It's amazing how virtually 100% of artists are leftists. Like if you have any creative impulse at all, about literally anything, you also think, yeah...people should probably have healthcare and stuff.
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I'd love to agree, or even to say that the only right-wing artists are the crazy fash sort like pessoa, pound, or Mishima, but Borges was very much a generic liberal-conservative. I'm not calling Jorge Luis Borges uncreative.
Obviously there are exceptions. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were quite conservative. Or Tolkien.
But still, the vast majority of people with artistic impulses end up thinking wealth should be more equal, and we shouldn't be racist, etc. Even the counterexamples are far off "normal" right wing thought.
Tolstoy, at least by the latter part of his life, was an anarchist (though didn't identify as such as, being a pacifist, he was opposed to the political violence anarchism was associated with)
Also how right wing "art" sucks to the comical levels.
Polish right wing government was upset about all Polish artists (including Nobel winners) are left wing and tried to sponsor "patriotic" "artists" to "promote values" and the results were so pathetic you'd think they were a parody.
I’m… not sure I agree. I’ve met plenty of (mostly traditional) painters who are all up in the Faith n’ Family bs and are genuinely some of the most unpleasant people to talk to because they also tend to be very snooty. I don’t know if those two things are related, it’s just what I’ve-
I hope I’m making sense. I took Drawing 1 in college from one and have met a few local ones since I moved here and they all tend to be about the same age with similar styles and backgrounds.
I'm an academic and leftist, but perhaps a bit more cynical. I reckon most people are a little self interested, and most artists have either suffered or are suffering financially. Typically, the more money people have, the further right they drift.
This isn't universally true. There are right wing working class people. But they typically blame "the other" (foreign nationals etc) for their circumstances.
I don't think that's true. I mean, I'd love to believe it, but there are so many examples of artists who are perfectly happy to produce conservative and fascist content. I was just reminded that METROPOLIS was written by an actual Nazi. James Woods and Kelsey Grammar are Trump supporters. etc.
I've also noticed that *some* artists in really competitive fields defaulting to a kind of Randian "I'm better than the normies" position bc they have to hustle so much and tell themselves, "I'm the best. I'm the greatest. I will succeed because I'm special."
To the degree that there's any truth to that, it's that artists train themselves to observe and represent the world around us, a specific skill that not everyone can develop (I mean *I* will also never be a professional dancer!), but it's for lots of different reasons other than "talent."
Why do you think country music started as protest music? The earliest examples of protest country songs I can think of are from the 60s, 3-4 decades after the genre began. Woody Guthrie might count, but he was hardly representative of the genre.
Your examples are all from the 1970s and 1980s though. That's mainstream, corporate, white country music, not at all like the early country music of the 1920s.
I’m well aware of country music’s history, from the 1920s on. I don’t consider Williams, Haggard, or Cash “corporate” country, and their most important work was done before 1970. Williams died in 1953, for starters. I mentioned those particular artists to make a particular point.
That’s a long article with only one use of the word “protest,” about an event in 1969. Songs about working class life aren’t by definition protest songs. Absent some more specific reply, I’ll continue to believe you’re mistaken.
There's also the fact that conservatives believe that everything worth achieving has already been achieved in the past, so your only options are to maintain the status quo, return to old glory, or give in to cultural decay.
Not exactly a mindset that lends itself to creativity.
If you try to make art, music, or whatever based only on your own experience, you run out of inspiration very quickly. Art *requires* you to see and imagine things from different points of view.
I agree but it's right there, in our title, we are "creative", we create, which means we move towards the future. We dare ourselves to see beyond the last horizon.
The thing with the right, they conserve the past because they are afraid of what the dawn may offer us.
Remember Trump threw a fit over light bulbs, water pressure.., he is a relic that is held onto by the mega people because he is a reflection of all their fears and bias...
shutting up for nor now
Not 100% of them. There are pro-genocide pieces of shit like Gene Simmons, Aviv Geffen, and the members of Astral Projection; wingnuts like Ted Nugent; racists like Morrissey; Brexiters like Bruce Dickinson; "apolitical" fence-sitters like Eric Johnson. And so on...
I worked in the arts for over a decade, so let me tell ya: You gotta check that math
Artists skew centrist more than anything (NPR tote Dems mainly), with a large plurality of center-left folks, a smaller plurality of rightwingers of all stripes, and a very small number of people on the actual left
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But still, the vast majority of people with artistic impulses end up thinking wealth should be more equal, and we shouldn't be racist, etc. Even the counterexamples are far off "normal" right wing thought.
Right-wingers want to take.
What they don’t destroy so nobody can have it.
Polish right wing government was upset about all Polish artists (including Nobel winners) are left wing and tried to sponsor "patriotic" "artists" to "promote values" and the results were so pathetic you'd think they were a parody.
Growing as an 80s punk they stole the skinhead style from us
Look at how most new genres of art start out as a protest then get corrupted over time.
Country music for example
As well as feeling the zeitgeist
Not exactly a mindset that lends itself to creativity.
Building empathy is a natural consequence.
The thing with the right, they conserve the past because they are afraid of what the dawn may offer us.
shutting up for nor now
Artists skew centrist more than anything (NPR tote Dems mainly), with a large plurality of center-left folks, a smaller plurality of rightwingers of all stripes, and a very small number of people on the actual left