A Quasi-Kierkegaardian Poke at Paglia, Catholic Pagan

This Stack leader has her stuck at the aesthetic stage.

I'm on a Kierkegaard jag again. I've been reading him all my philosophical life ever since my undergraduate teacher, Ronda Chervin, introduced him to me.  

For an easy introduction to the Danish Socrates, I recommend Clare Carlisle, Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019). Well done and heart-felt as only the female heart can feel.

Wikipedia:

Søren (Danish: [ˈsœːɐ̯n̩]Norwegian: [ˈsøːəɳ]) or Sören (Swedish: [ˈsœ̌ːrɛn]German: [ˈzøːʁən]) is a Scandinavian given name that is sometimes Anglicized as Soren. The name is derived from that of the 4th-century Christian saint Severin of Cologne,[1] ultimately derived from the Latinseverus ("severe, strict, serious"). Its feminine form is Sørine, though its use is uncommon. The patronymic surname Sørensen is derived from Søren.

Nomen est omen?

I am also on a Hannah Arendt kick. I've got four of her books in my library. Her The Human Condition has been languishing on my shelves since aught-six, with only a few pages showing marks of attention, but now I am diving deep into its labyrinthine riches. An astonishing product of wide-ranging erudition, it is packed with insights and intriguing suggestions.

It's long on Teutonic Tiefsinn and somewhat short on Anglo-Angularity, if you catch my drift, but I've done my time on both sides of the Continental Divide and frequently wander back and forth as is the wont of a maverick. The maverick schtick is supposed to convey that philosophical bipolarity, or, to try a different metaphor, my philosophical amphibiousness: I am at home on the dry and dusty desert  ground of nuts-and-bolts analysis, but also, though in lesser measure in my later phase, in the muddy waters and murky fluidity of Continental currents, not to mention the oft-neglected backwaters of Scholasticism. 

The Human Condition show unmistakable signs of Heidegger's influence, but the man is not mentioned even once, for reasons I suspect but will keep to myself for the time being. And while classifiable as a work in political philosophy, in THC there is no mention of, nor Auseindandersetzungen with, either Leo Strauss or Carl Schmitt, again for reasons I suspect but will keep under my hat.

A 5 February 2024 memo to self reads:

Compare Arendt to Schmitt on the nature of the political. Arendt: action (praxis) constitutes the political realm. Action (vita activa) is acting together, the sharing of words and deeds, and thus co-operation (HC 198). For Schmitt, by contrast, the Freund-Feind opposition defines the political. 

More grist for the mill.  

“Piss Christ” Revisited

'Pope' Francis has recently given a warm papal welcome to Andres Serrano. Remember him? What follows is an exchange from 16 May 2010 with a doctoral student in Canada who is responding to an earlier post of mine. My comments are in blue. The erudite Hector C. who is better versed than I am in art and aesthetics has been dropping by lately; I am hoping he will weigh in on this.

1. Why do you feel that "Piss Christ" (or Serrano's other works–again, I assume you're referring here mostly to the religious icons and bodily fluids) is (are) a "[violation] of people's beliefs"? The claim that it "violates beliefs" is much stronger than simply saying that it is distasteful, since it ascribes an active quality to the work.

Of course, it is more than distasteful or disgusting, although it is that; it shows profound disrespect and contempt for Christianity.  And it is not the work itself that violates the beliefs and sensibilities of Christians and plenty of non-Christians as well, but the work in the context of its production and public display.  It should be offensive to any decent person, just as "Piss-Buddha," if there were such an 'art work,' would be offensive to me and other non-Buddhists.  Buddha was a great teacher of humanity and should be honored as such.  (That is why decent people were offended when the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddhist statuary.) The same goes for Jesus and Socrates and so many others.  Christians of course believe that Jesus was much more than a great teacher of humanity, but whether he was or not is immaterial to the point at issue.  Or imagine "Piss-King" in which a figurine of Martin Luther King, Jr. is suspended in urine. Everyone would take that, and rightly so, as expressive of contempt for the black American civil rights leader, as offensive as Southern racists' references to King back in the '60s as Martin Luther Coon.

The decadent art of the 20th century reflects not only the corruption of aesthetic sensibility but also a moral corruption.  So my objection to Serrano is not merely aesthetic but moral.  The purpose of art is not to debase but to elevate, refine, ennoble. 

I'm going to assume, again, that the reason for thinking it a violation has to do with the materials used in its production, whose conjunction might be thought blasphemous (although not, I think, unequivocally so).

We can leave blasphemy to one side.  To make my points I needn't assume that Jesus is divine.

Now, I can understand feeling an initial revulsion to the work–but that's not quite the case, since unless you're told, you have no way of knowing that the photograph was made with urine.

Be serious.  The title is "Piss-Christ."  You are aware, I hope, that such words as 'piss' and 'shit' are vulgar.  They are used to express contempt as opposed to reasoned disagreement. 

In fact, until you read the title or a description, it's just a beautiful image filled with pathos and pointing to Jesus' suffering. Of course, the means of production are (were) deliberately made known, and I can understand a certain revulsion at that revelation. What I don't understand, however, is why your reaction is to qualify it as an assault on Christianity/religious beliefs.

And what I don't understand is your failure to perceive the offensiveness of this so-called 'art.'  First of all, this junk is not art in any legitimate sense of the term.  Its sole purpose is to bring its creator empty celebrity and money.  A vain pursuit of novelty for the sake of novelty — as if novelty as such is a value — it must constantly outdo itself in extremism to achieve any effect at all.  It requires no talent or skill or courage.  Any jerkoff can throw a crucifix into a bottle of urine.  And it is not as if this 'artist' is taking a stand against an oppressive culture or government which disallows this form of puerile self-expression.  Far from it.  The culture is permissive in excelsis and there is no censorship.  And it is precisely because the culture is ultra-permissive, that schlocksters like Serrano, Gilbert & George, and plenty of others can pass their  stuff off as art.  It is worth noting that there is no "Piss-Muhammad."   If  Serrano produced a "Piss-Muhammad," then at least I could credit him with courage.    But our main question is not whether "Piss-Christ"  counts as legitimate art but whether it expresses contempt for Christianity and its adherents.

And of course it does, in the same way that "Piss-Muhammad" would express contempt for Muhammad, and "Shit-Marx' for Marx.  Leftists have their icons too, and if any of them were placed in bottles of urine,  the howls of protest would be unceasing.  The very fact that there are no such expressions of contempt for leftist heroes tells us something.  It tells us that "Piss-Christ and the like are part of an assault on Christianity and religion in general which fits right in with the left-wing agenda. Most contemporary 'art' is left-wing propaganda as Roger Kimball observes:

When the artistic significance of art is at a minimum, politics rushes in to fill the void. From the crude political allegories of a Leon Golub or Hans Haacke to the feminist sloganeering of Jenny Holzer, Karen Finley, or Cindy Sherman, much that goes under the name of art today is incomprehensible without reference to its political content. Indeed, in many cases what we see are nothing but political gestures that poach on the prestige of art in order to enhance their authority. Another word for this activity is propaganda, although at a moment when so much of art is given over to propagandizing the word seems inadequate. It goes without saying that the politics in question are as predictable as clockwork. Not only are they standard items on the prevailing tablet of left-wing pieties, they are also cartoon versions of the same. It’s the political version of painting by number: AIDS, the homeless, “gender politics,” the Third World, and the environment line up on one side with white hats, while capitalism, patriarchy, the United States, and traditional morality and religion assemble yonder in black hats.

2.) This one is much shorter (I promise!) and broader: "Adolescent  purveyors of schlock who delight in offending the sensibilities of the 'bourgeoisie'  or the 'booboisie' in H. L. Mencken's phrase have no right to taxpayer money." Why not?

