Thank you for writing this. A cultural revival is needed to go hand in hand with our political revival. First step - Educating young directors and DPs on the proper use of contrast when filming movies! No more grayscale in the new 21st century.
One of the best articles I’ve read in a while. I appreciated including experimental art in your programming initiatives.
I think it would be worth having a program dedicated to creating new sacred art, especially sacred music. It’s the ancestor of all good and beautiful secular art. It shouldn’t be abandoned just because our country forgot its heritage.
1: We should consider hosting essay/story contests like Imperial France did, which gave rise to amazing cultural and scientific projects. We could even solve a few pressing conundrums of our time.
2: In order to cultivate an appreciative audience of Americans, we need some kind of nationwide reform of the education system—a gaggle of patriotic homeschoolers won’t be enough.
Although I’m personally partial to school choice which would incentivize a lot of helpful reforms, could we at least impose a phone ban—again, similar to France or the UK. Seriously, the upcoming generation has been groomed for a true idiocracy. It’s scary, and I’m sure you see this as a professor.
This is so incredibly needed. I’ve been working on getting projects like this funded for over a decade and it’s been so difficult.
My current project is a creative residency called Outer Echoes that seeks to support the kinds of projects listed here, with special attention paid to art and agriculture, and rural communities in the American West. Through growing an online, networked presence, we celebrate “old, weird America” (think Desert Oracle and Coast to Coast AM) while also opening up conversations around Western Art, farming/ranching, the contemporary sphere, and bleeding edge digital art technology. It's a place that has historically inspired a range of creative voices, from avant-garde performer Reggie Watts (b.1972) to Western film star Gary Cooper (b. 1901). David Lynch was born only a couple hours away. These creatives emerged from this same landscape, and every artist who visits can share in the legacy.
How about also centering it in the larger context of Western and, yes, European civilization to which America belongs? The Bible, too, being as it is the primary document of our culture and civilization, needs to be worked into the narrative somehow.
America’s 250th needs a unifying theme that reaches across the breadth of our shared history. Something about the bigness and potentiality of America that unites all those who sacrificed to tame the wilds and built this nation across the centuries.
The high religiosity of our country is a necessary balm for the greatness of the opportunity that uncalms our hearts. To paraphrase McKay, Her bigness sweeps our being like a flood. In response to which we seek divine assistance to navigate an open unbounded future.
One other point of interest--Elon has a history of funding creative projects, so I'd be surprised if he and DOGE cut NEH and NEA funding to the bone. A dear friend of mine was the creative director for Thud, his satire/art project. It was sadly short-lived, but aspects of it were completely brilliant. Ex-Onion writers and celebrity designer Jessica Hische were involved.
What a thoughtful and comprehensive list of projects! And the preceding essay provides a good argument in support of such an initiative. As Jonathan points out, there is a good conservative/libertarian argument for keeping the government out of cultural and artistic sponsorship. And yet the arts in America are in such a terrible state that to surrender that arena to the forces that currently dominate it does seem defeatist and tragic.
The main problem with the arts today is that they have become ideologically corrupted by the pseudo-religious woke themes of race and gender victimology. Watch a bunch movies from the 30s-50s and you will see how they are all constructed around universal human themes, struggles, and conflicts.
The art museums are now entirely focused around supporting artists who champion these woke themes, either in subject matter or via their "identity" (usually both).
We are really living in a cultural Dark Age. If MAGA can support artists and creators who transcend the ideological corruption of this era, I believe it would be worth the investment. Jonathan's proposals seem like a great start.
Personally I'm skeptical. Your proposed slate of projects, themes, and narratives is extremely thoughtful and strong. But it seems to me it would be better to close down almost every existing government department and start over with half the budget and a new staff drawn from outside the Woke-loyalty-tested brigades of the managerial caste. Like Yarvin says, it's much easier for Elon Musk to create SpaceX than to try to internally reform NASA.
I'm going to delete this comment later (please like this when you see this). I've spent significant time inside PBS and NPR — everyone there has been rigorously tested to either be a Woke Libtard Social Justice Warrior, or a careerist striver sociopath who is willing to say and do anything that qualifies as a fashionable belief. You could fire the entire staff of PBS and NPR without hurting one conservative — at most there would be a couple libertarian "live and let live" guys. Even the low-level support staff were all ideologically selected, including janitors, security guards, and maintenance men. All of the female secretaries despise us, and they spend their lunch breaks laughing about how stupid and provincial religious conservatives are. It's patronage all the way down. Anyone remotely RW has been viciously purged and suppressed — I remember my boss interrogating me (during the first week) on my opinion on gay marriage, climate change, and gun control, and having to pretend to be a Libtard. Seems like a massive mistake in my opinion to show any mercy to the professional artists selected by decades of draconian gatekeeping to the previous Regime. In many cases it's a literal Gay Mafia, and they will continue to discriminate against RW voices and RW artists until they're fired.
Great writeup. Not sure if you're a David Lynch guy but there is a strong Lynchian thread tying some of your recommendations together; he really loved the America you're talking about.
Really like where you went with this -- especially love initiative ideas 4, 5, and 6. I'm not really sure you can ever fully remove "degenerate" from art because by default, art through the ages was always created by the degenerates of society with some limitations in place by religious hierarchies. But only some. This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- art often points to humanity, and only sometimes to something higher than humanity. It's just great when humanity itself is inspired and creates from a place of beauty itself from a place of self-hatred, which is what I think we see more of now in this era. Would love to see that change. Tax money going toward that cause doesn't seem all that bad -- certainly isn't worse than half the other things tax money is used for! Could turn it into a movement in fact -- more art, less abortion!
There are actually talented conservative arts administrators with actual business experience, and they start with the built-in advantage that conservative art is popular, fun, and enjoyable, as opposed to woke art which is ugly, boring and stupid:
"Created in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program, the NEA was regularly targeted by some Republicans in Congress as a waste of taxpayer money. The lawmakers often used examples of NEA-funded art or cultural programs that might be likely to anger religious conservatives to drum up outrage. By the time Gioia took over, the NEA’s annual budget had dropped from $176 million in 1992 to just $98 million.
Under Gioia’s leadership, the NEAhas implemented several new initiatives that seem to have escaped criticism. There was the 2003 “Shakespeare in America” tour in which four works by the playwright were staged in a pair of communities in each of the 50 states. A program that brought opera performances to U.S. military bases was another success, and Gioia scored somewhat of a personal triumph with Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation competition. In 2006, President Bush reap-pointed him to another term as NEA, a decision confirmed by unanimous vote in the Senate.
By then Gioia had personally met with most of the Senate and the House. For meetings with the latter lawmakers, he brought with him a list of high schools in their district that used educational materials purchased with NEA grants in order to illustrate what kind of work his agency does. In a 2007 interview with New York Times journalist Patricia R. Olsen, he likened his NEA job to the period of his corporate career when he managed the Jello-O brand and came up with JellO Jigglers after months of trying out various recipes the company had collected over the years."
"My original plan was to go to graduate school in English. I was a state finalist for the Rhodes and Marshall, and other fellowships. For the Danforth Fellowship, a senior Yale administrator called me into her office and told me I would have won but they had “decided that people with my politics shouldn’t become academics.” And that was with me being moderate in politics — I was a Gerald Ford Republican then. So I decided not to beat my head against the wall, and went into law and government. The bias in top academic institutions was very bad in the 70s, but it’s only gotten worse.
It’s not that there’s uniformity in the poetry community, it’s that there’s uniformity in the hierarchy. If you ask me to name somebody in the conservative poetry community who holds an academic appointment, maybe I could come up with a person, maybe. If you say, are there some terrific poets out there whose politics are conservative, I could name many. But they keep a low profile because to be conservative and a poet greatly limits the places you can get published."
Conservatives want the culture to reflect conservative values but there are no viable paying markets for stories and/or literature.
I sent this story (and many others) around for well over a year. We ceded the world of fiction to them through our lack of support for the arts and, yet, we’re surprised at the state of the culture?
Thank you for writing this. A cultural revival is needed to go hand in hand with our political revival. First step - Educating young directors and DPs on the proper use of contrast when filming movies! No more grayscale in the new 21st century.
One of the best articles I’ve read in a while. I appreciated including experimental art in your programming initiatives.
I think it would be worth having a program dedicated to creating new sacred art, especially sacred music. It’s the ancestor of all good and beautiful secular art. It shouldn’t be abandoned just because our country forgot its heritage.
Agree on all points. I’ll add two.
1: We should consider hosting essay/story contests like Imperial France did, which gave rise to amazing cultural and scientific projects. We could even solve a few pressing conundrums of our time.
2: In order to cultivate an appreciative audience of Americans, we need some kind of nationwide reform of the education system—a gaggle of patriotic homeschoolers won’t be enough.
Although I’m personally partial to school choice which would incentivize a lot of helpful reforms, could we at least impose a phone ban—again, similar to France or the UK. Seriously, the upcoming generation has been groomed for a true idiocracy. It’s scary, and I’m sure you see this as a professor.
This is so incredibly needed. I’ve been working on getting projects like this funded for over a decade and it’s been so difficult.
My current project is a creative residency called Outer Echoes that seeks to support the kinds of projects listed here, with special attention paid to art and agriculture, and rural communities in the American West. Through growing an online, networked presence, we celebrate “old, weird America” (think Desert Oracle and Coast to Coast AM) while also opening up conversations around Western Art, farming/ranching, the contemporary sphere, and bleeding edge digital art technology. It's a place that has historically inspired a range of creative voices, from avant-garde performer Reggie Watts (b.1972) to Western film star Gary Cooper (b. 1901). David Lynch was born only a couple hours away. These creatives emerged from this same landscape, and every artist who visits can share in the legacy.
Just need to find financial backing!
How about also centering it in the larger context of Western and, yes, European civilization to which America belongs? The Bible, too, being as it is the primary document of our culture and civilization, needs to be worked into the narrative somehow.
America’s 250th needs a unifying theme that reaches across the breadth of our shared history. Something about the bigness and potentiality of America that unites all those who sacrificed to tame the wilds and built this nation across the centuries.
The high religiosity of our country is a necessary balm for the greatness of the opportunity that uncalms our hearts. To paraphrase McKay, Her bigness sweeps our being like a flood. In response to which we seek divine assistance to navigate an open unbounded future.
I love it. This collection of ideas presents such a strong vision, one I could see having a strong unifying impact across the country.
I know a guy who would fit the description of #2 perfectly. Serious Legend material.
I really hope The New Administration makes this happen!
One other point of interest--Elon has a history of funding creative projects, so I'd be surprised if he and DOGE cut NEH and NEA funding to the bone. A dear friend of mine was the creative director for Thud, his satire/art project. It was sadly short-lived, but aspects of it were completely brilliant. Ex-Onion writers and celebrity designer Jessica Hische were involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thud_(media_company)
What a thoughtful and comprehensive list of projects! And the preceding essay provides a good argument in support of such an initiative. As Jonathan points out, there is a good conservative/libertarian argument for keeping the government out of cultural and artistic sponsorship. And yet the arts in America are in such a terrible state that to surrender that arena to the forces that currently dominate it does seem defeatist and tragic.
The main problem with the arts today is that they have become ideologically corrupted by the pseudo-religious woke themes of race and gender victimology. Watch a bunch movies from the 30s-50s and you will see how they are all constructed around universal human themes, struggles, and conflicts.
The art museums are now entirely focused around supporting artists who champion these woke themes, either in subject matter or via their "identity" (usually both).
We are really living in a cultural Dark Age. If MAGA can support artists and creators who transcend the ideological corruption of this era, I believe it would be worth the investment. Jonathan's proposals seem like a great start.
Personally I'm skeptical. Your proposed slate of projects, themes, and narratives is extremely thoughtful and strong. But it seems to me it would be better to close down almost every existing government department and start over with half the budget and a new staff drawn from outside the Woke-loyalty-tested brigades of the managerial caste. Like Yarvin says, it's much easier for Elon Musk to create SpaceX than to try to internally reform NASA.
Also it's funny to punish our enemies.
I'm going to delete this comment later (please like this when you see this). I've spent significant time inside PBS and NPR — everyone there has been rigorously tested to either be a Woke Libtard Social Justice Warrior, or a careerist striver sociopath who is willing to say and do anything that qualifies as a fashionable belief. You could fire the entire staff of PBS and NPR without hurting one conservative — at most there would be a couple libertarian "live and let live" guys. Even the low-level support staff were all ideologically selected, including janitors, security guards, and maintenance men. All of the female secretaries despise us, and they spend their lunch breaks laughing about how stupid and provincial religious conservatives are. It's patronage all the way down. Anyone remotely RW has been viciously purged and suppressed — I remember my boss interrogating me (during the first week) on my opinion on gay marriage, climate change, and gun control, and having to pretend to be a Libtard. Seems like a massive mistake in my opinion to show any mercy to the professional artists selected by decades of draconian gatekeeping to the previous Regime. In many cases it's a literal Gay Mafia, and they will continue to discriminate against RW voices and RW artists until they're fired.
Great writeup. Not sure if you're a David Lynch guy but there is a strong Lynchian thread tying some of your recommendations together; he really loved the America you're talking about.
Really like where you went with this -- especially love initiative ideas 4, 5, and 6. I'm not really sure you can ever fully remove "degenerate" from art because by default, art through the ages was always created by the degenerates of society with some limitations in place by religious hierarchies. But only some. This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- art often points to humanity, and only sometimes to something higher than humanity. It's just great when humanity itself is inspired and creates from a place of beauty itself from a place of self-hatred, which is what I think we see more of now in this era. Would love to see that change. Tax money going toward that cause doesn't seem all that bad -- certainly isn't worse than half the other things tax money is used for! Could turn it into a movement in fact -- more art, less abortion!
There are actually talented conservative arts administrators with actual business experience, and they start with the built-in advantage that conservative art is popular, fun, and enjoyable, as opposed to woke art which is ugly, boring and stupid:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/journals/culture-magazines/gioia-dana
"Created in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program, the NEA was regularly targeted by some Republicans in Congress as a waste of taxpayer money. The lawmakers often used examples of NEA-funded art or cultural programs that might be likely to anger religious conservatives to drum up outrage. By the time Gioia took over, the NEA’s annual budget had dropped from $176 million in 1992 to just $98 million.
Under Gioia’s leadership, the NEAhas implemented several new initiatives that seem to have escaped criticism. There was the 2003 “Shakespeare in America” tour in which four works by the playwright were staged in a pair of communities in each of the 50 states. A program that brought opera performances to U.S. military bases was another success, and Gioia scored somewhat of a personal triumph with Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation competition. In 2006, President Bush reap-pointed him to another term as NEA, a decision confirmed by unanimous vote in the Senate.
By then Gioia had personally met with most of the Senate and the House. For meetings with the latter lawmakers, he brought with him a list of high schools in their district that used educational materials purchased with NEA grants in order to illustrate what kind of work his agency does. In a 2007 interview with New York Times journalist Patricia R. Olsen, he likened his NEA job to the period of his corporate career when he managed the Jello-O brand and came up with JellO Jigglers after months of trying out various recipes the company had collected over the years."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/politics-gets-hand-turn-poem
"My original plan was to go to graduate school in English. I was a state finalist for the Rhodes and Marshall, and other fellowships. For the Danforth Fellowship, a senior Yale administrator called me into her office and told me I would have won but they had “decided that people with my politics shouldn’t become academics.” And that was with me being moderate in politics — I was a Gerald Ford Republican then. So I decided not to beat my head against the wall, and went into law and government. The bias in top academic institutions was very bad in the 70s, but it’s only gotten worse.
It’s not that there’s uniformity in the poetry community, it’s that there’s uniformity in the hierarchy. If you ask me to name somebody in the conservative poetry community who holds an academic appointment, maybe I could come up with a person, maybe. If you say, are there some terrific poets out there whose politics are conservative, I could name many. But they keep a low profile because to be conservative and a poet greatly limits the places you can get published."
Conservatives want the culture to reflect conservative values but there are no viable paying markets for stories and/or literature.
I sent this story (and many others) around for well over a year. We ceded the world of fiction to them through our lack of support for the arts and, yet, we’re surprised at the state of the culture?
https://www.cbhuckabee.com/p/homecoming?r=1lmrq4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false