Love this article. Great advice. Loved the Herder - Hamann reference. Serious heavyweights! In truth after trying hard for many years I stopped engaging with art, particularly film because the same progressive messages just seemed to repeat themselves ad nauseum. But in truth I stopped giving art and artists a chance and developed a knee jerk reaction that was a bit too quick and blinded me to the value of at least some of it. Love the idea of developing right wing reception.
Great article, many of your observations ring true, others I think warrant discussion. I reckon I am much less dismissive of didacticism than you are (and Lomez is). I believe many major cultural shifts - all of them direct left victories - were achieved not necessarily through great art or art focused on delivering The Truth (from my perspective, the left is very much estranged from it), but through sheer volume of mediocre art and entertainment imbued with lots of “teaching moments”, outright programing, as something running either alongside or in the background of main narratives (see: the sudden increase in volume of gay characters in TV shows and culture more broadly in the 90s; the characterization of IS Cold War fighters and their opponents etc.). Presence and Volume are very much major factors in challenging status quo stereotypes and paradigms, as well as establishing new ones, pushing out archetypes and ways of thinking about them that no singular piece of culture could hope to achieve in separation.
To that point, you are very much right about the necessity of putting up alternative interpretations and counter-messaging - which, as you rightly posit, cannot be done without building an entire ecosystem of creation, opinion, and support, something the right has not managed to do so far. A task truly haunting, seeing how little interest rightists show for this particular theatre of war (self-improvenent and self-promotion through reading the classics notwithstanding), despite eagerly reciting Breitbart’s motto about downstreams and upstreams. A beachhead was established in the anti-woke commentariat, but a lot of them assumed more libertarian laissez faire positions over time, others got stuck in a grifting cycle, inflating tepid outrage without seeking out - or offering - alternatives.
Last point is about your view of the right as being purely reactive to the left’s constant push, to its grand arc of history… I honestly see of no reason why rightist culture couldn't form (or reform) its own grand arc, with its own vector. The Christian (and particularly Catholic) right does this to a degree, even if its arc is primarily spiritual. Yes, the right might be a lot less cohesive, but embracing that could help produce not one, but several alternatives to the left’s push, still united by the anti-leftness, while allowing for inter-right dialogue, sparking conversations at its inner borders.
In what Whigs sold as a march of progress towards equity and the abolition of barriers, others might discover either a spiritual spiral (Tolkien’s Long Defeat comes to mind), an eternal last stand of sorts, discovering ones place in the great chain or a more positive journey towards redemption and absolution. Recognizing the left’s successful, dominating narrative - and the oppositional role of the right in it - doesn't necessarily require is to accept it as the only alternative.
So, I guess I should finish that novel (in my native tongue) and start randomly offering my tech abilities to other rightists interested in building this thing from the grounds up…?
Anyways, regarding the other points: yes, propaganda works, and art-as-propaganda has been the rule rather than the exception historically. But the rules changed when we entered into a liberal framework and information output exploded (the two developments are linked). Regime propaganda has been ventilated in a way that right-wingers are nowhere near able to reach with limited means and resources.
Also: alternatives to the mainstream whiggish model of history are a very good thing and I encourage them strongly, in both criticism as well as even narrative fiction, if possible. It would be interesting to mess with people's minds, not so much by replacing the current historical metanarrative with something else in one fell swoop, which is impossible anyway, but simply by planting seeds of doubt.
All right, if you ever need or know of someone in need of some graphical or multimedia know-how and skillset (and marketing, to a lesser degree), do let me know. I can donate some time from time to time... for the cause.
I think a focus on ad-hoc networking - as a supplement to the more traditional, trust-based way of doing this - will have to be a part of this whole thing, seeing how underdeveloped the connective tissue is on the right. Rightists are both less homogenic and more distrustful, likely to try to solo it out in places where cooperation would be highly encouraged, and highly beneficial, improving both output quality and output time. Outside of the few patronage networks that actually exist on the right - in which the money forces the flock to squeeze together around the feeder - there's really not a lot skill sharing going on, not nearly enough to grant us any force multipliers.
Not to say people shouldn't engage in and focus on their solo endeavours (they should, in all the ways you mentioned in the article, and then some), it's just that if the ecosystem is to blossom, we'll have to break through these tendencies and actually, gasp, organize.
I definitely see your point about the rules being much removed from where they were when that tactic was so effective, and about the disparity of power. Noted. At the same time, I won't abandon the concept of Volume (and Saturation) being crucial here,
The discussion of promoting alternatives to the whiggish model... is giving me ideas. I think your point about introducing doubt is crucial.