Taxation is a legitimate, but nonetheless coercive, taking of money from the productive members of society for the purposes of government.  When money that is taken via taxation is used for purposes that are (i) not among the legitimate limited functions of government, and (ii) violate the beliefs and sensibilities of the people who pay the taxes in ways that are crude, offensive, and subserve no higher purpose, but instead contribute to cultural decline, then I say the money is misused.

A Minor Correction Anent ‘Absurd’ with a Little Help from Mark Rothko

In a Substack entry I distinguished four senses of 'absurd,' the logico-mathematical, the semantic, the existential, and the ordinary. About the existential sense I had this to say:

3) Existential.  The absurd as the existentially meaningless, the groundless, the brute-factual, the intrinsically unintelligible.  The absurdity of existence in this sense of 'absurd' is what elicited Jean-Paul Sartre's and his character Roquentin's  nausea.  The sheer, meaningless, disgusting, facticity of the chestnut tree referenced in the eponymous novel, for example, was described by Sartre as de trop and as an unintelligible excrescence.

That's pretty good, but it leaves out an important nuance.  In "A Case in Reason for God's Existence?" Joseph Donceel, S. J. points out that it is not enough for a thing to count as absurd in what I am calling the existential sense that it be meaningless or unintelligible.  For the absurd is not simply that which makes no sense; it is that  which makes no sense, but ought to, or is supposed to.  To say that life is absurd is not merely to say that it has no point or purpose; it is to say that it fails to meet a deep and universal demand or expectation on our part that it have a point or purpose. Donceel:

No one calls decorative painting absurd, but many people feel that most modern painting is absurd, because they expect it to make sense for them, and it does not. We understand what is meant when people say of reality or of life that it does not make sense. But their claim that it is absurd implies that it should make sense, that they expect it to make sense. (God Knowable and Unknowable, ed. Roth, Fordham UP, 1973, p. 181.) 

The decadent 'art' of Mark Rothko et al., which is presumably intended to be art and not mere wall decoration or ornamentation meant to add a splash of color to an otherwise drab room, reflects the absurdist sensibility of the post-modern era. Healthy folk — as opposed to neurotic 'transgressive' NYC hipsters — find it absurd because it defeats their expectation that art should 'mean something' not just in the sense of representing something, but in the sense of representing something that inspires and uplifts and is beautiful in the Platonic sense that brackets (encompasses) the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

At the opposite end of the spectrum there is kitsch, the king of which is Thomas Kinkade. Bang on the hyperlink to see samples of his work. I am not for kitsch, but I will take it over the decadent stuff. It is less fraying of the fabric of civilization. At the present time, the anti-civilizational forces are on the march and in dire need of stiff-necked opposition. But now I am straying into aesthetics about which I know little. But that doesn't stop me since, as you know, one of my mottoes is:

Nescio, ergo blogo.

Rothko  untitled

Is Art Political?

Some say that art is inherently political because man, by nature, is a political animal (Aristotle), and humans make art. By that reasoning, everything humans do is political. But if everything from mathematics to entomology to rabbit hunting is political because done by the political animal (zoon politikon), then it doesn't mean much of anything to say that art or anything else is political.
 
Art is inherently political only for totalitarians, whether of the Left or the Right, for whom everything is political. 

Are You a Gray Man?

In contemporary Internet lingo, a gray man is typically a prepper who seeks to be unobtrusive and to blend in.  He is 'gray' in that he tries not to call attention to himself, his beliefs, and his stock of guns, ammo, food, and other survival supplies that he hopes will see him and his family through a collapse of the social order. His 'bug-out bag' is at the ready should he need to split for his hideaway.  He worries whether he can make his escape without drawing attention to himself.

Grasshopper and Ant _by_Charles_H._BennettIt is the old Aesop tale of the Ant and Grasshopper revived and updated. The Grasshopper spends the summer in the pleasures of the moment, dancing and singing, giving no thought to the future. Comes the winter he must beg the Ant for provender, whereupon the And delivers a stern rebuke, telling the Grasshopper to dance the winter away.

