Modern Art

Righty: The art of the past hundred years has been an abomination on a colossal scale: a blatant, in-our-faces celebration of the ugly and the perverse. Nothing has spelled the end of Western civilization more tellingly than the collapse of our artistic standards. How is it that we came to accept these fraudulent doodles as art in the first place? (It wouldn't have anything to do with the toadying art critics, would it? Could it be that the critics suddenly found themselves indispensable because only they could confer meaning upon all those meaningless scribbles? I'm sure they liked feeling indispensable.) From the crude, flat, incomprehensible daubings of the Cubists to the ghastly shock art of Damien Hirst (he of the maggoty cow heads), modern art has been a cultural disaster from day one. Even worse, the art-loving public has bought it hook, line and sinker. A hundred years of crap! When will the madness end?

Lefty: As usual, Righty rejects anything that won't conform to his preconceived standards (in this case, what constitutes "art"). He's too narrow and provincial to appreciate the visionary souls who courageously rejected centuries of uninspired, literal-minded bourgeois art for something more adventurous, provocative and disturbing. Art isn't about being "pretty." Just the opposite: it should reflect all the agony and turmoil of the human spirit. I've reached the point where I can't even look at the polished "masterpieces" of Raphael or Vermeer without feeling "Ho-hum, very nice, but where's the beef?" Modern art is so challenging and innovative that I'm afraid it has spoiled me for anything else. Too bad Righty and his friends will never get it.

The New Moderate:

I have to agree with Righty that too much of modern art is simply about shocking a befuddled bourgeoisie. I detect an element of rapacious adolescent glee in the aesthetic rampages of our cocksure modern artists. Sure, they've demolished the cold, glossy marble statues that once held us in thrall. But what have they created in their place?

Is it enough simply to shock, offend and disturb, in the manner of today's formaldehyde-preserved carcasses and dung-encrusted Virgins? Of course not. Is it enough to put a dead ladybug in a styrofoam cup, as one inspired artiste recently did, and expect it to be enshrined as high art? No again. You need more than a concept to create art; you need artistry.

Artistry seems to be almost irrelevant in the great debate over the merits of modernism. It should be the central issue.

Is Picasso a great artist? Sure, but he's also an overrated one: a master innovator worshipped as a towering colossus. A few of his works, such as the magisterial Guernica, have a terrifying power and pathos. Numerous others are ingenious, inventive and pleasing to the senses despite their apparent lack of sense. Others are simply glib or ugly or both. At least he mastered his craft before spending the second half of his career promoting himself as a modernist icon.

The same can't be said for those clever con-artists who place a single horizontal stripe on an empty canvas and receive endless plaudits from the cognoscenti. Come on, are we creating art or macrame wall-hangings? Since we've scrapped any objective standards of artistic accomplishment (e.g., the ability to create the illusion of light or depth or perspective), the most asinine dreck now qualifies as art if somebody with a doctorate calls it art. This is where Righty becomes apoplectic, and this is where I sympathize with him.

Where Righty and I go our separate ways is over his inclination to dismiss an entire century of modern art, and everything in it, as a cultural calamity. Much of it has been calamitous, sadly enough, but you have to sift through the rubbish pile for the occasional gems that gleam at us from the heap. A handful of names worth noting: Munch, Vuillard, Braque, Matisse, Miro, Gorky, Segal, and yes, the overrated Picasso. Their work can be dark or whimsical or technically daring or incomprehensible. But almost always you detect evidence of a soul beneath the surface (another prerequisite to calling art "art").

Reassuringly, much critical and popular attention has turned lately to artists of the modern era whose sensibilities didn't necessarily coincide with those of their modernist peers. The rising stature of representational artists like Edward Hopper and Frida Kahlo should gladden those who believe art should dazzle our senses and grip our souls.

Summary: Much of modern art has been needlessly destructive, ugly and meaningless, but we should stay open-minded enough to appreciate the occasional gems that redeem it.

White People

Righty: White people created Western Civilization and all its wonders. We built everything of note from the Parthenon to the personal computer. We explored the world from top to bottom, delivered most of it from ignorance and savagery, spread the Gospel, advanced the frontiers of science, discovered cures for dreaded diseases, and founded numerous great nations, including, of course, the United States. White people were designed by nature to rule. Why shouldn’t we band together and resist the steady erosion of our culture by foreign elements? Why is it OK for black people to celebrate black power when we’re not allowed to promote white power? We detect a double standard here, and we’d better do something about it before white societies are completely overrun by hostile dark-skinned immigrants who breed like mosquitoes. White people are already an endangered species, and the world won’t realize it until it’s too late. Self-hating white liberals like Lefty are probably our worst enemy. Two hundred years from now, Lefty, your coffee-colored great-great grandchildren will probably have to visit Iceland or Iowa to see actual specimens of white people.

