General Politics Thread

So Picasso's Guernica wouldn't make you think? What about Edvard Munch's the Scream? Or the abstract landscape art of the Group of Seven?

Even "I don't know if I like this" is an independent thought, and so is trying to figure out what it's depicting. You see a classical sculpture, say, Michelangelo's David. It is a very well made statue with a lot of details, but it has value because it's realistic. There's a lot of little details built into it.

Guernica is incredibly unrealistic. The Scream is super distorted too. But they're significantly more effective at getting the emotion across than realistic art of the same sort of subjects.

"What am I even looking at" is an independent thought that fascists hate because if you ask that question enough, it starts to spill over into other aspects of your life.

Not Three Laws compliant.

This is a matter of personal taste. It may be a little better, but the difference is minimal at least in my case.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 24th 2022 at 4:59:00 PM

But what I'm saying is the general agreement about modern art. We can have differing opinions, but the general perception is the important bit here.

And it's the reason fascists hate it so much.

It's not actually just "they're conservative" because fascists love new technology if they can use it, they hate modern art because it's weird and it's extremely difficult to subvert.

Not Three Laws compliant.

I said culturary conservative for a reason. My first impression of guernica is "what a stupid picture", but than is partialy caused by HypeAversion. More realistic depition of bombed city would convey much more powerfull emotions to me. That of course is purely my personal opinion. Should be noted that im not opposed to non-literal art i do like it sometimes. I just feell "it makes people think" is little too much.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 24th 2022 at 5:10:16 PM

Oh, there's also another factor specific to the Nazis.

Hitler was a realistic landscape painter. He was...average at it. His stuff looked fine but there's literally nothing about it that stands out at best, usually there were some perspective problems that made them look kind of bad.

He started trying to make a mark right when modern art was the huge craze, complete with the German Impressionist school of film gaining prominence, so even if his art was better than averagely mediocre, he wasn't painting what people wanted to see and that's part of why he got shut out of the art world.

He, specifically, was taking revenge on what he saw as degenerate Jewish and Bolshevik painters stealing his rightful place in the art world.

Here's an interesting article.

Edited by Zendervai on Jun 24th 2022 at 11:10:31 AM

Not Three Laws compliant.

First, just wanted to note I appreciate Diana's knowledge and expertise.

Regarding the art, from my (lay) understanding, isn't a lot of Fascist/Nazi feelings about "degenerate art" an expression of antisemitism (and not just a generalized "man yells at cloud" dislike of new art)?

Like at least my impression is that it's some combination of Jewish artists creating art they didn't like (causation runs both ways here) and them believing in some kind of Jewish conspiracy to undermine The West by promoting "bad art".

I'm thinking here for instance of how Henry Ford believed in and promoted an early version of the Great Replacement Theory in which Jews undermined the West by promoting Black jazz music. And so Ford promoted square dancing as The Moral Substitute to jazz.

Also, while in this case it's more about the art being unserious/kitchy than avant garde, but I'm also thinking about various critiques of Jewish composer Jacques Offenbach (some more explicitly antisemitic than others) about how he was making a mockery of important Western cultural traditions (specifically Greco-Roman mythology) / connecting Offenbach's works to various social ills of Napoleon III's France.

I'm kind of stealing this part from Laurence Senelick's Jacques Offenbach and the Making of Modern Culture, who notes close parallels between these criticisms of Offenbach and the kind of rhetoric you will see (even from anti-Nazis) about the "decadence" of the Weimar Republic.

Edited by Hodor2 on Jun 24th 2022 at 8:18:12 AM

Antisemites blame everthing they dont like on jews. In this case this more of anti-black rasism and perhaps even a simple i dont like jazz. Then he blamed Jews because why not. I would say the underlaying cause was still i dont like new art.

I mean it's kind of both anti-Black racism and antisemitism because the whole idea of the "theory" is that Jews are the puppetmasters for Blacks "replacing" white people (which is assumed to involve corrupting the purity of white women). Hence why the Charlottesville Nazis chanted "You (i.e. African Americans) will not replace us," and Jews will not replace us." And this basically describes Ford's stated reasons for not liking jazz.