The latter-day Grasshopper does not beg; he demands, in concert  with others of his shiftless ilk.  He cannot be reached by any rebukes or sermonizing. He is a dangerous hombre who poses a lethal threat.  The latter-day Ant appreciates the threat and seeks to meet it by being both armed and unobtrusive.

He who provokes an evil-doer bears some responsibility for his evil-doing.

The gray man is the opposite of the 'tacti-cool' dude who foolishly flaunts his preparedness and advertises his tools.  His truck sports NRA, Sig Sauer, and other decals. A bumpersticker reads, "I'm your huckleberry." The 'tacti-cool' dude carries open or with inadequate concealment. His T-shirt is tight so that you can admire his marvellous pectorals, but he 'prints' like crazy. If questioned, he insists on his Second Amendment rights. He is right to do so, but nonetheless imprudent. 'Liberals' have no respect for the rights he invokes, and there is no reaching them by any appeal to reason.

Imprudent advertising leads to pointless conversations and worse. Years ago, a man questioned my open carry deep in the Superstition Wilderness, claiming that guns are illegal in a National Park. I pointed out that we were in a National Forest.  I don't think I got through to the idiot. But I did marvel at his foolishness in arguing with an armed man in the middle of nowhere.

There are foolish people who don't know what 'brandish' means. They see a man with a gun strapped to his belt and they call the cops claiming that some guy is 'brandishing' a firearm. This can lead to an unpleasant encounter with law enforcement. The wise man, understanding human nature, avoids contacts with cops, knowing full well their propensity for arrogance and overreach. Power corrupts. Power suborns moral sense.  I say this as a hard-assed law and order conservative who believes in the death penalty.  I believe that said penalty is not only morally permissible, but also in some cases morally obligatory.

And then there are the bad guys who, seeing an armed man, will calculate whether they can take his weapon from him. Or they may be planning an attack of some sort. The armed citizen, seen to be armed, will be the first target.

So I advise a certain grayness in these and related matters.  Exercise your rights, but do not flaunt them. Stand on principles, but don't sacrifice prudence to principles.

Grasshopper by Lefebvre

Wikipedia, The Ant and the Grasshopper:


Because of the influence of La Fontaine's Fables, in which La cigale et la fourmi stands at the beginning, the cicada then became the proverbial example of improvidence in France: so much so that Jules-Joseph Lefebvre (1836–1911) could paint a picture of a female nude biting one of her nails among the falling leaves and be sure viewers would understand the point by giving it the title La Cigale. The painting was exhibited at the 1872 Salon with a quotation from La Fontaine, Quand la bise fut venue (When the north wind blew), and was seen as a critique of the lately deposed Napoleon III, who had led the nation into a disastrous war with Prussia.

Is Art Political?

Some say that art is inherently political because man, by nature, is a political animal (Aristotle) and humans make art.  By that reasoning, everything humans do is political.  But if everything from mathematics to entomology to defecation is political because done by the political animal (zoon politkon), then it doesn't mean much of anything to say that art or anything else is political.

Art is inherently  political only for leftists for whom everything is political.  Another argument against leftism.

Islam and the (Destruction of the) Arts

Here:

Which brings us back to the arts. Among the things that Islam finds offensive are paintings, statues, mosaics, music, and song. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the razing of the Roman temples and arches in Palmyra are just the most recent in a long line of vandalism that stretches back to Muhammad. According to culture critic Hugh Fitzgerald, “the greatest destruction of art in the history of the world is that wrought by Muslims on the art (architecture, artifacts), sacred and profane, of non-Muslim civilizations.”

