A thousand years ago in Cairo, surrounded by ancient pyramids and the ghosts of lost civilizations, the great Arab scientist Alhazen conducted a peculiar optical experiment. Building on observations made by Aristotle thirteen centuries earlier, he first constructed a room, one completely shuttered from the light of the outside world, as dark as death. He then cleverly lit the space around the room with an array of bright lamps. Finally, he punched a single pinhole into one wall, just large enough to let a small beam of lamplight bleed in.

Alhazen confirmed that if you entered such a room, and sat in the darkness until your eyes had ample time to adjust, and then followed the beam of light emanating from the pinhole to where it splashed onto the wall opposite, you would be privy to an amazing, almost magical sight. As you watched, shapes and colors would begin to coalesce. Familiar forms would appear. And eventually, when your eyes had acclimated enough, you would be staring at nothing less than an exact upside-down projection of the outside world, perfect in every detail. Alhazen marveled at this, and gave the experiment an evocative name: Al-Bayt al-Muthlim, translated by later scribes into Latin as camera obscura — The Veiled Chamber.

In a sense, it was the very first movie theater.

A millennium after Alhazen, the world now brims with Veiled Chambers — tricked-out IMAX theaters with stadium seating, careworn revival houses, happily unkempt family rooms. Each plunges us into a darkling twilight that induces a spectacular hypnosis. Think about it: we’ve seen the likes of Kevin Costner, Meryl Streep, or Denzel Washington in countless films, we’ve watched them give interviews on television, we’ve read about them in tabloid exposés. We know, consciously, that they are actors. Fakes. Pretenders. And yet no sooner does the darkness engulf us than our logical, skeptical, twenty-first century minds shut down, allowing them to become a Civil War soldier, or a queen, or a mafia kingpin, or a globetrotting archaeologist. Over the course of two hours they pretend to fall in love, to risk their lives, to make and lose fortunes, to die. And somehow, through it all, we believe. We laugh, gasp, scream. We weep, with tears of genuine grief streaming down our faces. Only when cast back into the daylight does this madness pass, leaving only a bittersweet nostalgia as we realize that all the monsters and magic and galaxies far, far away were just so much hocus-pocus.

That, Dear Reader, is the essence of cinema (from the Greek kinēma — “motion”), and no other art form is as capable of such focused, vibrant, transformative power.

The power of cinema, I humbly propose, is at its peak when harnessed to the task of refreshing and strengthening our civilizational confidence — our deepest loves, our noblest aspirations, our cherished traditions, the beauty and poetry and truth of our language and songs, our regenerative myths, our moral certitudes, our martial might. Above all, the best films revel in shared humanity — that realm of pure feeling that soars far above politics, religion, race, age and gender, allowing us to commune with “the better angels of our nature.” By necessity, civilizations establish notions of perfection, of heroism, of worthy sacrifice, of right. To thrive, they must continually enforce and perpetuate these tenets through the medium of culture. The boundaries imposed by a strong culture act not as the walls of a prison but as the battlements of a fortress. Decorum, manners, styles of dress, the developed forms and structure of art — these serve the same purpose in a healthy civilization as the deadbolt on the front door of a house or the fence surrounding a backyard. They provide comfort, surety, self-possession. As such, they are an absolute good.

Alas, civilizations are also home to damaged and deranged people, twisted with bitterness and hate, who seek to become purveyors of what can only be described as cultural leprosy. Like any virus, they thrive wherever a civilization has succumbed to weakness, confusion, lawlessness, decadence, doubt. Incapable of real artistry, they resort to cruel acts of desecration and graffiti. A crucifix dipped in urine. A Madonna covered in feces. Songs that delight in scatology, rape, murder, fear, perversion. Movies that provide no sense of composition, sequence, or movement. Paintings that defy explanation or even description. Poetry bereft of form, meter, rhyme, or import. Criticism that warps meaning, denies standards, and condemns beauty. Left free to attack and spread, all of these things carve grievous wounds into a culture, breaking down the battlements of a civilization brick by brick. They are agents of anti-humanity, and their weapons are cancer, disease, and dissolution. While they can never be wholly eradicated, a healthy culture will fight these malevolent usurpations with the assured ruthlessness of a gardener ridding a prized flowerbed of poisonous weeds.

Ask yourself: what is the current state of our civilization? Of our culture? Are we awash in civilizational confidence? Or is our fortress crumbling and graffiti-littered and strangled by an ocean of weeds? If we set ourselves to pulling the weeds, what forgotten gardens might reveal themselves? What lost temples or treasures might be found? What senses of pride, glory, and strength might be enjoyed again? Most important of all, given the mission statement of this website: what part might cinema — that most powerful and hypnotic of art forms — play in rebuilding our cultural fortress and reestablishing a healthy and humane civilization?

In the words of Andrew Breitbart’s inaugural editorial here on this site: “Something has gone drastically wrong. . . Hollywood should return to its patriotic roots. . . [Until conservatives] recognize that (pop) culture is the big prize and that politics is secondary, there will be no victory in this important battle. . . We need to discover that spirit again.” The purpose of this blog series, For Conservative Movie Lovers, is to seek out those roots and that spirit, to make them relevant once again to modern conservative filmgoers, and to express a great many things regarding film and conservatism that I care about deeply — lonely, forgotten things that get precious little hearing in today’s high-octane, news-driven cultural arena, but which in the end constitute our only real protection against the darkness of cultural debasement and decay.

By way of achieving these goals, I have carefully selected a different film to represent each year from 1915-2009. Every Saturday here at Big Hollywood, my time and your interest permitting, I will introduce these pictures to you via rich, multimedia-enhanced essays. You will learn about the men and women who made each movie, and discover a cavalcade of actors destined to bring you countless hours of delight. You will learn something about cinematography, film music, costume design, dance choreography, and much else, becoming conversant with the names and careers of revered geniuses in each discipline. You will gain some knowledge of French cinema, German cinema, Hong Kong cinema. You will learn about what makes good criticism good, bad criticism bad, and why films do indeed need critics. Again and again you will be brought face-to-face with the old studio system, the facts and myths surrounding the “Golden Age” of American cinema, the infamous blacklists (both past and present), and many other things of high interest. All of this will be addressed from a conservative perspective and made relevant to the cultural battles of today.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to follow along with each group of posts, then seek out the movie in question and watch it. And by that, I mean really watch it, with all of the things you have learned informing and enriching the viewing. If you have any pertinent observations or are otherwise so inclined, you can light up the COMMENTS section of each post with additional discussion and argument. I’ll also provide a vast assortment of links for further reading and viewing, so that if a particular director, genre, actor, or thematic idea seizes your imagination, you can travel down those side-paths as far as you like. Think of For Conservative Movie Lovers as a graduate course in film (taught by a conservative, wonder of wonders!) right here at Big Hollywood U.

My hope is that, by the end of this long march through cinematic history, I will have armed despairing conservative readers with the certitude that they are far from defeated in this sphere, that they are in fact the heirs to an immense store of cultural wealth. If a Hollywood conservative uses something they find here in their next film or performance, if someone at home passes a telling anecdote or story onto their kids, if people leave this series feeling inoculated against those who yearn to destroy them and everything they hold dear, and if they achieve a sublime elation regarding their history, heritage, and especially their cinema, I will consider the effort as time well spent.

For in the end cinema is, by its very nature, an intensely conservative medium. Look at the movies from any decade of the last century, and you’ll get an education in how people looked, spoke, dressed and thought. No amount of nanny-state whining can take the cigarettes out of their mouths, steal the oh-so-offensive words from their lips, or dissolve their humanity in the acid-bath of nihilism. They and the times in which they lived are conserved, free from fleeting and ever-changing notions of political correctness and censorship. This is good to see, because it preserves truth, in a form that glitters and glows like only the very best art can, as beacons of light and hope.

I’ll leave you for now with a quotation from the late critic and filmmaker Lindsay Anderson, whose magnificent treatise About John Ford bears heavily on the first film to go under our microscope, and indeed remains the most penetrating and moving defense of conservatism in cinema I’ve ever read. Attempting to explain the natural appeal of old movies, he wrote many decades ago that:

With all the brilliance, the intelligence and sophistication that goes into filmmaking today, with all the multiplicity of elaborate and costly techniques, there is still this lack of feeling, of emotional exposure and commitment. Which is one reason why, again and again, we return in our dissatisfaction (not just with nostalgia) to the great films of the past in which we can still feel “the freshness of the early world,” and from which we can still receive refreshment.

The freshness of the early world (a phrase originally penned by the poet Matthew Arnold, while describing the appeal of Wordsworth upon the latter’s death in 1850). I like it. Let us begin, then, to refresh ourselves at the well of great cinema by meditating on some great films, with an especial focus on their makers and their making.

Coming tomorrow, For Conservative Movie Lovers begins its journey into The Veiled Chamber with our first film.

Given that the culture-dividing issues, thanks to Obama, are more obvious than Joan Rivers’ last lip implants, it is mind-boggling to me that many ministers are mute or side with parties, policies and principles that are antithetical to the Judeo-Christian worldview. I don’t know if you got this memo in seminary but pastors are not only supposed to salvage souls but also build the good society. 

In some kind of ascending order, it seems to me there are 10 reasons why pastors and priests avoid political and intense cultural issues and thus aid and abet evil: 

1. Fear of Man: If you purport to be a man of God then your regard for God and His opinion must trump the trepidation of the creature God created from spit and mud. Come on, man of God, don’t fear the crowd . . . we’re peons with cell phones who’ll shoot Botox into our foreheads. We’re weird and fickle weather vanes of what’s en vogue. You’ve got to lead us. Therefore, move into the Moses mode and command us to be and do what is holy, just and good. The grinning, mild, subtle Oprah approach doesn’t seem to be stemming the current flood of cultural filth. 

2. Ignorance: Most people are not bold in areas in which they are ignorant . . . always excepting Janeane Garofalo, of course. I know keeping up with all the pressing political issues is maddening, but that’s life, brother, and if you want to be a voice in society and not just an echo, you have got to be in the know. Staying briefed is par for the course for the hardy world changer. 

3. Division: Y’know, I hate the current non-essential divisions in the church as much as the next acerbic Christian columnist. Squabbling over the color of the carpet, who’ll play the organ next Sunday or who is the Beast of Revelation, is stupidity squared. That being said, there’s a time and place for a holy throw-down and an ecclesiastical split from political policies and parties.  For a minister to seek unity with secularists when they are trashing and rewriting Scripture with impunity is to side with vice and to allow darkness to succeed. 

4. Last Days Madness: Many ministers do not get involved in political issues because they believe that “it simply doesn’t matter” since “the end has come.” These defeatists believe that any change in the jet stream, war, earthquakes, a warming globe, the success of a corrupt politician—or even a new Shakira video—are “proof” that God is getting really, really ticked off and that His only recourse is to have Christ physically return and kick some major butt.  Attempting to right culture is, in the defeatists’ eyes, equivalent to polishing brass on a sinking ship; therefore, they are content to simply pass out gospel tracts, tramp from Christian rock concert to Christian rock concert, eat fatty foods and stare at Christian TV. 

5. Sloth: Classically defined, sloth is lethargy stemming from a sense of hopelessness. Viewing our nation and the world as an irreparable disaster, where our exhortations, prayers, votes and labors will not produce any temporal fruit, leaves one with all the fervor of a normal guy who’s forced to French kiss his sister. If you’re wondering why your flock is so apathetic, Pastor Eeyore, ask yourself if you have stolen the earthly hope that their valiant efforts can actually prevail in time and not just in eternity. 

6. They don’t want to lose their tax-exempt status: Many pastors, priests and parishioners have been cowed into inactivity by the threatened loss of their tax-exempt status if they say anything remotely political. This can make pastors who don’t, or won’t, get good legal advice about as politically active as Howard Hughes was during the flu season.   

7. They bathe in paltry pietism: Pastors avoid politics because such concerns are “unspiritual,” and their focus is on the “spirit world.” Yes, to such imbalanced ministers, political affairs are seen as “temporal and carnal,” and since they trade in the “eternal and spiritual,” such “worldly” issues get nada. 

This bunch is primarily into heavenly emotions and personal Bible study, and they stay safely tucked away from society and its complicated issues. How sweet. They forget that they are commanded to be seriously engaged with our culture or fall into the worthless manure category Christ warned them of (Mt. 5.13). Snap. 

8. They have bought into the Taliban comparison: Pastors have muffled their political/cultural voices because they fear being lumped in with Islam by the politically-correct thought police. The correlation made between Christians’ non-violent attempts at policy persuasion and the Taliban’s kill-you-in-your-sleep campaigns is nothing more than pure, uncut crapola. 

9. They can’t say “no” to minutiae: Some ministers can’t get involved in studying or speaking out regarding pressing issues simply because of the ten tons of junk they are forced to field within their congregations. Spending time wet nursing 30-year-olds without a life and being bogged down in committee meetings over which shade of pink paint should be used for the women’s ministerial wing of their church, ministers are lucky if they get to study the Bible nowadays—much less anything else. 

10. They like the money: The creepy thing about a lot of ministers is their unwillingness to give political or cultural offense when offense is needed, simply because taking a biblical stand on a political issue might cost them their mega-church, which means their seven homes, their Bentley and their private jet. Oh well, what do you expect? Christ had His Judas, and evangelicalism has its money loving hookers. 

If the ministers within the good old US of A would crucify their fear of man, get solidly briefed regarding the chief political issues, not sweat necessary division, not get caught up in last days madness, maintain their hope for tomorrow, understand their liberties under God and our Constitution, not become so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good, focus on the majors and blow off bowing to cash instead of convictions, then maybe . . . just maybe . . . we will see their righteous influence cause our nation to take the needed sharp turn away from the secularist progressives’ speedily approaching putrid pit.

American Icon: “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.”

Vast, determined, highly successful forces and superior technologies dominated the theaters of WWII prior to America’s entry into the conflict after Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The Manhattan Project began in August of 1942, a couple of months before General George Patton invaded North Africa.  Character, strategy, and tactics played as large a role in dealing with Panzer and Tiger tanks as did Patton’s Shermans, of course, because firepower alone was insufficient in itself.  But the defeat of one totalitarian threat by 1945 was not apt to make much difference in taking down another in a place where school children were being trained to fight to the death for the Empire— with sharpened sticks.  The Manhattan Project, through funding, research, experimentation, design, development and production, met the challenge and made the difference.

The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Andy Warhol’s 17th birthday.

“Progressive” revisionist history would have it that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were atrocities which rank with the Holocaust.  An accepted general estimate of the death toll for both cities is about two hundred thousand, as compared to projected casualties for both sides of the conflict resulting from an invasion of Japan, which number, conservatively, in the millions.  Do the math.  Then again, a prolonged invasion with Stalin’s help costing more lives and helping establish Soviet hegemony in the region might have been nice, by progressive standards, but American victory prevented that.

Victory in the cultural theater of the war of ideas is the contemporary problem, however, and what is commonly called the “elite media” is the dominant, overwhelming force.  In contrast, for example, talk radio’s audience for conservative and independent ideas forms the choir who hears the sermons and appreciates the alternative viewpoints to the left-leaning MSM.  This is not to minimize talk radio’s importance, by any means, but to point out the need for developing a potential audience throughout the media, and everywhere the purveyors of “progressive pop” have the lion’s share of cultural impact.  Nothing less than a “velvet revolution” brought about by combined intellectual and production efforts on the scale of a Manhattan Project can be expected to effectively change the situation as it now stands.

