"Identity-Politics Puritanism": A New Fundamentalist Religion
That term isn't my own; I spotted it in a comment below an article in the WSJ, "Remember When Art Was Supposed to Be Beautiful?"
I have a difference of opinion on the notion that all art should be beautiful or is supposed to be, but as I am not among the neo-Puritans, I'm okay with digesting points of view I don't entirely agree with.
Sohrab Ahmari, who lived in Iran back when Khomeini and his Islamobots purged the place of "offensive images in the art books" and other ideological and cultural no-nos, writes:
This summer I spent a few weeks attending as many plays, exhibit openings, gallery talks and screenings as I could find in London. Every single one had something to do with identity politics.Start with theater. At the Globe, built near the site of the original theater cofounded by Shakespeare, new artistic director Emma Rice is rewriting the Bard to fit her trendy politics. Among her rules: All productions must feature 50-50 sex parity among actors, regardless of the ramifications for narrative and meaning. "It's the next stage for feminism and it's the next stage for society to smash down the pillars that are against us," Ms. Rice said in a recent interview.
At Gasworks, a prestigious gallery in Vauxhall, multimedia artist Sidsel Meineche Hansen used EVA 3.0, a digital humanoid figure used in video games and adult entertainment, to "explore the overlap between subjects in real life and objects in virtual reality, focusing on their accumulation by capital through the gender binary." Her degraded, pornographic art is difficult to describe in a family newspaper.
A film festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts was devoted to "themes of social and political identity," as the program put it. The dozens of films, installations and talks on offer dealt with "how political identities are depicted"; "black aesthetics"; "politics as something you do with your body"; photography's role as a "colonial tool"; "culture, aesthetics and learning through the lens of contemporary feminism"; "queer representational politics"; "the politics of gender and representation"; and on and on.
A group exhibition in ultra-hip East London was titled "Perform Gender: A Multidisciplinary Event Celebrating Art, Theatre, Queer Culture and Gender Equality." It featured mounds of plaster breasts on the floors, menstrual pads taped to the walls and lots of sadomasochistic imagery.
Not even dance is immune. An artist's talk at the South London Gallery was devoted to exploring "dance and identity politics" and "the political virtues of the twerk."
It is inconceivable that so many directors, painters, filmmakers, dancers and performance artists could be inspired by nothing but the politics of race, gender and sexuality. There must be other subjects, in the world outside or in their inner lives, that deserve creative interest. Yet the art world's ideological atmosphere is so thick and pervasive that those inside don't even realize it is the air they breathe.
This state of affairs should alarm anyone who cares about the future of liberal civilization. Free societies need art that aspires to timeless ideals like truth and beauty, and that grapples with the transcendent things about what it means to be human. Such art allows us to relate to each other across identitarian differences and share a cultural commonwealth. When all culture is reduced to group identity and grievance, tyranny is around the corner.
Again, I am not of the mind that all art needs to be beautiful or transcendent. I enjoy art that is and I also enjoy art that's disturbing, funny, provoking, or comments on art.
Still, I think there's another religion in the world, and it's well-described under the moniker "Identity-Politics Puritanism."
It infuses what people are "allowed" to say in conversation, in class, in art, and even in stand-up comedy.
The punishments for those who don't follow its dictates cause a chill on free speech and a shunting aside of free thought on campus.
And while students of the past led the free speech movement -- it's students of today who are pushing to make speech less and less free, and they are supported in this by handsomely paid administrators who often seem to see their continued big-bucks employment as hinging on keeping the college out of the media in any less-than-rosy light.
Line up, kiddies, for your freshman muzzles.
The comment that led to the title of this blog post is from Todd Saunders:
Fascinating article. Why am I not surprised to find the modern art world decaying to a new form of "identity-politics Puritanism" where everything must be shaded with gender, race or global warming? This is exactly how the USSR operated where every painting, movie or music score had to endorse the narrative of the worker's struggle and the evils of capitalism. It's just that now the Soviet apparatchiks have been replaced with oppressive "Social Justice Warriors" in academia, the media and the arts and in the ultimate irony represent anything but justice.
Don't forget the double standards, it's okay and it's freedom of speech to make a painting of the virgin Mary with elephant dung but don't you dare hurt the feelings of the Muslims with a doodle.
Sixclaws at October 22, 2016 6:10 AM
I'm hoping the angst is just twenty-something self defining that will get dropped as people grow up and go on with life.
I say this as someone who defines herself as a woman, queer, and dyke.
