tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post947323403250540217..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Mel Gibson and Lars von TrierUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66100992696789761692012-06-15T18:22:58.481-07:002012-06-15T18:22:58.481-07:00Michelangelo was an oddball
An awful lot of ari...<i>Michelangelo was an oddball</i> <br /><br /><br />An awful lot of aristocrats were (and still are) oddballs. <br /><br />You seem to be under the impression that "right" = "staid, buttoned down, boring" while "left" = "eccentric, oddball, life-of-the-party".<br /><br />Using your definition, Winston Churchill was a lefty and Karl Marx was not.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916566252965436234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44713811934660178872012-06-15T18:17:43.910-07:002012-06-15T18:17:43.910-07:00But with the rise of late modernism, leftists were...<i>But with the rise of late modernism, leftists were clearly more involved in the making of new culture. And after WWII, the left got a huge boost.</i> <br /><br /><br />Yeah? That is the original argument which you took exception to.<br /><br /><br /><i>Personally, I don't think we can use 'left' and 'right' when it comes to much of what happened in the past.</i> <br /><br /><br />"I don't think we can say" is the standard lefty excuse when the data does not support them.<br /><br />Art used to be a very elitist enterprise. To the extent that the art in question is any good, artists today are still an elitist bunch. Up until very recently the elite were largely defined by church, throne, and military, none of whom were "left" in any sense. Tennyson did not write poems condemning the Crimean War as an immoral and illegal enterprise. Peter Paul Rubens did not do paintings designed to show the exploitation of the common serf at the hands of the wealthy land-owners. And so on.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916566252965436234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58796363714196051842012-06-15T13:57:00.563-07:002012-06-15T13:57:00.563-07:00"They were not "the oddball bohemians of..."They were not "the oddball bohemians of their time", and if they sometimes had creative differences with their patrons, it was not because they wanted to create such works of art as "Piss Christ"."<br /><br />Michelangelo was an oddball as played by Heston in AGONY AND THE ECSTASY. <br /><br />"Getting in hot water for being a follower of Savonarola hardly marks a person out as a leftist."<br /><br />His Savonarola was a turning away from his wilder, bohemian, paganism. <br />Kerouac later became a faithful Catholic--albeit more faithful to drink to the end--, but his most important work, ON THE ROAD, was as a maverick bohemian. <br /><br />"If you're going to define "the left" to encompass the rich, the French aristocracy, businessmen, religious people, scientists, and all great artists, then sure, your case is watertight. By your definition "the left" has created all great art, and all everything of worth in the world."<br /><br />Personally, I don't think we can use 'left' and 'right' when it comes to much of what happened in the past. My point is it's foolish to say what was left and what was right in the past, at least prior to rise of modernism. If one say past artists were on the 'right', one can easily make a case for the 'left'. <br /><br /> But with the rise of late modernism, leftists were clearly more involved in the making of new culture. And after WWII, the left got a huge boost.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-27052907749039199432012-06-15T11:41:43.787-07:002012-06-15T11:41:43.787-07:00(Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian) were...<i>(Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian) were the oddball bohemians of their time, often at creative odds with their patrons.</i> <br /><br /><br />They were not "the oddball bohemians of their time", and if they sometimes had creative differences with their patrons, it was not because they wanted to create such works of art as "Piss Christ".<br /><br /><br /><i>And often gay.</i> <br /><br /><br />No! Because homosexual people were never on the right, or something.<br /><br /><br /><i>Botticelli, the greatest imo, got in hot water lots of time.</i> <br /><br />Getting in hot water for being a follower of Savonarola hardly marks a person out as a leftist.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>And many of the rich and well educated tended to be relatively 'progressive', funding science, enterprise, and ideas that upset the order. French revolutionaries were rich men. </i> <br /> <br /><br />If you're going to define "the left" to encompass the rich, the French aristocracy, businessmen, religious people, scientists, and all great artists, then sure, your case is watertight. By your definition "the left" has created all great art, and all <i>everything</i> of worth in the world.<br /><br />Of course outside the fever swamps of the left, nobody defines "the left" in that fashion.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00916566252965436234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-65387770042952335492012-06-14T21:02:51.995-07:002012-06-14T21:02:51.995-07:00Any depiction of unusual strength in spirit or bod...Any depiction of unusual strength in spirit or body, and any mature consideration of the tragic side of existence, are now classed with "Nazism," "Fascism," and - by another step in misthinking - with everything bad, such as stupidity or brutality.<br /><br />So that anything loud and dumb and brutal is "fascist" along with anything depicting the above-average in a reverential (or even respectful) manner.<br /><br />This is why not only certain dumb war movies and the like are "fascist," but also whites are "fascist," smart people are "fascist," civilization is "fascist," manners are "fascist," self-control is "fascist," sexual continence is "fascist," physical culture is "fascist," the middle class is "fascist," etc.<br /><br />If almost everything good and almost everything bad can be squeezed into the word "fascist," what meaning does it have, other than "what some MacSontag doesn't like"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77537991732873830642012-06-14T16:01:44.503-07:002012-06-14T16:01:44.503-07:00"Actually, it's hard to remember any arti..."Actually, it's hard to remember any artists at any time in history doing anything for very long that wasn't subsidized by the rich and/or the powerful."<br /><br /> Perhaps because it's hard to recall things of which you're ignorant, Steve.Ron Woonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19453882243671160312012-06-14T14:58:06.691-07:002012-06-14T14:58:06.691-07:00"Today, Wagner, Nietzsche, and Strauss are al...<i>"Today, Wagner, Nietzsche, and Strauss are all seen as tainted quasi-Nazis.<br /><br />Nietzsche is actually very big on the left.<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/books/review/american-nietzsche-by-jennifer-ratner-rosenhagen-book-review.html?pagewanted=all<br /><br />6/13/12 11:53 PM </i><br /><br />The whole centerpiece of Allan Boom's <i>The Closing of the American Mind</i> was called "The Nietzschization of the Left and Vice Versa".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-74776702323259162872012-06-14T14:06:38.693-07:002012-06-14T14:06:38.693-07:00That confused me too. I assume he meant Verhoeven ...<i>That confused me too. I assume he meant Verhoeven was inspired by the WWII propaganda films he *watched*.</i><br /><br />Yeah, I figured that's what happened, although there actually was a German film director named Paul Verhoeven a generation earlier, so I wondered if Steve was making some weak joke or had gotten the two confused.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18767945766120853582012-06-14T13:31:00.074-07:002012-06-14T13:31:00.074-07:00"Um, the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven wasn&#..."Um, the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven wasn't making films during WWII. (He was born in 1938.)"<br /><br />That confused me too. I assume he meant Verhoeven was inspired by the WWII propaganda films he *watched*.Rain Andnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-63366605246821082112012-06-14T05:37:23.760-07:002012-06-14T05:37:23.760-07:00If a socialist regime were to take over the US, mo...<i>If a socialist regime were to take over the US, most artists will stay even if the regime happens to be hostile to artists. <b>But if a fascist regime comes to power and offers sweet deals to artists, many will freely choose to leave or refuse to do work</b></i> <br /><br />What do you call a government which nationalizes its car industries and its "green" energy industries and its loan industries etc etc etc?<br /><br />Is that not "fascism"?<br /><br />Or is it "socialism" because the czars are named Steve MacRattner and George MacKaiser and Lloyd MacBlankfein?<br /><br />***************<br />***************<br />***************<br /><br /><i>THE late Stanley Kubrick once remarked that "Hitler was right about almost everything," and insisted that any trace of Scots-Irish-ness be expunged from the "Eyes Wide Shut" script that author Frederic Raphael was writing for him."</i> <br /><br />Then why did Sydney MacPollack play such a prominent role in the film?<br /><br />***************<br />***************<br />***************<br /><br /><i>Actually, it's hard to remember any artists at any time in history doing anything for very long that wasn't subsidized by the rich and/or the powerful.</i> <br /><br />Which gets back to the point above - if we approve of the rich people doing the funding, then the artists are "leftists", but if we disapprove of the rich people doing the funding, then the artists are evil cigarette-smoking big-gulp-drinking baby-murdering "fascists"?!?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83781085415333421752012-06-14T01:44:40.576-07:002012-06-14T01:44:40.576-07:00anon:
"Nazism was all about the god-like supe...anon:<br />"Nazism was all about the god-like super-race and superman. It made for great comicbookish posters but wasn't very interesting as story..."<br /><br />Yet modern Hollywood in the Michael Bay era seems to be all about the super-race and superman; Hollywood blockbusters are more Nazi than the Nazis. I think these are dumb, uninteresting movies, but they seem to be successful.Simon in Londonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-772908019836143572012-06-14T00:25:06.684-07:002012-06-14T00:25:06.684-07:00The funny thing about the Dutchman Verhoeven is th...<i>The funny thing about the Dutchman Verhoeven is that he has admitted a few times in interviews that his fundamental cinematic inspirations were the Nazi propaganda films he made in WWII.</i><br /><br />Um, the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven wasn't making films during WWII. (He was born in 1938.) Are you confusing him with an obscure German film director of the same name (but no relation), who did make Nazi propaganda films in WWII? Or are you making a joke? You bring out the autism in me, Steve.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6882576796710379532012-06-13T23:54:46.506-07:002012-06-13T23:54:46.506-07:00http://faculty.smcm.edu/mstaber/niet6rev.htmhttp://faculty.smcm.edu/mstaber/niet6rev.htmAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33888869492825106732012-06-13T23:53:36.497-07:002012-06-13T23:53:36.497-07:00"Today, Wagner, Nietzsche, and Strauss are al..."Today, Wagner, Nietzsche, and Strauss are all seen as tainted quasi-Nazis.<br /><br />Nietzsche is actually very big on the left.<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/books/review/american-nietzsche-by-jennifer-ratner-rosenhagen-book-review.html?pagewanted=allAndrea Ostrov Letaniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13478113002321077670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8534955068048499062012-06-13T23:24:11.799-07:002012-06-13T23:24:11.799-07:00Why is rainbow gay? Who said so? I thought the gay...Why is rainbow gay? Who said so? I thought the gay color was pink. Now they wanna hog the entire spectrum?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80005556608916452692012-06-13T23:07:42.021-07:002012-06-13T23:07:42.021-07:00"Oh, come now, everybody can remember when Le..."Oh, come now, everybody can remember when Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian formed the Artist's Shockworker Collective and boycotted the Powers that Be."<br /><br />They were the oddball bohemians of their time, often at creative odds with their patrons. And often gay. Botticelli, the greatest imo, got in hot water lots of time. And many of the rich and well educated tended to be relatively 'progressive', funding science, enterprise, and ideas that upset the order. French revolutionaries were rich men. So were the Founding Fathers. Many Jews have been rich patrons of the arts but on the left.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-10755464152130127842012-06-13T22:32:11.125-07:002012-06-13T22:32:11.125-07:00"Artists as leftists is a very recent phenome..."Artists as leftists is a very recent phenomenon."<br /><br />Oh, come now, everybody can remember when Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian formed the Artist's Shockworker Collective and boycotted the Powers that Be.<br /><br />Actually, it's hard to remember any artists at any time in history doing anything for very long that wasn't subsidized by the rich and/or the powerful.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43878137903641793132012-06-13T22:31:46.748-07:002012-06-13T22:31:46.748-07:00"That makes no sense whatsoever. A work of ar..."That makes no sense whatsoever. A work of art stands apart from the person or people who create it. The Passion Of The Christ could have been directed by Adolf Hitler and that would tell us nothing about the film."<br /><br />In terms of aesthetic worth, that is correct. But in terms of moral intent and meaning, who and why are crucial.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88192708856393593942012-06-13T22:28:24.226-07:002012-06-13T22:28:24.226-07:00"Artists as leftists is a very recent phenome..."Artists as leftists is a very recent phenomenon. It's so pervasive now that everybody takes it as being the natural order of the universe, but in all of European history up to WWII, artists were more on the right."<br /><br />Top artists?<br /><br />Kafka, Picasso, Brecht, Mann, Proust, Orwell, Bunuel, Renoir, Hugo, Zola, Rodin, Rimbaud, Gorky, etc.<br /><br />Of course, there were many more conservative artists in the past: T.S Eliot, Pound, Waugh, etc but even they tended to upset conventionsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9313753186603829952012-06-13T21:48:26.878-07:002012-06-13T21:48:26.878-07:00why was the USSR more interesting culturally? Beca...<i>why was the USSR more interesting culturally? Because most artists were leftists and had some rapport--even if troubled--with a leftist regime whereas most libera/leftistartists would feel ill-at-ease in a right-wing regime.</i> <br /><br /><br />Artists as leftists is a very recent phenomenon. It's so pervasive now that everybody takes it as being the natural order of the universe, but in all of European history up to WWII, artists were more on the right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-65945726225753822142012-06-13T21:41:44.553-07:002012-06-13T21:41:44.553-07:00then Gibson acted the fool and gave credence to Je...<i>then Gibson acted the fool and gave credence to Jews who condemned Passion</i> <br /><br /><br />That makes no sense whatsoever. A work of art stands apart from the person or people who create it. The Passion Of The Christ could have been directed by Adolf Hitler and that would tell us nothing about the film.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39825785778009914392012-06-13T21:27:35.295-07:002012-06-13T21:27:35.295-07:00"The Passion of the Christ caused massive con..."The Passion of the Christ caused massive controversy before it even came out in early 2004. Gibson did not make the remark about jews and wars until July 2006 during the Israeli assault on Lebanon."<br /><br />I know but it was a huge success, and many critics defended it. Jews who hated it seemed like paranoid sourpusses seeing 'antisemites' everywhere... but then Gibson acted the fool and gave credence to Jews who condemned Passion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30073017463186491292012-06-13T21:05:04.738-07:002012-06-13T21:05:04.738-07:00Even Mel Gibson would have gotten away with PASSIO...<i>Even Mel Gibson would have gotten away with PASSION if he didn't open his mouth about 'all Jews start wars'</i><br /><br />The <i>Passion of the Christ</i> caused massive controversy before it even came out in early 2004. Gibson did not make the remark about jews and wars until July 2006 during the Israeli assault on Lebanon.Matranoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90680008593433073912012-06-13T19:15:19.087-07:002012-06-13T19:15:19.087-07:00Btw, if Nazis were evil for their banning of free ...Btw, if Nazis were evil for their banning of free speech, how does it help to pull a gestapo on free thinkers and talkers?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-28498696614196428922012-06-13T19:14:27.189-07:002012-06-13T19:14:27.189-07:00"Maybe his offense was being tasteless and gr..."Maybe his offense was being tasteless and gratuitously provocative?"<br /><br />Really? The same people who dump on Trier laugh like crazy at PRODUCERS. Springtime for Hitler and Germany...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com