Thanks to resurgence of militant Islam we seem to have entered a new era of iconoclasm. And it’s not just the arts that are being attacked, but also the people who patronize them. There have been a number of terror attacks against tourists at the ancient Egyptian Karnak Temple near Luxor. In 2015, gunmen killed 19 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. In 2002, 40 to 50 armed Chechen Islamists took 850 hostages during a musical theatre production at Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater. The three-day siege ended with the death of 130 hostages including 17 members of the cast and one-third of the orchestra. More recently, we’ve seen the jihad attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris which resulted in the death of 130 people, many of whom were also mutilated, and the jihad attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England which left 22 dead.

For all their antipathy to the arts, jihadists have an almost Hitchcockian sense of dramatic locations: the Temple of Karnak, the Bardo Museum, the Dubrovka Theatre, the Bataclan Theatre, the World Trade Center. They haven’t gotten around yet to Mt. Rushmore and the Albert Hall, but it’s quite likely that both are already on some jihadis to-do list. Fortunately, the authorities have discerned the pattern, and have begun to beef up security around museums and monuments. Nowadays, if you want to visit the Louvre or the Rijksmuseuem, you have to tiptoe around police and soldiers carrying automatic weapons. Many artists like to advertise their work as transgressive and even dangerous. That’s becoming literally true, though presumably not in the ways that the artists intended. When you go to a concert or a museum these days, there is indeed a heightened element of danger.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that armed jihadists are the only danger to the arts and music. The other danger comes from Islamic culture itself and from the non-violent spread of that culture into Western societies. The trend has been referred to as “Islamization” and also as “stealth jihad.” For my own part, I prefer the term “cultural jihad” because at this point the advance is far from stealthy. The reason that citizens of the West don’t see the cultural takeover in progress is that they don’t want to see it. And they don’t want to see it because they don’t know what to do about it. Some of those who do see what’s happening think the trend toward Islamic dominance is unstoppable. Here’s economist Peter Smith in Quadrant:

Tolerant societies in these politically correct times have no feasible way of countering intolerance when it is practiced and preached by a minority religion ready to claim victimhood at the drop of a hat. I entertained the thought that it could, but it can’t be done.

Whether or not the trend is irreversible remains to be seen, but the trend has not been toward assimilation (as so many had hoped), but toward cultural conquest. And as Islamization continues, it will have a profound effect on the arts. Because where Islamic beliefs and laws advance, the arts retreat.

It’s not just a matter of hostility to the arts, but indifference to them. Although some Muslim immigrants to Europe will acquire a taste for Chopin and Renoir, most will ignore the symphony halls and the art museums altogether. As the population continues to shift in the favor of Islam, those museums that manage to stay open will have to emphasize non-representational Islamic art and put the Renoirs in cold storage. As for the concert halls, many will die a slow death. Mark Steyn puts it this way:

When the demography changes, there will be no concert halls. Artists who take a multicultural view should be aware of this. Count the number of covered women in London’s West End. In Birmingham, where I went to high school, you have a provincial symphony orchestra in a Muslim city—I’m not sure it will survive. All art, all popular culture is endangered by Islam, because there’s no room for it.

Although Birmingham won’t be a Muslim majority city for another twenty years or so, Steyn is right about the general trend. And he’s right about the unawareness of “artists who take a multicultural view.” Those in the arts community who blindly celebrate diversity constitute, in effect, a fifth column that facilitates the invasion of Western society by an anti-arts culture.

One has to wonder if they really love the arts or if they are more in love with the idea of being thought exceedingly tolerant and open-minded. People who love something are usually willing to fight to defend it. But there’s scant evidence that the arts community will fight to preserve the culture they have inherited.

There are exceptions, of course. The aforementioned Mark Steyn is one of them. By profession, Steyn is a music critic who specializes in writing about composers of popular music such as Cole Porter, Jule Styne, and Dorothy Fields. Yet shortly after 9/11 Steyn branched out to political and cultural criticism with a particular emphasis on criticism of Islam and the lackluster Western response to its inroads. Why the foray into politics? As Steyn puts it, “The point of politics is to free up time for what really matters”—which in his case is music.