It helps to have words to talk about structural racism and sexism, and to find what you want and who wants what you offer, but politicized identity is by nature not intimate - it's a coat you should be able to shed when the weather or some other change alters what you need and how you need to talk about it to get what you need.
My coming "out" regarding the sex of the person I'm in love with is only a thing because of discrimination and a once real threat of violence. I'm hoping my nieces and nephews won't have to label themselves and will roll their eyes if someone asks them about their sexual orientation.
Michelle at October 22, 2016 8:13 AM
Well, maybe here's the trouble: Without the ideological underpinnings, wouldn't the artistic world have to admit that a lot of this stuff, well, sucks?
Here's a case in point, from the estimable David Thompson, where a Boston artist
Don't click "play" on the accompanying video. It really isn't worth it. But the comments are. My fave, from David himself: "It does seem to attract a very high concentration of the self-absorbed and comically talentless. The Dunning-Kruger demographic. Which may explain the reliance on fairly tedious personal details – 'I’m fat or gay or female and therefore my flummery is terribly radical and interesting.'”
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at October 22, 2016 8:13 AM
We could only hope they would grow out of it. But evidence points otherwise. People like that who are in their 40s and up are in charge of grant boards (both artistic and scientific) as well as awards groups. Look at science fiction and the sad puppies movement. Sad puppies only came about because it is more important what the politics and classification of the author are than the quality of what they wrote. It is now preferable to use an Asian pen name when writing poetry because of muddle headed 'eastern mystic purity' bull crap. These are also the people who are also in charge of our teacher colleges and licensing boards.
Ben at October 22, 2016 11:31 AM
This can be explained. It used to be that truth, beauty, and religious ideals motivated art. Beauty was linked to spirituality, and thus good. With the rejection of religion (by certainly all the hip artists, if not all artists) the initial motivation was to be anti-everything (ugly art) and this was the 20th Century reality of art. But people are not happy with themselves when they are just anti. They want to be virtuous. The only way to do that now while doing ugly art is to infuse it with SJW meaning, even if there is no relationship in reality between the politics and the art.
cc at October 22, 2016 11:50 AM
Clueless in West Texas here.
I never understood why Warhol was so fascinated with Campbell soup.
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans-1962
Bob in Texas at October 22, 2016 2:49 PM
"Look at science fiction and the sad puppies movement. Sad puppies only came about because it is more important what the politics and classification of the author are than the quality of what they wrote."
Ben at October 22, 2016 11:31 AM
I had no idea that was a thing. That said, it's easy to see that "Left" and "Right" each have their fanatics.
Bob in Texas, the wikipedia article on Warhol does a good job of creating the context for the Campbell's soup fixation.
I don't know if Warhol was eating a lot of store bought soup in his childhood, but he began his career in New York, creating graphic imagery for record covers and other newly mass produced items.
Campbell's Soup was produced in New Jersey and its label won an award in Paris in 1900, so it was iconic before Warhol made it famous. Warhol grew up going to Catholic churches, which have a lot of rich red and gold colors in the services, so this particular product label might have pull for him and the many other people - colors of religious ritual, and the ritual of eating soup/ family meals.
His graphic arts career in advertising in NYC gave Warhol immersion in the paradox of mass production, how producing something indistinguishable from itself gave it the power to become iconic in a marketplace of buyers who desired it; with the financial power of licenses; with trademarks as another form of symbolism as identity, of both the thing and the person who was seen using it; and the power of mass produced goods to level the playing field of experiences and membership/ identity signals across economic classes. Warhol remarked, "anyone can afford a coca cola, anyone can afford a can of Campbell's soup."
The power of this phenomenon to create an arena of a level but fickle playing field (fifteen minutes of fame, for everyone) would reverberate in a young man who had been the youngest child of a working class family that immigrated over from eastern Europe. He was a kid when his dad died, leaving his mother widowed with three kids in a working class Catholic neighborhood, between two world wars (rationing and scarcity, mass production and affordability of cultural icons).
The Warhol is a great place to visit, and this is soup season in Pittsburgh.
Michelle at October 22, 2016 9:53 PM
The sad thing Michelle is some really significant people in SciFi/Fantasy are all behind it. George R.R. Martin is all about this 'intersectionalization' junk. If you want a Hugo you need to tick off the SJW boxes. Straight white men need not apply.
Ben at October 23, 2016 6:13 AM
Ben, modern art made its mark by eschewing the Academy.
Rodin was strategic in competing for the cash and prestige of awards, and rolling his works into one another. The Rodin museum in Philly does a great job of highlighting his strategic financially motivated choices.
Van Gogh's work wasn't famous until after his death.
Warhol's brilliance was akin to holding a mirror up to a mirror, with the consumer standing between the two mirrors.
Etc.
It sounds like the Hugo is another marketing platform, another symbol of vetted quality. Writers are under the same pressures as many of us to make what people will pay for, or not.
Campbell's soup wasn't the best soup,
McDonald's hamburgers weren't the best either - they were just consistently, reliably good enough. (Warhol's mom was an equal or better illustrator, too, for the record. Warhol however was a marketer.)
Michelle at October 23, 2016 10:08 AM
"Without the ideological underpinnings, wouldn't the artistic world have to admit that a lot of this stuff, well, sucks?"
Yep. It's art made by people who have rejected the concept of art. Here's how, when visiting an art museum, you can tell if a work is art or not: is there a plaque next to it, telling you what you're supposed to think of it? If so, it's not art. Unfortunately this is the trend these days. Most contemporary art you see in museums is produced by artists who live off of NEA and foundation grants, and they march to the tune of the grant-givers. Artistic quality simply isn't a consideration.
We can argue about what art is. However, one thing art is not is agitprop. The two things are mutually exclusive. Art is made to illuminate and stimulate thought; agitprop is made to deceive and shut down thought. Most of what the artists who get their works into museums these days is agitprop.
Art has disappeared from the middle class home. In the decades when I grew up, a middle class home (well, maybe more of an upper middle class) would probably contain at least one or two works of art. They wouldn't be museum-quality works; they might be reproductions or copies. But they wouldn't be velvet Elvises or dogs playing poker either. Nowdays? Nada, unless it's something like a (dating myself here) Thomas Kinkade. People don't want their houses full of agitprop. A lot of artists made fun of Kinkade, and most of his stuff was pretty schmaltzy, but it was honest work and it wasn't agitprop. Kinkade knew what his audience wanted, and he gave it to them, while at the same time trying to gently lead them by the hand to start appreciating works of higher quality than the velvet Elvises.
Cousin Dave at October 24, 2016 7:19 AM
I understand that Michelle. But the award is a bait and switch operation. After years of building up a reputation for quality writing they are now switching to political adherence. After building a brand for one thing they are now trying to sell something else without informing the consumer of that change. And writers like Martin are all for that fraud because it is their fraud. Which I find depressing.
Ben at October 24, 2016 7:23 AM
Has art disappeared from the middle class home, CD? All the houses I visit have pictures and paintings on the walls. I don't think sculpture was ever a popular medium for domestic use. I'll admit this isn't a representative sample. Just expressing some incredulity.
I will admit modern art is so rare as to be insignificant.
Ben at October 24, 2016 7:29 AM
Ben, I should have clarified that I meant contemporary art. Although, the amount of art overall has decreased, I think. If you go into the homes of anyone who has kids these days, the only art is likely to be the third-grader's drawings taped to the fridge door. Nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes, but. Go into the homes of wealthier people and people who don't have kids, and you see a lot of design, and some of it is pretty cool, but I don't know that I'd call that art per se. I don't think portrait photos of the residents and their relatives qualify either.
We made it a point to have some art in our house. My preference in the visual arts is photography, so we've got a few prints, mostly the work of local photographers. My wife has some blown glass pieces, again done mostly by local artists. And we try to take in some performance arts -- symphony and local theater a few times per year.
Cousin Dave at October 24, 2016 11:37 AM
I will admit I don't go to the theater or symphony. I'm not that enamored of the male posterior and I have little interest in being insulted or demeaned for an hour. Honestly I have little interest in listening to someone else be demeaned like that as well. I don't know of any local glass blowers. But there are several local blacksmiths and welders. I'm afraid their work is more expensive than I am willing to pay (and it takes up too much room).
As for people with kids, I don't recall this being different from when I grew up. Young kids get into everything, which makes it hard to have nice things. All kids are fun places to spend your money. So people tend to spend on kids than on art when they are around. But that has been true for thousands of years.
I am with you on the Kinkade. Modern art is like atonal music. Museums are the only people interested. Which raises an interesting question. Will archaeologists 1000 years from now think we all listened to atonal noise because those are the only records that survived?
Ben at October 24, 2016 3:57 PM
Ben - bummer that the brand's been diluted. Truly. It sounds like they might have shifted their approach to appeal to a more lucrative readership.
....
I love that velvet version of dogs playing poker. Less detail, but more kitsch.
Michelle at October 24, 2016 10:55 PM
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