Saturday, December 28, 2013

Klavan - the conservative message inherent in the arts


Andrew Klavan – having faith in the arts

Giving a talk about “sex & German philosophy


Our culture has been shaped largely by a triumvirate of news media, the entertainment industry and the academy.  There is now a counter-revolution because technology is democratizing media allowing people to bypass intermediaries and gatekeepers.  The significance of the arts is to convey the nature of the human experience, usually through metaphor, stories, images and symbols.  Our biggest problem is the rewriting of history by the left, both through misinformation and the censoring of truth.  An overly sexualized culture is a lesser problem.

For the left sex is the only significant human activity exempt from government control.  The reason is because at the core of leftist philosophy is an image of man as a soulless meat puppet, whereas a more holistic view of man includes a spiritual being shaped by choices and free will.  This implies the importance of the right to chose and the significance of freedom which depends upon this spiritual view.  Within this framework sex is not the goal, love is what powers people.

After Newton and the formulation of modern science there was a  juxtaposition of science and faith in the minds of many people.  This brings us to German philosophy in the form of Kant vs Nietzsche.  Kant said that science will provide reasons for what we perceive but there is a reality beyond that in which it will still make sense to believe Judeo-Christian ideals.  Nietzsche said no, god is dead, continue deconstructing morality and go beyond good and evil (atleast as interpreted by some people).

There was a spiritual revival in intellectual circles after WWII which filtered down into the population at large.  But then there was a rise of French philosophers in the 1960s pushing ideas of postmodernism, moral relativism and multiculturalism.

A concluding story: the Alan Lerner song “Wouldn't It Be Loverly?” from My Fair Lady was originally only about creature comforts – it bombed, then he added the spiritual element of love which is the climax of human yearning and it became a big hit, a classic of musical theatre.

People are spiritual beings with the right to chose for themselves.  We must take the leap of faith that there is a higher morality, something transcendent.  Conservatives need to realize that the arts will convey this message and sing the song of freedom.