The Andy Warhol Museum

The potential audience for such change, which includes a lot of kids who have nothing better to do, trends toward merely exercising the right to yell “F***” in a burning theater, the fire having been set by the aforementioned elites.  This audience’s attitudinal aesthetic is effortlessly absorbed, so predominant is it in their everyday experience.  The thought of TARGET stores selling merchandise featuring Ernesto Guevara’s iconic mug is as cool as anything else.  Thus children at the private Black Pine Circle School may delight in their identification with the proletariat and the belief that capitalism will fail by marking the watershed event of their middle school education with the symbol of the hammer and sickle— on their publicly-displayed class mosaic.  We all may be predisposed, if appropriately educated, to enjoy the irony.  Or not.

But minds can change, particularly if there’s something better to do than passively absorb propaganda.  It can be just as much fun to oppose it, even in subtle ways.

As an artist and a capitalist, Andy Warhol had a different take on such communist icons.  One needs no highly refined eye to be struck by ways in which he presents them, for the most part, as graphically superficial or devoid of power.  Perhaps this speaks to his cultural heritage from “the old country”.  Somewhat surprisingly, Warhol, in fact, never created any version of the “Che” portrait, though he did once authenticate a forgery done by a Factory worker— not surprisingly, for all cash involved.

The general attitudinal aesthetic, or as one might have it, the interaction between culture and viewpoint, is critical in a democratic society.  It revolves to a great extent around the prevailing culture.  Right now leftist cultural hegemony holds the whip-hand over political processes and “correctness” generally.  The press, the schools, the intelligentsia, the liberal arts, and pop culture are particularly saturated with progressive, collectivist, elitist thought.  While the USSR rose and fell, and freedom was regained in the Bloc states as mentioned in the previous correspondence, such hegemony has had more than enough time to take hold in the West.

That these wretched, obsolete ideas, elsewhere cast into the trash-heap of history, are worthy of no more than mockery and condemnation is beside the point.  They’re alive, baby.  Why else would people be singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” every time the ball dropped on New Year’s in Times Square for the past four years, and likely forevermore?  Refer back to the link on “irony” above for a concise description of long-term processes, as envisioned by Antonio Gramsci, by which such outdated leftist influences survive.

Interestingly, while the process of saturating the West with Marxist ideologies took nearly a century, the Warhol Factory redefined the cultural landscape in a decade or less.  The progressive left had to surreptitiously fill academia, the press, and the entertainment industry with their supporters over time, since ingrained American values— and the Second Amendment— precluded other, quicker options.  That goal seemingly accomplished, the capitalist economic system can now be overburdened by the demands of special interests to the extent that it collapses.  The nature of the State can then be modified to control the economy and create a more ideal, pacifist, utopian system on the euro-socialist model.  Everyone can be “free” to lower their expectations and be happy with less, and the “world can live as one.”  Especially under the global caliphate likely to come next, if Western Europe is any indicator.

Warhol’s influence on culture, in contrast, might be seen as promoting freedom of expression and personal, autonomous vision in a social context.  As American history often illustrates, one person, acting with the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, can move mountains, especially with the support of other individuals.  Collective, progressive groupthink, however, has currently forced the issue that the idea of human freedom is a matter of dispute between those who favor individual liberty in Jeffersonian terms and those who demand collective “power to the people.”  Is there any doubt that the people in question are of the enlightened progressive left, who will be glad to dictate their demands to all?  Such thinking reduces everyone to second-class citizenship.  It replaces upward mobility with that of a lateral kind, in a totalitarian class system which might just as easily leave an Andrew Warhola few better options than sweeping factory floors in industrial Pittsburgh all his life.

Instead, he built his own Factory.

"Those who talk about individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few years it may be the other way around. Some day everybody will just think what they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that seems to be what is happening." —Andy Warhol, 1963

To recapitulate, Warhol’s was a commercial enterprise; it ignored boundaries between the fine arts and popular culture; its influence on everyday consumer culture, society, and even political resistance to totalitarian ideas was immense, shaping attitudes as well as images.  It is not Warhol’s content, but vision, methods, and means of manipulating media that provide lessons for those who would have an impact on pop culture and attendant attitudes.  Finally, and of critical importance, his was an American vision, based on that enemy of progressive thinking, that “cowboy” mentality of individualism, so despised by collectivists wherever they hold power, yet within the reach of all who are willing to think for themselves.

Collectivist, progressive conformity is the enemy of freedom everywhere.  It is the politically correct “enemy within” democratic governments, and it is exerting force throughout American culture and society.  It can ultimately gain total power— it can happen here— decades after it has been proven unequivocally rotten to the core among free peoples.  Its supporters have more money than they can spend, with billionaires on their side.  Power and money will bring it to pass if nothing is done.

Free and independent thinking is a common, potentially unifying factor among conservatives, libertarians, classical liberals, and large numbers of artists, producers, musicians and consumers of popular culture.  Many of them may not like traditional viewpoints very much, but they still cannot stand the idea of being under the collective thumb of progressives.  There are more than enough such people capable of working together as critical thinkers for the cause of personal liberty, and they have more than enough reasons to do so.  As in the case of Andy Warhol’s Factory, they can have the impact of a Manhattan Project on the culture wars, facilitating a swift and irrevocable change in fundamental ways of seeing and thinking which reflect —and re-assert— American exceptionalism as a standard of excellence the moribund predictability of collectivism will forever fail to approach.

“The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even — if you will — eccentricity. That is, something that can’t be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn’t be happy with.”  —Joseph Brodsky, Nobel Prize Winner and 1991-92 Poet Laureate of the United States.

The contemporary pop cultural idea of a hero is everywhere draped in progressive, underdog guise.  The contrary, rebel image will be that of a new anti-hero, one who refuses to accept the collective will and all its commandments, one who is, in fact, the real underdog of the real underground.

No other ideological self-examination necessary.  It’s a simple question: Do you want to be free, or not? Heed Andrew Breitbart’s warning about pop culture.  Learn from Warhol as well as Reagan.  Create and support what you believe in. Connect.  Let those who control the system compete with the new realities brought into being.  Work from the outside or the inside, but make it happen.  Make it accessible to the greater audience beyond the choir-loft.  Find the money, lots of it, and be smart with it.  The culture war needs a Manhattan Project, and it will not be government-funded.  The future must be redefined.  It can be done.

It has been done before.

—SG

"I adore America and these are some comments on it. My image is a statement of the symbols of the harsh, impersonal products and brash materialistic objects on which America is built today. It is a projection of everything that can be bought and sold, and practical but impermanent symbols that sustain us." —Andy Warhol, 1962

Americans love rebels, even without cause or clue. Enough hip, smart, young people who are tired of having their faces and futures pushed into to sewage of bad ideas, pointless existences, and totalitarian ideologies, with strong support and encouragement, could really make a difference in the world. In contemporary context, they would be true anti-heroes, rebelling against the brave new world of ersatz freedom and the all-powerful fascist state, against crushing conformity and the annihilation of the rights of the individual.

Such things can and do happen.  Some might say they happened in the nineteen-sixties.  And they did—in Czechoslovakia.

Those who may lack familiarity with the recordings of The Velvet Underground have nonetheless heard their style reflected for decades in everything from pop songs to TV commercials.  The V.U. is one of the most influential musical groups of all time.  Their debut album, driven by poet/guitarist Lou Reed, avant-garde musician John Cale, drummer Maureen Tucker and guitarist Sterling Morrison, also featured the voice of Warhol Superstar Nico, actress and fashion model.  Warhol “produced” The Velvet Underground And Nico by paying for the recording, designing the album cover, and lending the band his image.  Released by Verve records in 1967, the music, starkly contrasting the “hippie love” stylings of the day with a primitive, hard edged anti-romantic realism, was almost universally reviled by critics and ignored by the public.  However, as the legend goes, “they only sold a few thousand records, but everyone who bought one started a band.”

The impact of this fusion of art and music should not be underestimated.

In January of 1968, Alexander Dubcek became leader of the Communist party in Czechoslovakia following a period of economic recession that had weakened Marxist power and authority in the country.  It soon became apparent that Dubcek was no typical Soviet-style bureaucrat, but a genuine reformer.  Censorship rules were relaxed.  Plans for policy changes began to take shape.  Czech baby-boomers caught scent of the winds of freedom, and while leftist ideology fueled anti-war, anti-establishment protests in the USA, Czech youth took hold of the idea that the communism they had been born under could be replaced by a liberal democracy.  The “Prague Spring” had begun, Dubcek’s popularity soared, and citizens of Poland and other Soviet bloc states watched closely as events unfolded.  Special elections were scheduled for September—not, by any means, with the goal of overthrowing the State, but to address the impatience of the people with the entrenched bureaucracies of the Party regime and provide the opportunity for some house-cleaning.  Loyal apparatchiks were in the hot seat.

The Kremlin was not pleased.  On August 21, 1968, Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.  At a time affluent American radicals were marching in the streets and on college campuses chanting “Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh, Viet Cong is going to win,” adherents to that same philosophy dealt a crushing blow to aspirations of human freedom, soon occupying a nation where they had been welcomed as liberators at the end of WWII.  Dubcek was allowed to retain figurehead status during the transition, but was forced to resign within the year and finally expelled from the Party.  Any leftover illusions about the nature of communism were dispelled as totalitarian politics made a fully armored, locked-and-loaded comeback.

Wenceslas Square: Beautiful place, fine people. Now picture it crawling with Soviet tanks.

A month later the rock group Plastic People of the Universe was formed in Prague, named for a song by Frank Zappa and heavily inspired by the music of the Velvet Underground, whose dark, dreamlike, and aggressive songs filled the PPU’s set lists.  They also had a mentor and manager, art historian Ivan Jirous, whose role in the development of the group was similar to that of Warhol’s with the Velvets.  The setting, however, provided no tolerance for free expression, and, for refusing to conform with the politically correct standards required of musical artists, “the Plastics” license to perform was revoked in 1970.  Ivan Jirious, member of the Union of Artists, then staged lectures as an art critic, discussing the work of Andy Warhol, followed by a PPU performance of Velvet Underground songs.  When the Party caught on, they continued underground.  They no longer had professional status, so they could not be paid for their shows.  Their hair was too long. Nor would they state their “approval” of military occupation, perform apolitical songs or write the occasionally “requested” anti-American tune.  They were banished from Prague and literally played in secret, sometimes outside remote towns and always at private events.  Meanwhile, the underground grew around them.

They were finally busted in 1976 and brought to trial for, ahem, disturbing the peace, the result of a thousand fans showing up at a clandestine PPU event.  They were sentenced to jail terms of up to a year and a half.

But the revolution was not over, and echoes of the Prague Spring still resonated.  Since the signing of the 1975 Helsinki Accords by US President Gerald Ford, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, and 33 Western and European heads of state, what promised to be a relaxation of Cold War tensions between opposing powers soon evolved into an carefully orchestrated assertion of human rights and liberty within the Soviet Bloc states.  The Accords spoke to equal rights, national sovereignty, and self-determination; dissidents could now lay claim to the right to freedom of speech, if they had the courage.  Among the first to do so was the Czech opposition group Charter 77, named for their guiding document and formed in large part to protest the arrest and imprisonment of the Plastic People.  Among Charter 77 founding members was playwright Vaclav Havel, future President of Czechoslovakia and later, the Czech Republic.

Charter 77 was roundly condemned by the authorities, its manifesto circulated outside the official media via hand-written and machine-duplicated copies, propagandized against by the government, and kept alive for the next dozen years by the efforts of its leaders and supporters, among them artists, writers, and unkempt musicians.  The Plastic People of the Universe managed to record albums, notably Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned, named for writer, philosopher, and Plastics contributor Bondy, whose works were, indeed, banned.  Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and glasnost and perestroika, entered the public vocabulary.  French President Mitterrand visited Prague in 1988 and insisted he be able to meet publicly with Charter 77; Vaclav Havel spoke at the outdoor meeting.  By June of the next year, the original few hundred signatures of the charter had grown to forty thousand.  Soon, Solidarity brought down communism in Poland, Boris Yeltsin was in power in Russia, and by November 9, the demolition of the Berlin Wall was unstoppable.

On November 17th, 1989, the Velvet Revolution began in Prague following a peaceful demonstration the previous day in Bratislava.  Thousands of students took to the streets in non-violent protest where the Communist police confronted them.  Numerous injuries were reported, some serious. Such protests continued, supported by artistic and literary associations, growing in size until their numbers at some gatherings exceeded a half-million.  Alexander Dubcek appeared with Vaclav Havel on a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square to thunderous approval.  Tensions were high as tanks and police sat in Prague, waiting for orders that never came.  A national general strike on November 27 brought work to a halt for two hours everywhere in the country, with seventy-five percent of the population participating.  Within weeks, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia fell to ruin, and through transitional parliamentary processes, which avoided the necessity of immediate elections, democratic government came to the country for the first time in forty years.  On December 28, Dubcek was elected by Parliament as Speaker.  The next day Havel, the rebel playwright, was elected President.  And artists, writers, musicians, poets, actors and intellectuals were now free to pursue their own dreams and visions.

Thus ended the Velvet Revolution.

The Plastic People, who broke up in 1988, reunited in 1997 for the twentieth anniversary of Charter 77.  They continue performing today and have many CDs in their discography.  Their music is most recently featured in Tom Stoppard’s play “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” as are songs by the Velvet Underground.

The Velvet Underground reunited briefly and performed in Prague in 1993.  Of Andy Warhol, Lou Reed has said, “If it wasn’t for Andy, who knows, I might have been driving a truck.”

Lou Reed fan Vaclav Havel once told Reed, “Because of you, I am President.”

President Havel was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2003.

Andrew Warhola was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania  His parents emigrated in the early twentieth century from the village of Mikova, in Austria-Hungary, later known as Czechoslovakia, and now as Slovakia.

The next time someone dismisses or demeans the value and importance of pop culture, the next time you hear a pop artist complain that his or her right to free speech has been violated by the free speech of someone else who does not like what the pop star has to say, the next time you hear some smug leftist lauding another in stereotypically affected, NPR-inflected, dulcet tones for “speaking truth to power,” think on these things.

“He who is late gets punished by life.” —Mikhail Gorbachev

“If conservatives don’t figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death.”  —Andrew Breitbart

Tomorrow: Do The Warhol—Conclusions.

Andy Warhol also spoke that jewel of wisdom, presumably demonstrating a sense of humor in referring to his most famous quote.  Or was it, perhaps, prescient, albeit unintended foreknowledge?  Pity he’s not around to toy with Twitter.

Bridge as visual metaphor, Media as bridge, Pittsburgh.

Looking back at Part 1, we considered a couple of insights into Andy’s Pop Life with the aim of solving some problems surrounding Mr. Breitbart’s incisive assertion that conservatives must come to terms with popular culture, and more, use it to advantage, or fail catastrophically in countering the negative effects of said culture and restoring public confidence in fundamental ideals.  Narcissism, amorality, and an attitude of entitlement, as examples, speak poorly to the future of democracy, while the virtues of valuing others, the practice of ethical discernment and choice, and the elevating ideas of individual liberty and self-reliance are greatly to be desired in the body politic, and traditionally set America apart from typical “statist” governments around the world.  Evidence abounds of the former set of attitudes in common currency as reflected in pop culture; the latter set, highly prized by conservatives, goes sorely wanting for attention in movies, TV, music, etc.