Another counter–jihadist who would rather be doing something else is Ned May. He is the director of Gates of Vienna, a website devoted to discussing the dangers of Islamization, both in America and Europe. Writing under the pen name Baron Bodissey, May produces a daily supply of knowledgeable and well-crafted columns. Yet his real passions are landscape painting and music. In a piece about Bach’s choral prelude, “O Lamn Gottes unschuldig,” he writes “[Bach’s music] is one of the principal motives behind my choice to continue the struggle against the Great Jihad. The music of J.S. Bach represents the apotheosis of the human spirit, and will remain such even as the civilization that created it turns to dust.”

He continues: “There is no ideology in this [the music]… But ideology may well destroy it. Just as there are no longer any Buddhas at Bamiyan … there may come a day when all the pipes lay strewn across the paving stones of a shattered building, with no more fingers to race across the keyboards nor feet to tap the pedals. That is one of the main reasons why I do what I do: so that this shall not pass from the face of the earth.”

As they are willing to fight to preserve the music they love, Steyn and May deserve to be thought of as genuine music lovers. I’m not so sure that the same can be said for those artists who rush to defend every diversity under the sun, but have little regard for the culture that produced Bach, Beethoven, and Cole Porter. Are they in love with art or are they more in love with a currently fashionable but ultimately destructive ideology about cultural diversity—one that will spell the death of art and music?

Decadent Art, Buddhist Statuary, and the Taliban

BuddhaOur Czech friend, Vlastimil Vohanka, writes:

A question: Do you remember the title of your blog post in which you argued, if I recall correctly, that the Taliban damage to the Buddha statues would be evil — or ought not to take place — even if nobody ever got to know about it? I also recall dimly that the post was a reply to Peter Lupu. Is the post still online, somewhere?

Vlasta, I believe you are referring to this post.  It was a response, not to Peter Lupu, but to Mike Valle. (I had the pleasure of their company at Sunday breakfast  yesterday.)

Here is how the post begins:

This by e-mail from a doctoral student in Canada:

I am writing to you because I have a couple of questions . . . about your  recent (May 12) blog post, and I was curious to hear a bit more about your views. [. . .]  My questions concern your assertion that "I also agree that if one is going to violate people's beliefs in the manner of  that 'artist' Andres Serrano then one ought to do it on one's own time and with one's own dime, as the saying goes." I assume that you're referring to "Piss Christ" and the controversy that surrounded it.

That's right.  Context is provided by Mike Valle's post to which I was responding.

1. Why do you feel that "Piss Christ" (or Serrano's other works–again, I assume you're referring here mostly to the religious icons and bodily fluids) is (are) a "[violation] of people's beliefs"? The claim that it "violates beliefs" is much stronger than simply saying that it is distasteful, since it ascribes an active quality to the work.

Of course, it is more than distasteful or disgusting, although it is that; it shows profound disrespect and contempt for Christianity.  And it is not the work itself that violates the beliefs and sensibilities of Christians and plenty of non-Christians as well, but the work in the context of its production and public display.  It should be offensive to any decent person, just as "Piss-Buddha," if there were such an 'art work,' would be offensive to me and other non-Buddhists.  Buddha was a great teacher of humanity and should be honored as such.  (That is why decent people were offended when the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddhist statuary.) The same goes for Jesus and Socrates and so many others.  Christians of course believe that Jesus was much more than a great teacher of humanity, but whether he was or not is immaterial to the point at issue.  Or imagine "Piss-King" in which a figurine of Martin Luther King, Jr. is supended in urine. Everyone would take that, and rightly so, as expressive of contempt for the black American civil rights leader, as offensive as Southern racists' references to King back in the '60s as Martin Luther Coon.

The decadent art of the 20th century reflects not only the corruption of aesthetic sensibility but also a moral corruption.  So my objection to Serrano is not merely aesthetic but moral.  The purpose of art is not to debase but to elevate, refine, ennoble. 

[. . .]

