemen and support the troops, I can be against abortion---seriously; not just in that I wish nobody would have to have one, but in that I think it’s wrong (but!)---I can coach little league and be a Cub Scout den leader, I can believe and do all these things (and I really do and have), I can be in many ways very conservative, and still not vote like one because of other things I think and believe that are more important to me, or which I think are more important for the country, and because I don’t think conservatives are any good at governing, which is to say that they can’t bring about a stable and safe society.  Ask New Orleans.  Ask Badgad.

And in that way, as conservative as I am, I’m a liberal.

Doesn’t stop me from admiring some businessmen and women whose politics I know are right of Barry Goldwater’s.  Doesn’t stop me from admiring some conservative politicians.  And it sure doesn’t prevent me from liking the work of some artists.

I love John Wayne movies.

Well, except for The Green Berets.  But that was plain awful.

I also think Charlton Heston’s a lot better actor than he gets credit for being.  Sue me.

What I’m saying to you, all my many conservative readers, is suppose you are basically pro-choice, socially libertarian to the point of thinking that heck, a little premarital sex is no big deal, even if it’s two men doing it and especially if it’s two women, and think the drug laws are ridiculously draconian, you can be a conservationist if not an out and out environmentalist, and you oppose preventive wars, and think that while God is to be found in the details He’s not necessarily found in church and shouldn’t be found in science text books, and you can believe in the redistribution of wealth (just not that the government should be the redistributor), and be essentially egalitarian and want people to smile on their brother, everybody to get together, and try to love one another right now---you can think, believe, and even work for all that, you can be in many, significant and sincere ways liberal, and still not vote Democratic or consider yourself a liberal, because you think there are more important things for yourself and the country.

As it happens this is one of things that’s the matter with Kansas.

I have been in churches that have had wonderful social outreach programs, whose congregations are alive with real charity, that do all kinds of “liberal” good, and yet are firmly in the category of Right Wing Fundamentalist.

It’s possible to be conservative and liberal.

So embrace your inner liberal!  You’ll be happier.

You won’t have to reconcile your artistic tastes with your political opinions.

You can admire Dylan and Picasso for who and what they are, not for what you wish they were.

And you won’t have to watch Cinderella Man anymore.

Cross-posted from Michael's Juke Box.

Comments

[Shakespeare's Sister]

We’ve all met people like this. People who can’t appreciate a work of art except as a mirror. Heck, we’re all guilty of this sometimes, usually, though, when we’re 20.

LOL.

[Chrys]

Excellent post. Hit home with me!

[Mike Schilling]

Nitpick: it's "John" Podhoretz. Or perhaps "Fredo".

[Fledermaus]

Somehow I think this post and this one by Digby are related in some way that escapes me right now.

[Kit Stolz]

Re: Chesterton...he is considered a conservative, because of his articulate defense of Christian orthodoxy, and of tradition, which he describes as giving one's ancestors a vote.

Note: "Conservative" is the word the current administration and its defenders like to use to describe themselves, but a great deal of evidence (reckless spending, reckless war-making, reckless destruction of the planet) suggests they are anything but "conservative."

[Kate Marie]

Excellent post, Lance. Thanks.

Kit, I always thought it was Burke who said that about giving one's ancestors a vote . . . but Chesterton makes sense.

By the way, I just saw Brokeback Mountain this weekend, and I think what you're telling me, Lance, is that it's okay *not* to like the movie provided that I just don't think it's a very good movie.

I do appreciate your acknowledgment that a tendency to want to see oneself in works of art is neither a strictly liberal nor a strictly conservative trait. I wonder, though, whether you're ignoring that tendency in liberals a bit. I haven't seen Cinderella Man, so I have no opinion about whether the movie can be defended as a great movie on its own terms. But I *do* think there are examples of movies that were embraced by critics/"liberals" at least partly because those movies sort of unquestioningly confirmed some pet liberal assumptions. I'm reluctant to name names (but I'm thinking of a much acclaimed and award-winning movie of a while back which I thought was extremely overrated as a work of art), because I don't want this thread to devolve into a mini culture war.

I suppose the childish question to put to you, Lance, would be "Who started it?" The politicization of art is probably as old as art and politics themselves, and I would argue that the "liberals" who declared me a fascist for liking Dirty Harry are just as responsible for the state of the culture wars as the conservatives who called Cinderella Man the best movie of the year.

[Linkmeister]

Isn't Rand's philosophy called "objectivism?" If so, one way of measuring it for movies is box office receipts.

From The Numbers.com:

Cinderella Man box office:
Total US Gross $61,649,308
Production Budget $88,000,000
Worldwide Gross $108,215,308

Brokeback Mountain box office:
Total US Gross $83,043,761
Production Budget $13,900,000
Worldwide Gross $177,643,761

Hmm. Does that mean Brokeback is inherently conservative?

[tigrismus]

Chesterton became a conservative in the older sense, a traditionalist or even a reactionary. There's a great book about his deep friendship and deep disagreements with GB Shaw, that famous Althousian conservative. But hold up, I thought liberals were the ones usually painted as radical individualists and non-conformists, favoring individual freedom and rights over the wishes of the State and the majority, hence the persistence of anti-family, anti-church, anti-America talk from the right? Silly me, so easily confuzzled.

[plover]

In 2002, Bruce Bartlett was actually way ahead of Jon Singer (h/t Crooked Timber):

1. Paul Anka, "(You're) Having My Baby"

Considering that Roe v. Wade had already been decided by the Supreme Court, and that being "pro-choice" had already established itself as liberal dogma, it was very courageous for Anka to put such a [message] in one of his own songs. The fact that the song was a massive hit also tells us something important about what most Americans really think about abortion.

4. James Brown, "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"

I included this song on grounds of general political incorrectness and because I love the "Godfather of Soul". However, I think one can also listen to the lyrics not just as a celebration of the accomplishments of men versus women, but of entrepreneurs and industry. ... Rather than a glorification of male chauvinism, I prefer to think of this song as a paean to the inventors and builders who made the many products we all take for granted.

7. The Byrds, "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

This is an odd conservative classic, having been written by old time lefty Pete Seeger and performed by a group that later glorified drugs in "Eight Miles High". Nevertheless, it makes my list because the lyrics are drawn straight from the Book of Ecclesiastes. I figure that any song based on the Bible deserved inclusion.

17. Lee Greenwood, "God Bless the U.S.A."

Greenwood is a well-known country and western singer. This song was originally released in 1984, hitting number 7 on the country chart. But in 1991, in the wake of the Gulf war, it was re-released, crossing over to the pop chart.

27. The Kinks, "Sunny Afternoon"

British taxes must have been really high in 1966. That year, The Beatles recorded "Taxman" and fellow Brits The Kinks also recorded this anti-tax anthem. As they sing, "The tax man's taken all my dough. He's taken everything I've got."

30. Madonna, "Papa Don't Preach"

Amazingly, this is a strongly pro-life song, for which the singer was criticized by pro-choicers at the time. In it, she asks her father's advice about what to do with an out-of-wedlock child. "My friends keep telling me to give it up," she sings, but in the end decides, "I'm gonna keep my baby."

35. SSgt. Barry Sadler, "The Ballad of the Green Berets"

Inclusion of this song is so obvious it hardly needs comment. I am still amazed that such an explicitly pro-Vietnam War song could make the pop chart in 1966.

[Note: An anonymous commenter at Jon's seems to have noticed this too.]

More proof of the efforts the right makes to ensure that they are impossible to satirize. The bit about "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" is just classic. Feel free to speculate why both the NR list and Bartlett's list end with "Stand By Your Man".

[plover]

Correction: I meant Jon Swift not Jon Singer.

[denisdekat]

Please also keep in mind that the term "artist" is somewhat a victim of the romantic period. Maybe a romantic meme, much pushed by folks like Beethoven, and adopted fully by the new bourgeoisie class. I fail to see how one can make a wide sweeping statement about artists and art without taking its time into context...

Was Bach a republican? Does not seem to apply at all...

[Temple Stark]

I've heard of this Althouse character. Allow me a creative moment of intended profanity (underlying) - she's teh stoopid.

Ask 20 people their top 20 lists of music albums, songs or artists. Then try and tell which are Rep or Dem. Occasionally it WILL be obvious. but mostly you'll be wrong. It's like trying to tell partezanship from spelling.

Case in point. I just segued from Age of the White Dove - Shenoah to Heartbeat - Buddy Holly.

[almostinfamous]

Isn't Rand's philosophy called "objectivism?"

i think in layman's term it's called selfishness and greed. but then what do i know... i'm only beating my head against page 450 of Atlas Shrugged(700 more to go!)

[harry near indy]

great post, lance!

by the way, artists like picasso and dylan respect the past and have learned from it. then they take it from there. i would call them traditionalists, or at least respecters of the artistic tradition.

now conservatives -- some may like the old school in art, music and literature and may have no truck with the new stuff out now. the new stuff isn't their bag, and they admit it. i respect their opinions, altho i don't agree with them. but a lot of conservatives want to stop art at a certain time and all that doesn't resemble that art at that time is garbage.

in short, it's shakespeare roolz and mamet sux! those people i don't respect.