The critical problem is that even people who are taught virtuous ideals and behaviors as kids get practically no reinforcement in the entertainment media for knowing, doing, and desiring what is generally called, in classical terms, The Good, which is determined in the greater part by the transmission of culture, conscience and common sense.  The rewards of such attitudes being as self-evident as the consequences for failure to acquire them, how may they be elevated in the popular culture?

As a visionary master of the Culture of Pop, Warhol’s work invites analysis, and previously the essentials of (1) commercial appeal for profitable outcomes and (2) elimination of distinctions between “highbrow” and “lowbrow” art were mentioned.  If it’s not hip and it does not sell, even to a niche market, it’s pointless and wasteful; since the rarefied sensibilities of cultural elites are of such little consequence outside their ivory towers and cocktail parties, crank up the heavy metal and unleash the moronic slapstick teen comedies, if that’s what it takes to deal with the issues and get the points across, specifically through thematic content.

In our next look at the Warhol canon, consider the obvious:

“It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. Everybody has their own America, and then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can’t see.”  —Andy Warhol

It takes actors and actresses, musicians and filmmakers, media mavens and individuals of charismatic character to thrust themselves and their ideas into the forefront of pop cultural awareness.  Jerks, nitwits, dirtbags and phonies do it every day, as Big Hollywood attests daily, because the template is cut for them and the infrastructure is in place to launch their downhill course.  Warhol, credited with coining the term “Superstar” which he applied—ironically, perhaps—to the loose troupe of lunatics, drag queens, and hangers-on who appeared in his films, parodied Hollywood culture with his Factory’s unstable stable of “sex symbols” and “celebrities,” growing all the while into a true media icon in his own right, ultimately hobnobbing with the genuine idols of stage and screen as a superstar himself.

Filmmaker John Waters followed much the same path, unfazed, as was Warhol, by the lack of blockbuster budgets, and has written and directed numerous crossover and mainstream movies in addition to his early, “underground” flicks.  For underground, read unsavory, demented, filthy, what you will, (and particularly offensive to conservative sensibilities) in both Waters’ and Warhol’s oeuvres.  The point, however, is about realized potential, not content, and about the degree to which anybody can do it.

Content which reflects The Good is the desired outcome in delivering a product for widespread Pop consumption; in its creation, contemporary technology goes a long way to minimize budget obstacles which would have been insurmountable in even the recent past.  “The Blair Witch Project” was made a decade ago for about thirty-five grand.  “Fireproof” was made for around a half-million.  Somewhere between those two budgets there is enough money, in the right hands, to build the beginnings of an alternate Pop universe, as Warhol did in a wide range of media.  Conservative hands, libertarian and independent hands, any like-minded people who want to get together—and get a grip—can, and should, give it a shot.  (Perhaps needless to say, in promotion and manipulation of image, such works should never be promoted as “conservative,” etc., any more than the others are promoted as “progressive.”  Let the critics and the Democratic Media Complex complain about that.)

The more such alternate worlds, the better, because audiences embrace the pleasures of participating, however briefly, in fully realized, well-defined imaginative realities, such as the “Star Wars” films, the “Mad Max” and “Lord of the Rings” trilogies, the “Seinfeld” and “X-Files” TV productions, and, for that matter, the entirety of the imaginary ”country” American society and landscape created by country music artists.  Rock and pop music create similar imaginary worlds, though the music industry as a whole continues in decline.

For a time it was said, “The Rolling Stones are not a band.  They are a way of life.”  That way of life is a continuum in the world of rock and roll, which is blasted all night followed by partying every day, to paraphrase KISS.  For party, read “indulge.”  Anyone can play.  Especially with karaoke or the Guitar Hero game, which provides just the imaginary setting for your rock and roll fantasy.

The degree to which anyone can do it: low-budget media-generated alternate universe by your correspondent. In Warhol's day, such an image would have involved considerable time, expertise and expense. Note subtle product placement of the famous Marshall Amplifier.

Video games—which currently surpass the movie industry in sales—put the players in such worlds, contending with or even surpassing the experiences of “real life” activities.  Individuals create such worlds with shameless self-promoting personal websites, Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites.  You can take high school kids on a field trip to Mount Rushmore or Auschwitz, but if you don’t keep them away from their phones or iPods, they might miss the whole thing.  That is the power of immersive digital media, which now means everyone can play.

Erstwhile film student Jim Morrison may have had no idea of what was coming when he expanded on Marshall McLuhan’s statement:  “Everyone should say, the media is the message, and the message is me,” but that is what is possible now, and that’s the message, in every form imaginable.  Camera held at arm’s length, snapping self.

The fifteen minutes Warhol mentioned have elapsed—everyone is famous.

Now what?  Pop culture demands glamour.  But it needs The Good.  It needs character, courage, and vision.

Tomorrow: Do The Warhol— Part 3 of 4: The Velvet (Underground) Revolution ]]> http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/07/24/do-the-warhol%e2%80%94-part-2-the-culture-of-personality/feed/ 21 http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/07/23/do-the-warhol%e2%80%94-part-1-the-business-of-vision/ http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/07/23/do-the-warhol%e2%80%94-part-1-the-business-of-vision/#comments Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:56:47 +0000 Scott Graves http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?p=179126

Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

A dance craze— like “freaking”— it is not, but rather, a point of view.

Back in January of this year, Andrew Breitbart announced “Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry”.  The announcement is as important as it is radical, assessing the power of Pop Culture in shaping global attitudes and standing athwart contemporary assaults on Western values, yelling, as did William Buckley in 1955, Stop.

Ask yourself: Is a vision of the world that is contrary in almost every way to the prevailing cultural paradigms a difficult “sell”?  Given this is always so, how is such a challenge overcome?

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”  —Andy Warhol.

This from a man whose art, at a time when the prevailing artistic paradigm was the dynamic force of abstract expressionism, cut against the grain entirely with stark, cold, objective representations—with silk-screened wooden boxes virtually indistinguishable from their cardboard counterparts containing Brillo pads, and with paintings of common household items— Campbell’s soup cans, most famously. It is not impossible to shift the paradigm, to change the perspective, to assert new viewpoints in art and capture the minds of the audience for them.

The business of producing “art”— representations of reality in every possible medium— generates billions of dollars and has an enormous impact on culture. In point of fact, those representations reinforce sensibilities in their audiences and participants that not only contribute strongly to the creation of culture, but also to the attitudes that are informed by culture.

What’s the problem with so many contemporary attitudes? They are, among other things, non-judgmental, amoral, narcissistic, belligerent, pathologically emotional and unreasonable, anarchic, obsessed by a sense of entitlement, absurd, destructive, willfully ignorant, nihilistic, devoid of self-knowledge and an understanding of human nature, externally motivated, and as controlling and manipulative as an adherence to leftist ideology, whether conscious or unconscious, can produce.

These leap to mind and reveal nothing more than the tip of the iceberg, saying nothing of the attendant symptoms of such folly in over-excitement, anxiety, ennui, sexual dysfunction, chemical dependency and so forth. The litany can go on and on and on… but to go so far as to question the ‘appropriateness” of such attitudes is, as often as not, viewed as intolerable.  Such benign expressions as affectations of dress or teenage dancing simply must not be “suppressed” or linked to the entertainment industry, since kids have always done it, and they’re just having fun.

Somehow (golly gee-whiz, I wonder how?) these attitudes and viewpoints have come to define convoluted and contradictory ideas— twisted ideas— of freedom and the pursuit of happiness more in line with fear and loathing than with joi de vivre. Are these viable foundations for a life worth living? We can’t ask Lord Byron. We can’t ask Kurt Cobain. Nor can we ask Michael Jackson.

Claims that “it’s only rock and roll” or just a movie, TV program, a video game, etc., are bogus. These popular diversions can and do consume our time and attention, often demanding the total focus of consciousness it takes to be an Indy driver or a member of a Bomb Squad.  Ephemeral, disposable, they may be, but those things that produce such riveting effects cannot be dismissed as mere entertainments, i.e. of little consequence.

Ideas have consequences. Art has consequences. Both worlds create connections in the mind to abstract visions that, again, inform cultures and subcultures collectively and individually. “Everybody here is wearing a uniform, and don’t kid yourselves”, as Frank Zappa, a wise guy, put it. Black tie, rainbow bumper sticker, stacked heels, AC/DC or Che T-shirt, cowboy hat or rose tattoo—what are the connections?  They can be almost infinite in terms of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, ideas, self-images, all broadcast by various media, and it might be reasonable to suggest that not all of them are in one’s best interests.

And if such choices regarding personal appearance reflect only the surface, what lies in the depth of the content of our character? What can be said of our thoughts and emotions? What of our words and actions? Do our deepest inner selves and our reputations among others reflect genuine integrity of character in the combinations and permutations of all these elements of personality?

But we’re smart. We’re highly intelligent. Yet we are like consumers of some exotic hallucinogen so jaded by long experience we say derisively, “That stuff has no effect on me” as we ramble somewhat aimlessly from one personal or cultural/political disaster to another.

“If conservatives don’t figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death”, said Mr. Breitbart six months ago, and rightfully so. What, then, must conservatives, independents, libertarians, classical liberals, free-thinking artists, producers, and, yes, patrons of popular culture who are unswayed by leftist “progressive” dogma figure out?

Andy Warhol assumed a role of detached observer, a recorder, a mirror; an objective overview of Warhol’s work, one not distracted by glitter and trash, brings certain elements of popular culture into clear focus. First among equals is Economics, and it’s no more complicated than the artist’s quote above. Make the money, work hard for it, be smart with it. Good business means making the hard work pay off with financial growth and independence. Diversify. There’s no yawning abyss between art and music, film and literature, magazines and photography, sculpture and performance art, news and gossip and entertainment. They are all mediums through which an artistic vision may be realized. Media is meant to be used, to be manipulated.  Objectively, is most effectively manipulated by the controlled application of CASH.

Invest.  Invest in Ideas.  Artists, (you know who you are, if no one else does) knowing with certainty that there will be no grants from National Endowment for the Arts, get a job, be self-supporting, and invest in yourselves.  There is no such thing as “selling out”; selling out is the whole point. Tongue planted firmly in capitalist cheek, of course, with the hope that conservatives and others will get a handle on pop culture, and soon.

And Fat Cats take note: George Soros has moved so much money in the promotion of the Left in politics and media he could easy change the name of his Open Society Institute to “Global Social Engineering R Us”.  Those who wish to see their values portrayed in artistically viable ways, in a manner conducive to accessibility and commercial success, need to ratchet up their efforts to compete with this monster— or at least put up a viable Resistance.  Put your money where your mouths are, and into the hands of artists and producers who may be “under the radar” but who know (knowing hunger and even the concept of thrift) what to do with the financial resources, and will do it wisely with the intentions of realizing their creative ideas and reaping a profit, thus keeping your patronage.  You might even avoid seeing the wealth you’ve worked so hard for over the years go up the noses of your trust fund beneficiaries.  (Don’t worry about their dance floor behavior, though.  It can’t possibly be an indicator.)

Another important Warholian element for consideration is the idea that there are differences between the culture of the fine arts and the popular culture. Simply put, it does not matter. Warhol effectively erased a great many such distinctions, and if there are to be any, history will be the judge. The intellectual and moral crises challenged by those who rebel against the cultural dominance of the left today are of such existential moment it is foolish to labor over such points.

The real work of redefining the future is what is of profound importance.

NEXT: Do The Warhol— Part 2 of 4: The Cult(ure) of Personality

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind.

Mr. Armstrong is still alive, and, as far as I know, in good health.  But alas, one day, like all of us, Armstrong will shuffle off this mortal coil.  When he does, his passing will no doubt be news – it will lead on all of the broadcast and cable news programs, and decorate the front pages of the daily papers.  He might even for a brief moment replace The Chosen One’s smiling visage on the covers of the etiolated news weeklies which grow thinner in size and substance with each passing week.

But will millions tune in to watch the funeral proceedings from across the globe?  Will thousands descend into the streets in tears, inconsolable at the loss?  Will there be a sports arena filled with famous and non famous mourners, gathered to celebrate his life?  Will models and preachers and sports stars proclaim his heroism?

Doubtful, I should say.

The outpouring over Michael Jackson’s passing has made plain a seething and hideous fact:  We have become a desperately sick people, incapable of distinguishing between achievement and artifice, between histrionics and heroics, between glitter and gold.

I look up at the moon sometimes and am thunderstruck: There are footprints up there.  And an American flag.  Mankind put its first tentative toe in the frigid cosmic waters 40 years ago – that is Neil Armstrong’s legacy.

Michael Jackson’s legacy?  A handful of albums filled with entirely shallow, unoriginal music – and a dance move called the moonwalk.

As millions mourn for Jackson, I mourn for our enfeebled and rapidly fraying republic.

Good day, Class.  Some of you have asked what schedule of course work is required to become a Doctor of Separate Reality.  Please understand that this is not a PhD, though like many degrees of that type in many fields, is utterly pointless and without value in the workplace.  It is only indicative of mastery of numerous absurd and esoteric concepts, most of which are virtually unknown to the entire population of the planet.

Attainment of a Separate Reality sheepskin entails direct experience of consciousness as it existed prior to the imposition of Failed Nineteenth Century Beliefs upon the collective mentality of Humankind.  And, like Napoleon taking the French Crown from the hands of the Pope and settling it upon his own brow, one must confer the honor upon oneself.  Tanning the hide of one’s own sheep is no easy task either, as there are many other animals, mostly bipedal, which are easier to fleece.

Today’s Failed Belief System simply must be discarded to attain even a smattering of the insights consistent with a point of view which recognizes the absurdities of competing contemporary “realities.” Any number of social or academic rationalizations aside, these so-called realities stand opposed to the Separate Reality once generally agreed-upon as reflecting what is historically known as “common sense,” as has the Failed Belief we will shortly consider. 

It has poisoned the culture and the body politic for at least the past two centuries. Having long and ugly roots, it nonetheless goes by the lovely name Romanticism.  To approach this pleasant-sounding but unpleasant subject, however, we must first consider a term which might have entered your consciousness as you slept through your Western Civ classes, but may not be familiar to those of you who were “liberated” from even bothering  with the study of “Dead White Men.” We begin with the Age of Enlightenment, though it has nothing to do with the satori of Zen Buddhism or the cosmic consciousness of Taoism, Sufism, or the Transcendentalism of both Hindu and Western schools of thought. 

The “Enlightenment” we are concerned with at the moment has its origins in the seventeenth century and the advancement of Reason, which is well and good and resulted in numerous virtuous events, notably the overthrow of tyrants, establishment of democratic republics, individual freedoms and tolerance of religious differences.  A robust cultural force, it was all very scientific and measurable and free from superstition and the like, but ultimately rather too much so.  Contrasting sharply at times with the other forms of Enlightenment mentioned, it lacked somewhat in areas of faith, or spirituality, or emotional fulfillment.  Thus the blowback, or unintended consequences, appearing in the form of Romanticism, first augured in the writings of Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In a nutshell, which might be an appropriate metaphor, Rousseau insisted that human beings in their “natural state,” one in which they could live without having to contend with the repressive hierarchies of established social and economic conditions, are essentially good and moral, the implication being that human nature is in itself good, and society, with its emphasis on things like private property, competition, and merit (thus inequality of outcomes), is bad.  Bad, bad, bad-but Rousseau’s theories are themselves problematic. The idea that “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine” has its obvious drawbacks, the ancient Aryan word for “war” having the meaning “time to go get more cattle,” for example. 

From there, we could labor endlessly over the theoretical minutiae of the idea of the Social Contract and the myth of the Noble Savage, but the pertinent issue is the perception of human nature.  If we are born “good”, only to be ruined by society and economics and so forth, we can trust our instincts and feelings.  If that idea is wrong, that is to say, if such things as the Biblical metaphor of the Fall and “The Smoking Gun Presents: The World’s Dumbest” can be understood as being, at the very least, indicative of the imperfectability of human nature, there exists a fundamental error in cultural thought that could use some fine-tuning.

Romanticism contrasts easily with Realism; the former relates to subjectivity, the latter jibes with more objective matters.  The Romantic nature desires that there be no war; the Realist knows war has been around since prehistory, and thus wants the finest, most fearsome weapons-not necessarily to obtain more cattle, but just in case self-defense, or defense of said cattle, is required.  The Romantic is passionate to obtain, or even to be, an object of desire; the Realist places the good of the loved one first in relationships, and refuses to compromise honor or integrity to obtain wealth, fame, or the self-esteem associated with sexual conquests or more cattle.

For the Romantic, feeling is everything, the end-all and be-all in living and decision making.  This world-view has evolved since the days of Rousseau into a dominant cultural force.  While Enlightenment-based points of view depend upon Reason in the process of founding opinion and judgment upon facts, Romance cannot be bothered by anything that might get in the way of the preciousness of subjective emotion.  Thus the Separate Realities, as exemplified by this exchange between Whoopi Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly:

GOLDBERG: I’m still not a fan of the war in Iraq. I think we went in under misguided ideals and with no real way to get out. And now what we’re seeing is everybody saying how are we going to get out? How are we going to get out? Democrats, tell us how we’re going get out. Republicans, how are we going to get out? Nobody has an answer. Nobody knows how to get out of this, because it’s a mess.

O’REILLY: And that’s a legitimate point of view.

GOLDBERG: OK. That’s my opinion.

O’REILLY: And I respect that point of view. But if you’re going to go out and say to millions of people we got to get out of there now, then, I’m going come in and say, “Well, what happens if we do that? Do we put America in more danger?” And it doesn’t matter how you feel, you need to – you need to think about that.

GOLDBERG: If you are asking my opinion…

O’REILLY: Yes.

GOLDBERG: Then it does matter how I feel.

O’REILLY: No, you need to think about it.

GOLDBERG: No, Bill. You need to think about it. That’s how you do it. I don’t do it that way.

O’REILLY: So you don’t have a responsibility to back up how you feel?

GOLDBERG: No. I have a responsibility to answer your question.

Rousseau and the Romantics who came after him might, in large part, have questioned–with good cause and motive– the efficacy of Reason in settling all issues, but to dismiss the function of Reason altogether in establishing a viable point of view, one on which actionable decisions can be made, reflects a Separate Reality which exists in a dimension not of time and space but of attitude, where emotion is the ne plus ultra of cultural forces. 

Certainly this is a viewpoint that has often been termed one of mere subjective delusion.  It can’t be called thinking: it insists that it is not.  It’s not Idealism, unless in the pejorative sense that, while it may be wonderfully imaginative, it’s worth nothing except to those who claim it “contributes to the conversation”, meaning “impedes rational discussion and decision-making”. Thereby it derails any realistic train of thought regarding issues and events on behalf of those who would coerce acceptance of their agendas or otherwise lord their pseudo-moral sense of superiority over everyone else.

Genuinely idealistic students of life are encouraged to heal themselves of this kind of cultural conditioning, toward goals of clearer thinking about themselves and the human condition, while also being strongly cautioned that the attempt to cure others is rarely, if ever, successful.  They prefer their reality separate.  They pay for it, too, but we should not be compelled to do so.

Until next time, think responsibly, and don’t hesitate to let someone else be the designated drunk.

–SG

We begin, as we often do, with “things we fail to realize”.  First, regardless of the extent to which we have absorbed a kind of reflexive, “hip” atheism in our lives without giving it any thought whatsoever, we have still grown accustomed to the idea of Vox Pop. The meaning of this term has undergone various insidious transformations over time, and especially in contemporary culture, which, yes, we fail to realize.  Vox Pop is short for the Latin, “vox populi” and originates in the phrase, “vox populi, vox dei“, or, “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.  Stop groaning and considering the threat of lawsuits as we are not talking about a Supreme Deity, except as metaphor for the ceaseless demands of particular populations to be given anything and everything they want at any time, preferably at the expense of others.  When the group wearing “Che” t-shirts stops cheering and stomping their feet to the tune of “We Will Rock You” we will continue. 

As we see, there are many for whom the idea that “the voice of the people is the voice of God” is to be taken literally, and more often than not, enforced as a kind of political formula at the end of a gun.  Who would like to see Dick Cheney given a blindfold and a Marlboro and stood against a wall and shot?  No?  Okay, take away the evil cigarette, then.  Yes, that’s a majority of hands, thank you.  But regardless of these sentiments, we fail to realize, as we so often do when quotes are taken out of context, that the original Latin statement, as addressed to Charlemagne in the Middle Ages, advises the king to ignore and disregard all those who keep shrieking “vox populi, vox dei“, as the mob is both populated with, and represented by, a bunch of lunatics.  Thus we arrive at the next thing we typically fail to realize, which is that the answer to the question, “Isn’t this supposed to be a democracy?” is, in a word, “No”.  In point of fact, this, meaning the USA, is a “constitutional republic”, or essentially a government ruled, not by individuals or groups, but by the rule of written law.  Vox Pop, then, is no more than anyone’s given opinion, whether insightful or absurd, whether that of the voice of reason or a lone nut, as voiced by a single individual or a massive crowd, at any particular moment in time.

As Mark Twain, who was once a famous American author, put it, “we all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking”. Thus, devoid of reason and enslaved by emotional attitudes, we assume that those who feel the way we do have the moral high ground and that no right-thinking person could feel otherwise, which is something of a stretch, given not only our inherent amorality but our increasing inability and refusal to think at all.  At any rate, Twain associated this with Vox Pop, which is what one hears when television journalists stick their microphones in the faces of people in the street.  Obviously, this is why media organizations employ people who are called “editors” when we agree with them and “censors” when we don’t.

Bearing these thoughts in mind, then, or, for the scientific materialists among us, maintaining the focus on the so-called “meaning” of these “words” by whatever as-yet undetermined but merely physical means they are held in the soft tissue contained within our bony skulls, we come to the final thing we fail to realize, which is the often unnoticed but ever-present medium by which the Vox Pop is conducted to our attention, and the filter through which it is processed in the transmission.  This, one might gather, would be the “Fourth Estate”, but it is present in virtually every transmission process of the Mass or Mainstream Media, whether it has any relationship to journalism or not.  Briefly, then, we look at first the one and then the other, with an eye towards more detailed analysis of specific examples in future lectures.

Among the “insidious transformations” of the vox populi previously mentioned as being visible in our contemporary culture, it requires no immense intellectual effort to realize the inherent connectivity between the fourth estate and the voice of the people.  The former once peddled its wares as actual hard-copy “print-media” and claimed-some assert strove for-objective reporting, or the dissemination of facts; the latter, as one might expect, predictably shouted their grievances and demands as loudly and perpetually as possible.  “The People”, naturally, are self- identified groups, who claim to speak for everyone; “The Press” distributes information on current events, which includes these groups and their causes.  Unfortunately, perhaps, it is the nature of objectivity to be difficult, which is another way of saying it is not effortless.  Therefore, like reading, doing homework or research, or holding a job for pay, no one wants to do it.  Too many words are involved, too much time away from whatever one happens to be “passionate” about, and it’s not fun.  It’s too hard to transcend the attachments of emotion and to cultivate the ability to discern facts from codswallop; imagine how impossible it must be to engage in probative analysis in quest of determining something such as whether or not a group’s cause serves as a smokescreen for its actual agenda and ultimate goal.

We know it can actually be done; we know it has been done in the past.  Some contemporary reporters have genuinely studied the concept of objectivity, know how it is practiced, and occasionally do it, if only to see what it feels like.  Some of you might actually be able to see it in action on a daily basis, provided your parents removed the programming block to the Fox News Channel.  Still, objectivity is rare and has lost its cachet among journalists, idealism and the desire to save the world being higher callings than simply telling the truth.  Hence, we see another case in which something that began as a vice has become nothing more than a habit, in that the voice of the news media now styles itself as the voice of the people.  How can this be so if the Vox Pop is not, in itself, the Fourth Estate?  It’s as simple as the press saying so, particularly when they reference what they are doing as “civic journalism”, “public journalism” or “activist journalism”.  Therefore it is no stretch at all to conclude that, as easy as it is for ideas to gain common currency through media saturation as opposed to education, it slips past our notice that the Voice of the Press, usurping the role of the Vox Pop, is now the voice of God.

Some of the more astute-or awake-of you may have already realized that the press is merely one facet of a larger and more potent means of cultural transmission, the one through which ideas and issues enter the public discourse and our daily attitudes almost as if by osmosis.  This is of little consequence to journalists and their editors because they are in the position of directing the action; issues they deem “serious” are taken as such by the Mass Media itself.  T.V programs, whether dramatic, comedic or satirical, follow their leads.  Films, popular music, books and talk shows do the same.  So one might say the Vox Pop Fourth Estate is more like the Herald of God, with the Mass or Mainstream Media having the omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence of the Voice of God.  No surprise that one of the present undercurrents of the latter Voice is that no such thing as a God exists, since shedding that difficult-to-control belief would be essential in eliminating a filter of conscience between “media” and “self” making it possible, finally, to place all the contents of consciousness under the benign control of superior, enlightened beings who know what’s best for us.

So, having not yet looked at specific texts and subtexts, we have gained, some of us, insights into the processes by which they might be manipulated in order to influence opinion and dominate the public discourse.  To further explore how literary themes, both implied and stated, are manipulated in this way by processes through which the Mass Media tells its stories-and remembering Aristotle’s definition of art as a representation of reality-your homework assignment it to obtain and watch the two versions of the film Cape Fear. The original, filmed in 1962 and starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, tells the tale of a noble father and husband whose family is being stalked by an evil, ruthless criminal bent on revenge against the man who sent him to prison.  The re-make, released in 1991 and featuring Nick Nolte and Robert De Niro, uses the general outline of the same story.  The implications of the original subtexts are that “this is what we, potentially, can be”; it is obvious that the message of the later film is that “this is what we are, and all we are.”  It is up to you to determine the meanings of what these two distinct Voices are saying to you, and about you.

Until next time, be well and think carefully.

–SG

Even so, radicals then were as annoying and crazed as radicals now. So the people weren’t universally jumping on their bandwagon. The Marxists couldn’t flip governments without the masses. So they worked on a system to undermine unity in society. The old adage “United we stand, divided we fall” was on their mind. They had to divide the people in order to tear society apart and remake it their way. Thus, political correctness was born.

This documentary does an excellent job of telling its story. PC is designed by German Marxists of the Frankfurt School to destroy Western culture.

It should come as no surprise the the destruction of the family is one of its goals. And as it gained in prominence, its goals have been realized. The polarization of racial groups, and even of
the sexes is another.

That’s plenty of reason to see it die a horrible death. Marxists have murdered many times more people than the Nazis. They have destroyed the livelihoods of people the world over and imprisoned many millions in gulags and work camps. The last thing we want to do is let them win here or anywhere else.

While it may seem communism is dead, communism, socialism, fascism are all part of a many headed hydra called statism. These are political systems which are all about empowering the state as much as possible. They name they go under now is “progressive.”

Many progressives on the ground think they are fighting for equal rights and social justice. The progressive elites know better. They want power and control over people’s lives. Political correctness is a tool to accomplish these goals.

It should come as no surprise that the oldest Marxist states threw off Marxism because it doesn’t work, and went with their own version of capitalism. Almost every single former Soviet state went gleefully to capitalism. Russia even has a flat tax. That’s a pretty sad comment on where we are right now when their tax system is simple and ours is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Political Correctness is hated by just about anyone you meet. The only people driving it are leftists and government bureaucrats, who earn a living from it. Pardon my redundancy.

Here are five good reasons Political Correctness must die.

1. It’s censorship: Point blank, that’s what it is. It’s used mainly by people on the left to attack people on the right, but not the other way around. When Miss California, Carrie Prejean, politely said she thought marriage should be between a man and a woman, the PC thugs proceeded to try to destroy her life. But when Obama said it he was elected president. It’s used to accuse people of racism even when there is no racism involved, It’s not only a scare tactic, but also a career-destroying move. And it’s a thuggish weapon of intimidation.

2. It’s bigotry disguised as manners: You may think all those touchy-feely names they come up with for various special interest groups are more sensitive and empowering than the “mean” names of the past, but most of them are patronizing and they segregating. When you separate people into classes, it’s creating a kind of caste system. History has shown us that caste systems are used to suppress and marginalize people by putting them in special groups. The insidious thing about PC is it claims to treat people better when it really does the opposite. It implies that people in these groups are somehow lesser and weaker and must be “protected”, presumably by the government, and then implies that they are not being treated well by other groups (namely white males) which is an inherently racist argument.

3. It’s an attempt at mind control: The goal of PC always has been to segregate people into classes, destroy the family by marginalizing and polarizing people from traditional values and culture. It also tries to rebrand things to force people to think along a different path. You might think that’s a good thing if it makes people more tolerant. While our culture is more tolerant than it was in the past there is no proof or evidence PC had anything to do with it. The fact is, lying to people (which PC does) and trying to destroy a culture by effectively brainwashing people is downright…

4. Evil: The textbook definition of evil is that which is willfully and maliciously harmful to others. What else do you call something that is used to commit so much harm against people and a society as a whole. It has become a rampant monster that destroys lives, careers, and society. It’s used by creepy, selfish people to hurt others. Race-baiters we all know and despise have been using PC for years to try to extort money from business and government by making up racist claims. That’s nothing but a form of extortion.

5. Why should we do what some faceless creeps tell us?: Most of the time we were told what the new term for something is. In the ’60s we were told Negro is not acceptable anymore. We should say black even though Negro is merely the Spanish word for black. Then in the ’70s we were told to use “Afro-American” then later “African-American” even though that term is not only a mouthful it makes no sense. A lot of black Americans are simply Americans, many others are from the Caribbean. Or they are mixed race like our president. Who makes up these lame terms and why should we start saying them? Because “we’re supposed to” isn’t a reason, that’s more of a threat. Who says we have to? Why shouldn’t we say steward or stewardess instead of flight attendant? Because “they” say so? Why should we take directions from faceless entities who tell us what we can say? Why can’t we say whatever we want? Most of the terms these people come up with are retarded mentally challenged. See, they hyphenate you to separate you from the rest of us, We’re all part of the same country, but they want to make you feel aggrieved. Angry and unhappy people are easier to sway with propaganda.

So I’ve listed a few reasons why PC must die. I could go on, but the real question is, how do we kill the hydra? It’s not an easy monster to beat.

I have some ideas. I will share them in part 2.