Also, I think it's more than just New Media Are Evil, because lots of people don't like new art. Modern art is still the butt of a lot of jokes. What's distinct about Fascist dislike of new art is that they view it as "degenerate" and corrupting society. It's not just that they think Cubism requires less talent than Realism.

They view that modern art is corrupting is based on NewMediaAreEvil if you ask me. Also i would say that anti-black rasism is the core of the problem. They blame Jews because they are alread convinced that Jews are behind bad things it is ConfirmationBias basically. antisemitic logic is: X is bad therefore Jews must be behind it even when it would be engaging in contraditctions.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 24th 2022 at 6:13:35 PM

I wonder if there's ever been an anarchist that didn't come from a comfortable well off family.

Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.

Considering how many anarchists are there im sure there must be some, but i would have do research to find actuall examples.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 24th 2022 at 8:43:44 PM

Given the modern anarcho-communist community...most of them? There's a lot of low-income or on disability people in that scene right now.

The anarcho-capitalists, on the other hand, do tend to have a lot of privilege, which makes sense, because it's a fucking awful philosophy that only makes sense if you already have a lot of money.

Not Three Laws compliant.

Anarchocaps are not even condsidered anarchist by many and im inclined to agree. It sounds like recipe for warlordism to me. Anyway i think that Mullon is refering to the fact that some leftwing theorists(which means anarchist too) were from well off bagrounds. It makes sence they had a time more time to think than a workingclass people.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 24th 2022 at 8:53:53 PM

Yeah, I don't really think that's a knock against them because it's like...really hard to do philosophy when you're spending most of your time struggling to survive.

Not Three Laws compliant.

We talking philosophically or practically? Because I don't think I'd count as coming from a comfortable, well-off family. So that's also at least one.

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I think it's that the historical anarchist philosophers that actually published stuff tended to be more well off.

Modern anarchism is overwhelmingly slanted towards people with low or no income.

Not Three Laws compliant.

"The people who wrote pamphlets and published books in the 19th century were well off" is like saying water is wet.

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Yeah, turns out having money helps freeing up time to develop philosophical and political concepts.

Well, unlike you're Diogenes, then the money is optional.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Sure i was only interpeting Mullons post i dont even know if im right.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 24th 2022 at 11:07:30 AM

Yeah it's one of those obnoxious "gotcha" arguments that annoys the fuck out of me. Like yeah, there's the stereotypical "middle class college radical who abandons the radicalism after graduation" but like...it ain't exactly universal?

Fuck's sake, Marx came from a well-off family and he still struggled to find stable housing for his family...and, y'know, he was fucking *banned* from a few places for his political activism. Never mind the revolutionaries who dealt with imprisonment. Antonio Gramsci was basically killed by the Italian fascist regime through a lengthy prison sentence destroying his health.

Most political philosophers come from well-off backgrounds, but that’s a political philosophy thing, not an Anarchism thing.

Gavrilo Princip (The guy who assassinate Frank Ferdinand) was born a peasant. Leon Czolgosz (who assassinated president Mc Kinley) came from an immigrant family and had to work in factories from his mid-teens.

Edited by Silasw on Jun 25th 2022 at 8:45:08 PM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Yeah, that is very annoying argument. Also i would say that not only "radical until graduation" is hardly univesal, but a lot of real people who could fit that stereotype where not particulary dedicated to the ideology in first place.

Nestor Makhno (besides establishing a commune, he's known for inventing the tachanka) was born a peasant as well, and faced financial difficulties for the majority of his life.

Edited by ctrlaltdel on Jun 25th 2022 at 6:17:54 AM

Back to the fascism and art discussion, it should be noted that Italian Futurism, one non-literal art movement, was pretty popular for a time in fascist Italy, and its founders were open supporters of Mussolini. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was basically promoting in his Futurist Manifesto some of the same stuff Mussolini promoted years later.

And then, when Italy pivoted closer to Germany, futurism was attacked as "degenerate art".

Edited by Diana1969 on Jun 26th 2022 at 5:45:44 AM

There are certainly similarities thought Futurism and Fascism are complete opposites of each other when comes to past. Fascism wants to glorify to extereme while Futurism decries past also in extreme.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 26th 2022 at 9:37:25 PM