Maverick Tattoos

I tend to take a dim view of tattoos, seeing them as the graffiti of the human body, and as yet another, perhaps minor, ingredient in the Decline of the West.  Christians believe that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; they ought to consider whether tattoos deface the temple.  But I do not dogmatize on this topic.  You can reasonably attack my graffiti analogy, and if you insist that tattoos are beautiful, not ugly, I won't be able to refute you.  If you argue that there is no, or needn't be, a connection between tattoos and cultural decline, you may have a case. You might even be able reasonably to maintain that the bodily temple is beautified by judicious inking.  Leviticus 19:28, see article below, cuts no ice with me.

I only advise caution: permanent or semi-permanent modifications of the mortal coil are to be made only after due deliberation.  You might want to consider such things as: the signal you're sending, your future employability, and, for the distaff contingent, how ugly that tattoo will look on your calf when you are 45 as opposed to 20 and the ink is cheek-by-jowl with varicose veins and cellulite.  Cute baristas in hip huggers with  tattoos on their lower backs invite impertinent questions as to how far down the patterns extend.  If you are thinking of a career in public relations, a bone through the nose is definitely out, as are facial hardware and a Charley Manson-style swastika tattooed onto the forehead.

See here for a harsher view.

So while I am pleased that one of my readers was sufficiently impressed with one of my sayings to tattoo it onto his forearm, my pleasure is alloyed by my slight aversion to tattoos.  In the second shot below, the same person sports the Logical Square of Opposition on his leg.  Perhaps he should follow it up with E. J. Lowe's Ontological Square of Opposition on the other leg.

Tattoo Baldocchi

Tattoo Baldocchi 2

Advice for Hollywood Liberals

Robert M. Thornton, ed., Cogitations from Albert Jay Nock (Irvington-on-Hudson: The Nockian Society, 1970), p. 59:

If realism means the representation of life as it is actually lived, I do not see why lives which are actually lived on a higher emotional plane are not so eligible for representation as those lived on a lower plane. (Memoirs, 200)

Exactly. If the aim is to depict reality as it is, why select only the most worthless and uninspiring portions of reality for portrayal? Why waste brilliant actors on worthless roles, Paul Newman in The Color of Money, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in The War of the Roses, Robert De Niro in Goodfellas and Casino, to take four examples off the top of my head from a potential list of thousands. The Grifters is another example. A very good film in any number of respects. But imagine a film of the same cinematic quality which portrays in a subtle and intelligent manner a way of life — I avoid 'lifestyle' — that has some chance of being worth living. Notice I said "subtle and intelligent." I am not advocating Sunday School moralizing or hokey platitudinizing. And note that I am not opposing the above mentioned, but pointing out that a constant diet of dreck is both boring and unhealthy.

But I don't expect the folks in HollyWeird (Michael Medved's expression) to comprehend the simple point I have just made. They are too mesmerized by the color of money for that. Nor do I expect most liberals to be able to wrap their minds around it. They are too bereft of moral sense for that.  So I'm preaching to the choir and to a few fence-sitters. But that has value: Maybe a fence-sitter or two will slide off to the Right Side; and perhaps the choirboys and girls are in need of a little extra ammo.

A deeper question concerns the purpose of art. To depict reality? That is not obvious. A good topic for someone else to take up. Conservative bloggers, get to it.

Et in Arcadia Ego

Et in arcadia egoDeath says, "I too am in Arcadia."

The contemplation of death, one's own in particular, cures one of the conceit that this life has a meaning absolute and self-contained.  Only those who live naively in this world, hiding from themselves the fact of death, flirting with transhumanist arcadian and other utopian fantasies, can accord to this life the ultimate in reality and importance.

If you deny a life beyond the grave, I won't consider you foolish or even unreasonable.  But if you anticipate a paradise on earth, I will consider you both.  And if you work to attain such a state in defiance of morality, then I will consider you evil, as evil as the Communists of the 20th century who murdered 100 million to realize their impossible fantasies. 

Guercino – Et in Arcadia Ego – 1618-22 – Roma, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini