The Jump Blog

I’m writing this in response to an Op/Ed up (for more than a few days now –give me a break, I’m just getting back on the bike) over at The Storytellers Blog entitled Why Are Most Artists Liberal?.

Go ahead and click out, I’ll wait.

Back? Good.

Now, I have no bone to pick with author Guy Hasson’s contention that most creatives (I am going to use that term as opposed to “artist” as it is more inclusive) are Liberals –they inarguably are. Where I have to disagree with Mr. Hasson is in his assertion that being a Liberal is a pre-requisite for the artist, because only liberal ideology allows one the necessary objectivity required to tell a good story (that is, one with artistic merit).

Horse shit.

First some baseline definitions and ground rules. Not all storytellers are artists, something I think Mr. Hasson and I might agree on. Louis L’Amour wrote a ripping good oat opera, but art it ain’t. One might make the argument that Toby Keith has told some compelling stories via his music (I would disagree), but ham-handed and hackneyed emotional appeals aren’t art (again, I think Mr. Hasson and I might be in agreement on this score –I’m just simply laying down the groundwork here so everyone knows where I am coming from). Art requires something more: it requires truth, honesty, sincerity, skillful construction, and understanding. The collective management teams of the Pop-Tart Brigades may have skillfully constructed a commercially succesful image for their clients, but as that image is based on insincerity (The Pussycat Dolls don’t really want to hump you –sorry fellas), it isn’t art, it’s base commerce.

We all in agreement there? Good.

Next point of order, my bona fide’s as a conservative artist and storyteller.

I’m a visual and graphic artist. Here are a couple things I did last week:

I’m a working musician and songwriter who works almost exclusively with Roots music forms to create lyrically based, story-driven songs. Here’s my website for that:
www.brian-holbrook.com

I write from the point of view of abused women, geriatric pensioners, sexually victimized young girls, addicts, drunks, black Katrina victims, etc… and I like to think that my work does rise to level of art, lyrically speaking. My favorite authors and poets (from whom I draw no small amount of inspiration) would be recognized and accepted as artists in any discussion of the subject.

So, hopefully, we have established that I am at least familiar enough with the subject to address it.

Let’s get started, shall we?

One assumes that if a product was good enough, it would be published or produced nonetheless. Disney can attest to it, since even its Jewish executives supported Mel Gibson after his anti-Semitic ‘incident’, because they had to sell Apocalypto.

In fact, hundreds of conservative non-fiction books are being published today, some of which become best-sellers. So if there was a lot of really great conservative fiction, some percentage of it would have found its way to publication.

And yet it hasn’t.

It’s almost as if you have to be a liberal to be a good artist. But that can’t be true, can it?

Well, it can. And it is. Here’s why.

See, here we are, not even into the meat of your premise and you’ve committed a logical error that, unfortunately, taints the entirety of your assertion. You see, you draw an illogical conclusion that because most fiction is produced by liberals only liberals can write fiction. Based on the evidence would it not be just as fair to state that liberals tend to be the largest consumers of liberal literary fiction and that no market exists for conservative literary fiction?

To state that conservatives are incapable of it overlooks the likes of David Mamet, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Tom Wolfe.

Stories, by their nature, have some sort of conflict. Otherwise, they would be boring. Conflict, by its nature, has at least two sides. To be able to write these two sides well, the artist has to understand, deep inside, that both sides are equally human. The more he portrays the other side as human, the better the story. The less human the other side, the more flawed the story.

So, it is your contention that only liberals have the ability to be objective? Only the liberal writer possesses the ability to remove themselves from the process and creative believable multi-dimensional characters? Again, David Mamet springs to mind, as does Shelby Foote (who , though he was a Democrat, was a decidedly conservative one).

That puts artists on the humanistic side of most ideological battles throughout history: against racism (the other race is people, too), against slavery (slaves are people, too), for feminism (women are people, too), for the rights of children (children think and feel just like adults), against child labor, for gay rights (homosexuals are just as human), for the downtrodden, for the poor (they are just like us, only poor), against most wars (because the other side bleeds red, too, and mourns with the same pain), and against most religions (in particular, against the religions that claim its followers are ‘the chosen’ and those who are not will not get into heaven and/or are inferior in some way).

You do realize that you are saying that all conservatives are racist, pro-slavery, misogynistic, child-exploiting, homophobic, elitist, warmongering, zealots, don’t you? It seems that in your failure to accept the fact that others on the opposite side of the idealogical aisle as yourself hold convictions that, while the opposite of yours, are just as truly held, and just as well intentioned that you yourself have committed the sin that you accuse conservatives of: you fail to see the point of view of the other side.

In conclusion, then, you don’t have to be a liberal to be a good storyteller. But the better your story is, the more of a liberal you are. (Unfortunately for aspiring writers, that does not work the other way round: you cannot aspire to be liberal and hope that will make you a better artist.)

So, yes, most good artists are liberal. And it is not a coincidence.

This is nonsense. Liberals have not cornered the market on objectivity and humanity, but they do seem much more willing to put their political opinions into the morals of their stories. As a conservative I draw a hard and fast line between my art and my political views. The two simply have nothing to do with one another in my world. I am not an activist. I have no desire to convert or evangelize, I have no compunction to change the world. I simply don’t want to connect with people on that level. I want to connect with people on a personal, human level, and on that level there is no politics. So does that preclude me from being an artist or a conservative? Neither.

It is a matter of compartmentalization. Take, for instance, gay rights. It is not a monolithic issue that can only be accepted a single way by a single individual. If you ask me how I feel about gay rights then my answer would be, “On what level?” There is the religious level, the political level, the social level, the personal level, and the artistic level –all of which will trigger different and sometimes conflicting responses.

On the religious level I oppose homosexuality as sin while recognizing that heterosexual fornication, adultery, drunkenness, lust, and pride are identified as co-equal sins in the Bible, and by the letter of the law I am guilty of them all save homosexuality. I won’t go chunking any stones any time soon.

On the political level I believe it to be a states rights issue and believe that any state that wants to legalize gay marriage and can generate the votes to do so has that right and privilege. Conversely states that do not shouldn’t be forced by any government to accept and condone that which its citizens oppose.

On a social level I can see how gays feel oppressed and marginalized and am sympathetic to their desire to be accepted as fully functioning members of the society. After all, no one is telling the Internet porn junkie, the adulterer, the strip club regular, or the serial womanizer that they can’t teach at Henry Harrison High. The exception should be drawn at sub-social structures that are, in fact, societies unto themselves and which require resocialization for all members. I am thinking here of the military, religious, and fraternal organizations that should not be forced to change their societies to meet the desires of prospective members who do not wish to conform to that society.

On a personal level I couldn’t care less how one chooses to express their sexuality as long as it is between consenting adults.

On an artistic level, were I to write in the voice of a gay character, then it is my obligation to remove all of the above from my consideration and to express the humanity of the character so that the reader inhabits that character.

It is precisely this nuanced interpretation that conservative authors tend to excel at, and for this reason they often are not labled as such. The liberal author more often acts in the role of the activist with a message and an agenda, pushing boundaries and fighting for change, whereas conservatives are more likely to write of things “as they are”, which can be more poignant.

So, no, one doesn’t have to be liberal to be an artist, one merely has to be human.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS