Washington Post arts critic Philip Kennicott is enraptured in Tuesday's paper that an annual lecture sponsored by the federal-arts-subsidy lobby had evolved from "conservative curmudgeon" William Safire to a more traditional "bold and perhaps even controversial speech that included sustained criticism of religious fundamentalism." From who? Former PBS anchor Robert MacNeil, who used to be one-half of the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. Like your average liberal media anchor, MacNeil wouldn't know a fundamentalist from an evangelical from an orthodox Catholic as he lectured (sigh) that Christian fundamentalists are awfully similar to Islamic fundamentalists:
"It is inevitable that artists should become the targets of such fundamentalist anxieties," he said. "Because it is in the nature of artists to push the frontiers of taste and morality, to show society both its pieties and its hypocrisies."
....[H]e quickly turned his attention to what he called "the swing to Puritanism" that "gained energy when political consultants and lobbying organizations discovered the catnip (and the fundraising power) of pandering to those who could be persuaded that art is decadent, or immoral, or homosexual, and destructive of finer values."
And he argued that the importance of real creative freedom in the arts has never been more important, given this country's ideological battle with violent, fundamentalist Islam. He even went so far as to compare Islamic fundamentalism with Jewish and Christian fundamentalism.
"I am not for a moment suggesting that our fundamentalists harbor any violent intentions," he said, "but the initial psychology is similar to that which inspires Islamic reformers."
Here's a sign that the Washington Post and its cultural commissars aren't very interested in the concept of accuracy as much as they are in advocacy. Do Kennicott or MacNeil truly believe that "art" works like "Piss Christ" are not anti-Christian? Or Robert Mapplethorpe's photos with a bullwhip inserted in the anus are not accurately described as homosexual and decadent? That's not even approaching the idea that it's somehow accurate that Christians are crippled by a "psychology" not very far from terrorism.
Kennicott and MacNeil also fail to acknowledge that many people who opposed the National Endowment for the Arts when they subsidized the "avant-garde" and "transgressive" works of chocolate-smearing naked Karen Finley and her ilk were not religious at all, but considered these works to be government waste, pork-barrel spending for naked dime-store philosophers.
Kennicott began the article with the pom-pom routine:
Last year when Americans for the Arts gathered here for their annual lobbying confab and the rah-rah speech to the faithful known as the Nancy Hanks Lecture, the guest of honor was William Safire, a self-described conservative curmudgeon. What a difference a year makes.
With congressional power shifted to the Democrats and star-studded hearings on the role of the arts in America scheduled for today, the chairs of the various subcommittees and caucuses that can send a little love in the arts' direction received lusty ovations. And the guest of honor was Robert MacNeil, the journalist, who gave a bold and perhaps even controversial speech that included sustained criticism of religious fundamentalism.
This beginning seems a little odd when you actually read the Safire speech from last year, which panders to the arts lobby, but I suppose fails to attack the "fundamentalist" hordes.
Late in the article, Kennicott slips into his usual routine, lamenting how horrible America is and how slow we are to realize we are horrible. MacNeil's speech ended brilliantly, we're told:
And it all built to a peroration borrowed from John F. Kennedy, "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient" -- with "omniscient" pronounced with voluptuous attention to all four syllables.
As catnip goes, this is pretty nippy for the arts crowd, who gave it a standing ovation.
There are a few problems, however. Despite MacNeil's connection of art, and artistic freedom, to the war of ideas behind the so-called war on terror, it's not exactly clear what art is supposed to do.
"I think art can be an important weapon in the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism," MacNeil said. But how? And what kind of art?
While Kennicott quickly acknowledged you can't win over radical Muslims with dirty Mapplethorpe pictures, he then suggested the late Mapplethorpe was in his time somehow a force for America's moral reformation:
You can't win the war of ideas in the Clash of Civilizations with Robert Mapplethorpe photos, an obvious observation that the conservative scholar Dinesh D'Souza elaborated upon at book length in his scabrous attack on American liberals, "The Enemy at Home," which is subtitled "The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11." Unless, of course, you view art not as propaganda for your values, carefully packaged for foreign audiences, but rather as a form of moral reformation within your own society. Artistic freedom isn't important as an example to other people, it's essential as a goad to American conscience.
Kennicott ended by suggesting the "so-called" war on terror has ruined America's arts:
It was, perhaps, courageous of MacNeil to speak so bluntly, to an essentially liberal audience, about the threat he sees in fundamentalist Islam.
But there was something missing in this line of thinking: An acknowledgment of the extent to which the war on terror has corrupted American culture, so that we live mostly untroubled by the knowledge that we are a nation that tortures, imprisons people with little recourse to law or justice, and prosecutes optional and preemptive wars. MacNeil's defense of artistic freedom was stirring. But like the proverbial physician, we need to heal ourselves.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.
Editor at Large
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Tim, there are so many flaws in this 'speech' - but this one...
March 13, 2007 - 07:46 ET by acaiguanaTim, there are so many flaws in this 'speech' - but this one I will take first.
"I am not for a moment suggesting that our fundamentalists harbor any violent intentions," he said, "but the initial psychology is similar to that which inspires Islamic reformers."
Oh really? He's not suggesting that 'our' fundamentalists harbor any violent intentions, but he conflates and equates the two (Islamic and Christian) throughout his speech as 'oppressors' of culture? So, that seems more than odd.
'The initial psychology is similar to that which inspires Islamic reformers', is another wierd idea.
Excuse me, but Islamic 'reformers' want to take the idiots out of Islam and put the rational people in. Islamic reformers are not 'fundamentalists'. They are the bad guys to the Islamic radical fundamentalists.
The Islamic fundamentalists want to return to an 8th century theocracy. Where in the world do the Christian 'fundamentalists' say they want to return to the Dark Ages?
Sorry, this shallowness is beyond belief. And people think Liberals are intellectual? Or smart?
Another issue that is never addressed. Out of the 2.2 (estimated) billion Christians on the planet, how many are 'fundamentalist'? Never addressed. And never in the United States.
I really think this crap is so far out that even a blind sow can get the acorn here.
There are so many other logical and historical and assumptive flaws in this speech that I could write all day about it.
And I'm not a Christian.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana Notes from the Bomb Shelter' (soon to be a movie at theaters near you)
Major Skyscrapers
March 13, 2007 - 08:00 ET by allanfI don't recall Chrisitan fundemenalits destroying any of our major skyscrapers recently. I don't recall them going out em-masse and shouting "Death to America" as we see in Iran?
Any analogy which does not take note of the "violent tendencies" of Radical Islam is simply spurious. It is a belief system that justifies unspeakable violence in the name of God.
Call me uninformed. Did I miss these scoops Mr. McNeil?
Liberal fundamentalism is t
March 13, 2007 - 08:43 ET by Dee BunkLiberal fundamentalism is the most dangerous of all. It excuses and rewards people who use violence to spread their word while condemning those who don't. They condemn people for having different ideas and they can't separate a government protecting it's people from people trying to convert them to a religion. They act like the war is Islam against Christianity when no Christian claims to be fighting in the name of Christianity with the goal of converting people and our military is made up of every faith including atheists and wickans. Their dogma of no violence only gives power to violence and prolongs it.
Who is more oppressed the Tibetan people or radical Muslims? The Tibetan people have been slaughtered into near extinction and no longer have a home land, but they do have the high moral ground - they didn't use or even defend themselves with violence and while the Elite like the Dalai Lama fled to protection of a nuclear power, the followers were killed and imprisoned. The radical Muslims use violence and it works, so they continue to use it. Should we just submit like the Tibetan People?
Unfortunately all power has come from violence and if good people don't use it to protect and defend themselves then they will be ruled by the bad people who do - just like the Tibetans.
Excellent DeeBunk
March 13, 2007 - 09:30 ET by SportPoliticsExcellent DeeBunk
Should we just submit like the Tibetan People ?
I think liberals consider themselves saints who want to be martyrs -so don't be surprised by the libs answer. Furthermore, after they cower in the hole, they demand everyone else do as well. So it's lib suicide coupled with taking down the ship.
And now some art: This is at "the center for democracy" - the lib propaganda tank. I wonder how the elite snooty moron liberal artists interpret that North Korean red (literally), helmeted soldier smashing down the Capitol and Old Glory.
I wonder what the liberal "interperative" artists would do if GWB released a picture of a USA soldier smashing kimgongil's peon death palace and dprk flag to smithereens ? No I don't wonder what they would do. I smarted off. They would instantly REdeclare GWB the world's biggest terrorist and war monger. Never would they declare such about North Korea's propaganda art poster they have at their lib think tank site. To them I'm sure it's a study in " how much hatred GWB has spread around the world".
Although I understand liberals can make a lifetime of "interpreting" their own "works"... I think in the "artistic" case above- the whole point would be entirely lost upon them, even though they would utterly agree with it, to it's very core.
That's todays- lib artist you are a piece of crap lesson.
Sport - that is some site y
March 13, 2007 - 10:21 ET by Dee BunkSport - that is some site you linked to. Typical that their mission statement
"non-profit, public interest organization that strengthens participatory
democracy by investigating and exposing public relations spin and
propaganda, and by promoting media literacy and citizen journalism."
purports to stengthen participatory democracy when from what I could tell in the few minutes I hunted around, It was a left wing propaganda site. Once again, unlike NB whose mission states their purpose and doesn't hide the fact that they are conservative, liberals have to lie about who they are to get people to listen.
Koresh, McVeigh, Jim Jones --
March 13, 2007 - 19:55 ET by BillAdkinsKoresh, McVeigh, Jim Jones -- all dependable GOP voters (well, maybe not Jones) -- then there's the Christian Identity, that new GOP aligned KKK, -- the similarities are profound and just give them timve, kiddies, before they lay into a skyscraper somewhere.
Bill Adkins, another Howler Monkey
March 13, 2007 - 20:10 ET by RJ"The smallish Howler Monkey is equipped with a unique throat apparatus that enables it to make a loud roar like the larger gorilla. If you venture into an area containing howlers up in the trees be advised that the monkeys will harass you by throwing anything they can get their hands on. It's very amusing."
Yep, Mom and Dad loading the
March 13, 2007 - 08:07 ET by truth_missileI would like Mr. Kennicott to put a picture of Mohammed in a jar of urine and parade that through the streets of Iran, so he can witness firsthand the caring, understanding Muslim tolerance of art and free expression - I will pay for your trip in cash.
Yep, Mom and Dad loading the kids into the van and heading down to the local church on Sunday - Mullahs lopping off heads and strapping bombs to their children - same thing to a Liberal.
...exactly - flush a Koran an
March 13, 2007 - 11:22 ET by TruthMonger...exactly - flush a Koran and flush a Bible and we'll see who riots...what do you think PBS - hoping and convince your audience that it would be the Christians?
I challenge these so-called "peace-activists" to organize JUST ONE MAJOR D.C. PROTEST AGAINST AL QUEDA by the end of 2007...
Where to begin?
March 13, 2007 - 08:43 ET by HunterProBoth the speech given by William Safire as well as the review written about it by Philip Kennicott clearly and immediately show two things. One, the contempt intellectuals and "enlightened" individuals have for conservative values and Christianity in particular and Two, the utter hypocrisy that those same people have for free speech.
Are fundamental or evangelical Christians really waiting lurking out there in flyover country, itching to pull the triggers to establish a theocracy in a country we all know perfectly well was founded by unarmed vegetarian multicultural atheists (hat tip to David Kahane at NRO for the illustration)? What really is the similarity between these two groups other than that they are religions? The goals of Islam and Christianity are diametrically opposed and I challenge both Safire and Kennicott to go and live in the heart of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria or Iran and try to exercise the same rights given to us by God and protected by the United States Constitution.
Concerning the hypocrisy of artists and their apologizers, it is completely relative to whose sacred cow is threatened. Where are the defenders of Mapplethorpe's whip-in-anus "speech" when Andrew Clay was banned from MTV due to homophobic and sexist remarks? Jimmy Breslin is suspended for calling an Asian colleague "slant-eyed" and "yello cur" but Ted Turner's comments at the 1990 American Humanist Association of how “Christianity is a religion for losers.” is alright? It used to be in our country you could think what you wanted and say what you wanted. If you wanted to be a bigot or a racist that was your own business. You couldn't perform acts of bigotry but it was your privilege to think and talk any way you wanted. Now if bigoted thinking is connected to violence it becomes a hate crime. If you express bigoted views you lose your job, you get suspended or you get your pay docked. And there's no ACLU screaming "censorship!" to defend you. Burning a flag is protected free speech; praying on a public sidewalk in front of an abortion clinic is not protected free speech. Withdrawing government funds from artists who spend it for making sacrileges or pornographic art is called censorship by the artists and the press; taking someone off the air for saying that homosexuality may be dangerous to your health is not censorship. Choice to terminate the life of an unborn child is protected by law; communicating alternative choices outside of an abortion clinic (at least in Atlanta) is forbidden by law (h/t Gregory Koukl at STR).
The most blatant (in my opinion) portion of the speech and review was where art was seen as a vehicle for moral reformation. If you wish for your art to reform society into your own vision, I would rather my hard-earned income not be redistributed to your morally questionable objectives via the NEA nor displayed in places that my children will go on a field trip. Also, could we please have a serious discussion on this rather than bringing up purported torture, trying to gift habius corupus to non-US citizens and saying that the GWOT is optional? You are an art critic, sir, not a politician or foreign policy expert. While you are allowed your thoughts and opinions, please do not pass them off as accepted and correct in any official fashion associated with your articles.
"Right on!" you professional
March 13, 2007 - 09:23 ET by old cro"Right on!" you professional hunter you ;) One caveat I would make is when you state:
Now if bigoted thinking is connected to violence it becomes a hate crime. If you express bigoted views you lose your job, you get suspended or you get your pay docked. And there's no ACLU screaming "censorship!" to defend you.
I would only add if your not liberal, gay, african american or a democrat.
"We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture."
Robin Williams
I didn’t hear MacNeil’s s
March 13, 2007 - 08:49 ET by KC MulvilleI didn’t hear MacNeil’s speech myself, so perhaps the Washington Post writer got it wrong. But if he got it right, he displays the stereotypical “artistic” worldview that makes the rest of us suspicious.
Artistic freedom isn’t a license to engage in political cheap shots, where “artists” insult traditional values from behind the veil of fiction. What’s worse is that the artists produce these insults regularly, and yet complain when they themselves are criticized. Artists are not above being challenged themselves. The final display of their own self-obsession is when they demand that we, the public, must pay artists to continue to insult us. Remember, the furors over the Mapplethorpe atrocities and the Dung Virgin were all about whether the public had a right to demand their removal. You cannot insult traditional society and yet expect us to fund your insults.
It is also hubris to assume, as provocative artists consistently do, that they are the first (or only) ones to ponder traditional values. In their mind, the rest of us are all cattle, led unthinkingly by the nose, swallowing traditional values like cattle-feed. Artists see themselves as intellectual and moral pioneers, exploring territory where we dare not go. What they assume is wrong, most of us have already been there.
When the adolescent splashes paint on anything naked and calls it art, he simply proves that he hasn’t read Aristotle or Plato.
KC, I like your points.
March 13, 2007 - 08:54 ET by acaiguanaKC, I like your points.
Artistic Freedom. To me that means being able to produce really bad art and not being able to sell it.
To them, it means being able to produce really bad art and having the government pay for it.
That simple.
ACA
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Quoted from: 'Acaiguana Notes from the Bomb Shelter' (soon to be a movie at theaters near you)
Maybe there's absolutely-no
March 13, 2007 - 09:00 ET by sarcasmoMaybe there's absolutely-nothing in the seldom-read these days US Constitution that says big government should even be paying for good art...And no, getting rid of 100% of publicly-funded art is not 'censorship,' I favor absolutely-no government restrictions on any art, only the free-market "restrictions" everyone who votes for art-funding politicians claims to like, too, on days besides election-day that is...
JMR
All I have to say about the
March 13, 2007 - 09:03 ET by RowaneAll I have to say about the Maplethorpe "exhibit" is let it come to the University of Arkansas at Monticello and you'll never need to worry about it again.
Death to Islam, and
their mediot stooges!
