Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

As I said, fair enough. Awful on a scale full of badness is still awful. Shitty world if people think Biden would be an improvement tho.

Also Reagan, the Bushes, most presidents were capable of enacting more materially harmful policies, surely?

He is less predictable which is scarier, idk about worse. I’ve never been a big reagan guy either.

It's hard to compare 3 years of Trump to 8 years of W or Reagan. So far I think W still did much more real and lasting damage, but there's a lot of time left.

I mean, I hope there isn't a lot of time left, but I'm a pessimist.

No president in my lifetime has had such a pernicious effect upon the electorate, particularly in terms of urging the more susceptible to give in to their basest and most antisocial urges. If he had no other impact during his tenure, that alone puts him head and shoulders above any other POTUS in the 'evil deeds' department. We're going to be dealing with his aftermath for decades.

If you’re an accelerationist type he is good. No one could do more to make the US government seem stupider and less legitimate than he does.

I always enjoyed Hunter S arguing that Ford was more pernicious than Nixon because his clown persona distracted from what he was actually doing

There is some truth to that kind of analysis. Trump seems monstrous and is monstrous; maybe this is “better” than someone who seems like a humble public servant but is monstrous. Idk. I despise this fucking guy.

Certainly not making a case for Trump but yeah in some ways it's good when everybody can see what's on the end of the fork

I always enjoyed Hunter S arguing that Ford was more pernicious than Nixon because his clown persona distracted from what he was actually doing

― The Man Who Was Thirsty (Noodle Vague),

This is true and also true of Reagan's amiability.

it seems, in some ways, however, harder to oppose a regime like trump's as it is so chaotic and dysfunctional and he covers up everything he does with a whirlwind of outrageous lies. it's like a moving target.

seems like people who don't think he's had an out of ordinary effect don't really care about the people/things he's had an out of ordinary effect on.

that's why so many people got sucked into the russiagate conspiracy. they were looking for a pattern that would make sense of the traumatic idiocy of the situation.

xp

The lying thing seems on a different scale with Trump. Also he's a moron, but then that's hardly new and, of course, Twitter didn't exist.

jfc did anyone read the mueller report

just the executive summaries

I think what treeship means wrt "Russiagate" is the grand theory that Trump is "Putin's Puppet" and everything that's happening can be attributed to a neat and tidy plot by Russia.

It's not just that guy - it's also the sort of people he has given power to (in government) and those he has emboldened (in the public arena).

The absolute worst people in the country were elated by his rise. They felt ecstatically vindicated by his victory. And they act out their horribleness more loudly and more openly than they did beforehand, because they believe the Trump ascendancy gives them greater impunity to be the assholes that they are.

xp That's just easier to make sense of than what seems more likely to me, which is that a narcissistic sociopathic reality tv host and landlord tapped into a perfect storm of resentment, ignorance, confusion, backlash, a weak democratic party and candidate, and certain shifts in right-wing thought and strategy both nationally and globally, through a combination of savvy and luck, and that Russia probably helped a bit but isn't the prime mover here.

So what your saying is, the system is fucked and enables monsters?

unquestionably, but I'm not sure how the fact that the system enables monsters negates the fact of the system-enabled monster. If the point is that ending the trump administration alone won't get us very far, I agree, but no tyrant has ever appeared in a vaccuum. The one hopeful thing I see coming out of the sheer visceral repugnance of trump is a ton of new energy and blood going into political organizing, and I still believe that anytime that happens, it net favors left vs center.

I do agree that the future looks bright if the Dems can dodge the centrist wanker bullet

I'm having ongoing fights with my wife about my continued focus on "the big picture". I used to be an adherent of liberal democracy and Donald Trump's presidency, among other things, has opened my eyes about its larger problems.

The problems were always there, the government was never really acting in the interests of all the people, but for this world to function peacefully we need to have a certain level of trust for each other. Trumpists are people who did not have that level of trust in the system, gained power, and now we are all equal in that we have no reason to trust authorities, any authorities, or the Rule of Law or any of that shit. OK, yeah, maybe democracy was just a matter of plausible deniability. And now we don't have that plausible deniability, and we can't talk to each other, and if we can't talk to each other ultimately we get to the point where we can't coexist peacefully. How do we restore trust? Fuck if I know. I've been searching for the dolphins in the sea.

it's very similar to the effect of the Brexit referendum in the UK, the facade has come away and everybody can see the terminator for what it is

Ok. ahem.

I have a real one.

I essentially agree with this column. Not in every particular claim, but in the main, pretty much.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/opinion/art-politics.html

i mean, i don't support the dichotomy he sets up between the personal on the one side and the political on the other. but i find a lot of contemporary art one-dimensional and sort of weighed down by the surrounding discourse, which is often "political" but in an extremely abstract way.

Paywall - any chance of c&ping?

I will not read a David Brooks column with the headline "Who Will Teach Us How to Feel?"

Opinion
Who Will Teach Us How to Feel?
When art shrinks to the size of politics.

My colleagues at T Magazine had a very good idea. They gathered some artists and museum curators and asked them to name the artworks that define the contemporary age — pieces created anywhere in the world since 1970.

I can’t stop thinking about the results. The first thing you notice is that of the 25 works they chose, very few are paintings or sculptures.

Most of the pieces selected are intellectual concepts or political attitudes expressed through video, photographs, installations or words. In 1982, for example, Jenny Holzer put the words “Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise” on a digital billboard in Times Square. In 1985, Barbara Kruger took an image of a ventriloquist’s dummy and printed “When I Hear the Word Culture, I Take Out My Checkbook” across its face.

Of the 27 artists recognized, 20 were born in the U.S.

The next thing you notice is that most of these artists haven’t captured or maybe even appealed to a mass audience. If asked to name the era-defining artists from the 49 years prior to 1970, most of us would come up with world-famous artists: Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Alexander Calder, Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, etc. The artists listed here, from the 49 years after 1970, are generally not well known outside the art world: for instance, Gordon Matta-Clark, Lutz Bacher and Michael Asher.

Most of the artists have adopted a similar pose: political provocateur. The works are less beautiful creations to be experienced and more often political statements to be decoded. In 1989, for example, Cady Noland made a silk-screen of the famous photo of Lee Harvey Oswald getting shot. There are eight large bullet holes across his body and there’s an American flag stuffed in his mouth.

The most provocative pieces are in the realm of sexual politics, where the art world has had its biggest influence. Jeff Koons is recognized here for “Ilona on Top,” a painting showing him having sex with the porn star who would become his wife.

Several works redefine female power. In 1974, the artist Lynda Benglis posed naked with a dildo between her legs. In 1972, Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro and others created “Womanhouse,” a living feminist manifesto. In 1993, Catherine Opie created “Self-Portrait/Cutting,” in which someone has carved two stick figures and a house into her back with a knife or razor. The figures depict an idyllic domestic dream that was hard for lesbians to realize at the time.

The general attitude is: Let’s smash injustice with a sledgehammer. What you see when all these works are brought together is how the aesthetic has given way to the political, how the inner life has given way to the protest gesture.

Artists have always taken political stands, but in some eras there’s more of a conviction that beauty yields larger truths about the human condition that are not accessible through politics alone — and these are the truths that keep us sane. Now one gets the sense that not only is the personal political, but that the political has eclipsed the personal. What’s missing from most of these pieces is human contact and emotional range.

Among these 25 pieces, 20 are impersonal and only five allow you to see what life is like for another human being, including works by Nan Goldin and Judy Chicago. Only a few explore relationships and emotional connection. There almost seems to be a taboo now against capturing states like joy, temptation, gratitude, exaltation, betrayal, forgiveness and longing.

The absence of that emotional range reminds you that one of the things art has traditionally done is educate the emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett and other neuroscientists argue that emotions aren’t baked into our nature as things all humans share. They are constructed by culture — art and music, and relationships. When we see the depth of psychological expression in a Rembrandt portrait, or experience the intimacy of a mother and daughter in a Mary Cassatt, we’re not gaining a new fact, but we’re experiencing a new emotion. We’re widening the repertoire of ways we can feel and can communicate feelings to others.

Barrett uses the phrase “emotional granularity” to capture the reality that some people — and some eras — experience a wider range and specificity of emotions than others. People with highly educated emotions can be astonished by the complexity of other people without feeling the need to judge them immediately as good or bad according to some political logic.

This list fascinated me because it comes at a moment when everything is political — and our politics has brutalized the nation’s emotional life.

One of the pieces that stands out is Arthur Jafa’s 2016 video montage “Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death.” It’s an intense compilation of the African-American experience — love, celebration, police shootings, religious frenzy, racism, dance, struggle. There are so many powerful emotions in a short burst, an overflowing of relationship. It’s a political work that transcends politics and reminds us: This is how life looks with human particularity left in.

A comment:

@Tyler Williams
I am an old white guy, an actor, and Shakespeare lover, Van Gogh fanatic and daily classical music listener...I frequently have your response to Brook's writings. But I must admit that these modern artistic expressions do leave me cold. I suppose because, like Brooks, I'm looking for comfort, solace in art. Anger frightens me (why I hate trump and the GOP). I know, I need to have courage, determination and resist...I wish modern art helped me. I feel lost.

Fucking white people and their fucking lostness.

Fucking Van Gogh fanatics

so... it's an essay about an essay in T Magazine huh

ok boomer

people who are frightened by anger make me mad

to be clear, that's not what i'm saying.

I mostly don't like anger as an aesthetic but yeah fuck privileged longing for politeness

Not you treesh, the article and a section of the commentariat

it's true that i learned how to feel emotion from jackson pollock

Brooks conflates an aggregate list from chosen contributors with the total body of work that was produced during the era, then cherry-picks a list of artists that he seems to imply are counter to the contemporary trends he's mentioned without context. I'd be more interested in what a list produced in 1970 about the prior decades would look like compared to his list, because the implication is that he's using the same criteria as opposed to making a 1921 - 1970 list that fits his narrative.

blah blah Pollock blah blah CIA propaganda blah blah apolitical

but what does he think about marvel films

it's true that the contemporary art world -- the world of the major museums and the major galleries -- is captured by this highly arid type of language and like way of framing stuff. i like some of the work on that list, but i think it's symptomatic that these were the pieces that were determined as the most "important." people love njideka akunyili crosby, peter doig, yayoi kusama, a hundred million others, but they are left out in favor of people like sturtevant, marcel broodthaers , hans haacke and these other artists who are mostly engaged in institutional critique.

the art world is obsessed with itself and especially with critiquing itself.

I think we know. They help him learn to (cop a) feel.

xpost

the dumb blood-stained Bushes

btw

ppl who believe trump is worse than gwb have tds

say what you will about the tenets of neoconservatism but at least it's an ethos

we should do a ballot poll of the best presidents

wm shabazz would win obv