Lefty: White racism has given us slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Nazism and the Holocaust. Quite a legacy there! White supremacists are almost without exception moronic, malevolent, impotent psychopaths. (How could anyone believe in the notion of white superiority after watching these clowns in action?) What do white people have to celebrate other than a heritage of greed, exploitation, war, materialism and bad dancing (Fred Astaire and a few others excepted)? African Americans and other minorities are entitled to celebrate their cultures because they’ve been the victims of systematic white oppression. They must be given a chance to undo centuries of forced hypnosis that essentially told them "White is right." There has never been a white pride movement capable of divorcing itself from racism. It is a poisonous issue that must be banished from every forum of civilized discourse.

The New Moderate:

The New Moderate must acknowledge Righty’s gripe about a double standard that allows dark-skinned minorities, but not white people, to celebrate their race-based cultures. I must also support Lefty’s contention that every "white pride" movement that has ever existed seems to have been tainted with obnoxious strains of racism. Why can’t white people simply look after their interests without bashing their darker brethren? Until they can, anyone who espouses white power or even white rights will be condemned (and justifiably so) as racist. (It might be that all ethnic "pride" celebrations are essentially racist or chauvinistic, regardless of who is doing the celebrating.)

Why would The New Moderate suggest that white people might want to "look after their interests"? Aren’t we slowly sinking into the bottomless bog of racism here? Stay with me for a moment. If current demographic trends continue unchecked, whites of European ancestry will account for less than half the population in both North America and Western Europe within half a century. In other words, white people will officially be a minority group. This revolutionary shift in population will forever alter the nature of Western societies and their cultures. (Forever is a LONG time, in case you’re not convinced.) It is not unreasonable to assume that the United States will eventually be speaking Spanish as its primary language, or that minarets will be sprouting alongside the abandoned cathedrals of France and England. And there is nothing wrong -- repeat, NOTHING WRONG -- with expressing dismay at this development. In fact, it might be desirable and even heroic to prevent it from happening. We’ve become so sensitized to leftist accusations of racism, and so bankrupt as a civilization, that we’re willing to just roll over and let the forces of history have their way with us.

There is nothing racist about simple self-preservation. I’m not even of European stock (my ancestors were Armenian Christians from the Ottoman Empire), and yet I’d mourn the disappearance of blond hair, blue eyes and freckles from our midst. I’d hate to see fine old languages like Dutch and Danish frittered into extinction. As much as I love Middle Eastern food, I’d never want it to replace the meaty succulence of German cooking or the epicurean delights of French. The New Moderate loves all nationalities in their infinite variety and would be loath to see any of them go the way of the dodo. I’d be just as unhappy if Americans settled en masse in the Middle East, reproduced out of control and festooned the stark landscape with golf courses and endless rows of McMansions.

How can white people "look after their interests"? Definitely not by mobilizing into fascist brigades, spouting racist diatribes or rounding up everyone who doesn’t fit the desired mold. No, if the white residents of North America and Western Europe don’t want to see their societies changed beyond recognition, they should simply do everything in their power to reverse the internal rot that has put them in this melancholy predicament. That means encouraging their own people to work at jobs they’ve been content to assign to immigrants. It means restricting immigration and downsizing the cushy welfare systems that attract foreigners who choose not to work. It means creating a vigorous culture that shuns cheap values and empty materialism. It means daring to sacrifice a little comfort for the scary proposition of having children. You can’t expect a race to survive when it lacks the resolve to reproduce.

The gods have always favored the hardy over the refined, in nations as well as individuals. The nations of the West (and especially Western Europe) are looking dangerously anemic right now. It might be that today’s white-dominated societies won’t survive in any form unless they receive an infusion of vitality from darker-hued populations. If those populations absorb Western values along the way, the darkening of Europe and America might actually be something to celebrate. But if those alien populations continue to multiply while remaining hostile to their host societies, the entire West can look forward to joining the Hittites, Babylonians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians in history’s dustbin.

Summary: White people of European stock have a right to look after their interests, especially in light of current demographic trends in the U.S. and Western Europe. Unfortunately, virtually every "white rights" movement has been laden with racism. What to do? Western societies need to shun decadence, depend less on foreign labor, and resolve to reproduce!