Duty, Honor, Country
(in THAT order)
Rowane
Can any of you nice Christi
March 13, 2007 - 13:06 ET byCan any of you nice Christians spot the deep ironic flaw in Rowanes post
7MS... Nope...I understood he
March 13, 2007 - 13:12 ET by bigtimer7MS
... Nope...
I understood her meaning...anybody should that has a brain that works.
Kennicott orgasmically claims
March 13, 2007 - 09:18 ET by TEKennicott orgasmically claims that William Safire is a "self-described conservative curmudgeon". Hahahahahahaha. Safire supported the election of Boy Clinton. Safire is a redistributionist, abortion enthusiast and advocate of "progressive" (i.e., discriminatory) taxation. I got the biggest kick out of the "conservative" Safire when he advocated giving "tax breaks" (i.e., welfare) to those who pay no federal income tax. What a "conservative"!!!! No doubt, Kennicott "thinks" that Andrew Sullivan is a "conservative" merely becauses Sullivan claims to be a "conservative". Kennicott also must "think" the earth worshipping socialist Bill Maher is a "libertarian".
Kennicott
March 13, 2007 - 10:03 ET by iveseenitallKennicott--- another ill-informed, illogical, hypocritical, blind liberal. Thank God for the Internet. The wackos are being exposed--- Yeah !
NEVER,NEVER trust a liberal
Much of what passes for the
March 13, 2007 - 10:48 ET by MidAmericaMuch of what passes for the value of an art piece is a total fraud. It's all about the name in the corner. Many so-called 'art collections' are nothing more than autograph collections.
If an art piece is truly art then who did it is irrelevant when considering the artistic value of a particular work. But that is not how the business of the art world works. It's all about anointing an artist or a particular style with recognition and then exploiting and promoting this work and everybody in the industry makes a living.
Since the art elites believe they are persons of 'refined' tastes it's no wonder they don't see any problem with 'art' that denigrates the crude and lowly commoner.
You are so right. I can't b
March 13, 2007 - 11:16 ET by GothampcYou are so right. I can't believe the amounts of money that people paid to Andy Warhol for paintings that he had "painted" by urinating on them.
Why should facts stand in the
March 13, 2007 - 11:13 ET by GothampcWhy should facts stand in the way of a liberal's point of view? When Rudy Guiliani was mayor of New York City, he came out strongly against the Brooklyn Museum for showing "the Madonna covered in elephant dung piece". He even tried to get their public funding cut off.
So by their thinking, is Rudy a "fundamentalist Christian"? As mayor of New York was he "controlled" by fundamentalist Christians? Twice divorced, pro-choice, pro-gay rights Rudy Guiliani?
He's appealing to PSYCHOLOGY?
March 13, 2007 - 12:25 ET by tracheostomyHe's appealing to PSYCHOLOGY?
Okay, if we're going to go all field-specific here, one connotes a violent ideation, the other does not.
To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: Sir, I served with Psychology: I knew Psychology; Psychology was a friend of mine. Sir, you're no Psychologist.
Nice try.
"I'm not a theologist. I'm not an archaeologist. I'm a documentary filmmaker." -James Cameron
...but Secular Humanistic Lef
March 13, 2007 - 14:02 ET by mattm...but Secular Humanistic Left-wing Selfist fundamentalism is O.K....
Liberal Fundamentalist
March 13, 2007 - 14:44 ET by Tito the NormanTwo can play at that game, you liberal fundamentalist.
"The Truth is absolute.", Pope Benedict XVI
Liberal Fundamentalist
March 13, 2007 - 14:44 ET by Tito the NormanTwo can play at that game, you liberal fundamentalist.
"The Truth is absolute.", Pope Benedict XVI
I once ran into Roger MacNeil
March 13, 2007 - 17:57 ET by daveinbocaI once ran into Roger MacNeil back in the day [I had been interviewed by Judy Woodruff on Saddam Hussein] and the fellow was surprisingly short physically. No reason to bring this up except that I have found the shortest people I have met, including Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld, are the people most prone to be completely wrongheaded and egomaniacal.
Sorry for the name-dropping and type-casting, but MacNeil fits into the category! What a crock from a short-hitter!