(and some, it's the opposite -- shakespeare sux, mamet rulz! but i'm not talking about them here.)

that's for culture. now for society,

it seems like a lot of conservative pundits are attached to a college of some sort, like althouse and, for example, glenn reynolds. colleges come from an outlook that has its roots in the past, especially the past of a society where church and state are intertwined and there were different classes and all knew their place.

in short, a lot like 18th-century england in the dreams of samuel johnson and edmund burke.

these college-connected conservatives write as if the business outlook or industrial revolution have had no affect on their lives, which it probably doesn't. worst yet, they write as if the business outlook or industrial revolution have had no affect on society as a whole, which is a big, big mistake.

either they don't see the connections, or they won't mention them because it won't fit into their outlooks. just like old commies didn't mention stalin's atrocities as he worked the soviet union into a superpower.

their silences speaks volumes.

plus, althouse and reynolds are commentators and critics, and not creators. i wonder if they ever tried to create but gave it up.

i find literary criticism from artists more enlightening than a lot of literary criticism from folks who are just critics. i think that's because the artists have been there and done that.

it's kinda like respecting the opinions an ob/gyn who's a woman more than an ob/gym who's a man.

btw, rock and rollers are anarchists in attitude. and there are some marxist anarchists -- groucho, harpo and chico. definitely not carlo and vladimiro.

[Brando]

Very nice post. The problem with a lot of conservative commentators (especially the True Believers) is that the are down-the-line conservatives, so they assume most liberals are the same way, as if political orientation can only be set to 1 or 0. But most of the liberals I know have a number of more "conservative" beliefs (myself especially). It's just that, at the end of the day, there's no way we're siding with someone like Bill Frist.

[blue girl]

I hate to throw a stereotype around here in this comment thread, but I think it would be a cold day in h-e-double hockey sticks when a conservative blogger would write such a thoughtful post (like this one) admitting that he/she has any liberal qualities at all. And that, to me, is the difference between conservatives and liberals. I can be pretty conservative in a lot of my views, but am constantly told how "evil" I am -- and how out of step I am with mainstream America -- so I have done what all good liberals do when they want to drown out the likes of Bill Frist&Co...

I have set my political orientation at 11.

Why at 11 you asked? -- and not at 10?

Because 11 is one louder.

[Cryptic Ned]

I think Althouse's argument is more a variation on the idea that great artists are people with talent, and people with talent ought to be in favor of enforced inequality, whereas mediocre people ought to be in favor of enforced equality.

[The Viscount]

I often wonder what Ayn Rand thought of The Beatles?

[connie]

For a good parody of Ann, check out
http://altmouse.blogspot.com/

[Kevin Wolf]

I think the movie version of The Fountainhead is a classic of quasi-fascist camp, and not to be missed.

[Kate Marie]

For what it's worth, it seems conservatives and liberals can agree on The Fountainhead. This is from Whittaker Chambers' review of that book:

"Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind which finds this tone natural to it shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final (because, the author would say, so reasonable) can only be willfully wicked. There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them. From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber — go!'"

[JakeBCool]

Hmmm . . . so Joe Strummer was a conservative. And so are the guys in System of a Down. Bet they'd be surprised to learn that!

[Michael Bains]

To Kate Marie: "Who started it?" LMAO!!!

It was the egg, silly! {-;

I was goin' to quote one of your lines, Lance, but decided that there is simply much of Value in it to use any of it for silly (see above) gloating.

The theme of "we are ALL human, no matter our idiosyncracies" is what I think underlays my entire blog. You did an awesome job of pointing that out vis-a-vie our political leanings here today. Thanks Man.

[hamletta]

I think the movie version of The Fountainhead is a classic of quasi-fascist camp, and not to be missed.

Oh, Lord, yes. It's a laff riot. I've always wondered how all those terrific actors read that godawful script (penned by Rand herself) and said, "Oh, man! I wanna make this movie!" But I saw an interview with Patricia Neal, and she said it was the part that year; every woman in Hollywood wanted to play ol' what's-her-name.

And getting into Gary Cooper's pants wasn't even part of the deal!

[almostinfamous]

um you all do realize they are making a movie out of Atlas Shrugged with Brangelina, right? and the screenplay is being written by a man whose credits include such outstanding works as T&A Academy 2.

[DuWayne]

I hate to throw a stereotype around here in this comment thread, but I think it would be a cold day in h-e-double hockey sticks when a conservative blogger would write such a thoughtful post (like this one) admitting that he/she has any liberal qualities at all. And that, to me, is the difference between conservatives and liberals.

Actually I know a few conservatives at my church who can be as thoughtful in their admittence of some liberal beliefs. Unfortunately they are not hip to much online beyond email. But they do exist. I also know a few farmers who would label themselves conservatives who are very introspective and clear about why they believe in environmental protection and (at least for kids) universal healthcare. Of course you could only take their guns away by "prying them from their cold, dead fingers" and they rail against big government too.