The marginal is the norm. We are in the final chapters of liberal democracy’s story of ever-greater inclusion. What are the hardline identitarians to do? Posing as permanent outsiders, they are deeply uncomfortable now that they own the culture.
This book moves me a little out of my comfort zone. The New Philistines is written by Sohrab Ahmari, who proudly lets us know that he fully supports many progressive social initiatives, such as homosexual marriage (though I was surprised to learn, when he happened to appear on Dennis Prager’s talk show just today, that he has recently converted to Roman Catholicism). In spite of his social views, however, author Ahmari is appalled by the fruit contemporary political movements have produced in the world of the arts. Truth, beauty, all the traditional pursuits of art have been swept from the stage. Only political identity (what he calls “identitarianism”) matters in the art world today.
He starts with a visit to the new Globe Theatre in London. Built some years ago to reproduce the kind of structure in which Shakespeare’s plays would have been originally produced, the theater attempted, in its initial phase, to do Shakespeare “straight,” to give the audience an idea of what a performance would have been like in the 17th Century. It sounds like a project both entertaining and enlightening.
But recently a new director has taken over. She is a doctrinaire feminist, whose goal is not to make Shakespeare accessible, but to deconstruct him, and with him all our “imperialist, oppressive” western civilization. The author describes a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which all roles are distributed equally between males and females (hasn’t she heard there are more than 50 genders?), the love-inducing magic flower becomes a date rape drug, and one of the two chief romantic pairs is male/male.
The author doesn’t argue with the social goals of the kinds of “artist” who produce this kind of ugliness. He merely complains that what they are creating is crude polemic, not art. Instead of truth and beauty (which he is old-fashioned enough to still seek in art), modern art has become a frenzied exercise of ever-decreasing effectiveness, desperate to find new ways to shock an increasingly unshockable – and disinterested – public.
The New Philistines is a well-written, very short book. I found it stimulating and convincing. Cautions for disturbing subject matter, and some foul language.
Lars,
It is a good, short book. I would also recommend it to anyone who wants a tour of what identity politics is doing to the arts. The best parts to me were the comparisons to Soviet-era political restrictions on art.
“Say what you will about the Soviet critics, at least they were erudite. Not so with today’s identitarian critics, who care little for art history and aesthetics. What they are blessed with is lots of opinions about everything – all of which invariably revolve around race, gender and class, power and privilege.”
Ahmari, Sohrab (2016-10-20). The New Philistines: (Provocations) (Kindle Locations 253-255). Biteback Publishing. Kindle Edition.
A good supplement would be the video “Why is Modern Art so Bad?” (5min 49sec)
LINK
I have just heard the writer explaining his theories on art. Apart from anything he appears not to know much about the history of art. Large parts of what he lauds in the
round were either political statements of the time commissioned by those in power such as popes or biting back in subtle ways by artists. Beauty is not co-terminous with art because the idea of beauty changes in time which i was taught in a very straight academic school at 13 when learning about renaissance art. Truth likewise – what does it mean? When messages from Velazquez need to be explained about the Spanish Royal family in what sense is it true? Worse still his criticisms could be levelled at paintings within the canon. What is Guernica but political identity art? Courbet’ s scenes of farm life? Seurat’s bathers or Manet’s bar staff ? Tge clue is un the publishers wgo are Biteback publishing owned by Michael Ashcroft to put forward his conservative political identity notably his personal hatred of David Cameron. As has been true throughout history Sohrab is another willing tool of the rich and powerful so he can eat the crumbs of their table