Does no one really read anymore I spent my last 5 years doing just thet and fighting crime " I even didn't watch wrestling the only TV show I do wafch for 2-3 years and onku saw one movie since 2021 " I thiugn5 read in ng had made a come back or was start ing to " i had 250 books before I immolated myself I n Xmas day
Great essay!
Love this article. Great advice. Loved the Herder - Hamann reference. Serious heavyweights! In truth after trying hard for many years I stopped engaging with art, particularly film because the same progressive messages just seemed to repeat themselves ad nauseum. But in truth I stopped giving art and artists a chance and developed a knee jerk reaction that was a bit too quick and blinded me to the value of at least some of it. Love the idea of developing right wing reception.
Great article, many of your observations ring true, others I think warrant discussion. I reckon I am much less dismissive of didacticism than you are (and Lomez is). I believe many major cultural shifts - all of them direct left victories - were achieved not necessarily through great art or art focused on delivering The Truth (from my perspective, the left is very much estranged from it), but through sheer volume of mediocre art and entertainment imbued with lots of “teaching moments”, outright programing, as something running either alongside or in the background of main narratives (see: the sudden increase in volume of gay characters in TV shows and culture more broadly in the 90s; the characterization of IS Cold War fighters and their opponents etc.). Presence and Volume are very much major factors in challenging status quo stereotypes and paradigms, as well as establishing new ones, pushing out archetypes and ways of thinking about them that no singular piece of culture could hope to achieve in separation.
To that point, you are very much right about the necessity of putting up alternative interpretations and counter-messaging - which, as you rightly posit, cannot be done without building an entire ecosystem of creation, opinion, and support, something the right has not managed to do so far. A task truly haunting, seeing how little interest rightists show for this particular theatre of war (self-improvenent and self-promotion through reading the classics notwithstanding), despite eagerly reciting Breitbart’s motto about downstreams and upstreams. A beachhead was established in the anti-woke commentariat, but a lot of them assumed more libertarian laissez faire positions over time, others got stuck in a grifting cycle, inflating tepid outrage without seeking out - or offering - alternatives.
Last point is about your view of the right as being purely reactive to the left’s constant push, to its grand arc of history… I honestly see of no reason why rightist culture couldn't form (or reform) its own grand arc, with its own vector. The Christian (and particularly Catholic) right does this to a degree, even if its arc is primarily spiritual. Yes, the right might be a lot less cohesive, but embracing that could help produce not one, but several alternatives to the left’s push, still united by the anti-leftness, while allowing for inter-right dialogue, sparking conversations at its inner borders.
In what Whigs sold as a march of progress towards equity and the abolition of barriers, others might discover either a spiritual spiral (Tolkien’s Long Defeat comes to mind), an eternal last stand of sorts, discovering ones place in the great chain or a more positive journey towards redemption and absolution. Recognizing the left’s successful, dominating narrative - and the oppositional role of the right in it - doesn't necessarily require is to accept it as the only alternative.
So, I guess I should finish that novel (in my native tongue) and start randomly offering my tech abilities to other rightists interested in building this thing from the grounds up…?
Yes, you should!
Anyways, regarding the other points: yes, propaganda works, and art-as-propaganda has been the rule rather than the exception historically. But the rules changed when we entered into a liberal framework and information output exploded (the two developments are linked). Regime propaganda has been ventilated in a way that right-wingers are nowhere near able to reach with limited means and resources.
Also: alternatives to the mainstream whiggish model of history are a very good thing and I encourage them strongly, in both criticism as well as even narrative fiction, if possible. It would be interesting to mess with people's minds, not so much by replacing the current historical metanarrative with something else in one fell swoop, which is impossible anyway, but simply by planting seeds of doubt.
All right, if you ever need or know of someone in need of some graphical or multimedia know-how and skillset (and marketing, to a lesser degree), do let me know. I can donate some time from time to time... for the cause.
I think a focus on ad-hoc networking - as a supplement to the more traditional, trust-based way of doing this - will have to be a part of this whole thing, seeing how underdeveloped the connective tissue is on the right. Rightists are both less homogenic and more distrustful, likely to try to solo it out in places where cooperation would be highly encouraged, and highly beneficial, improving both output quality and output time. Outside of the few patronage networks that actually exist on the right - in which the money forces the flock to squeeze together around the feeder - there's really not a lot skill sharing going on, not nearly enough to grant us any force multipliers.
Not to say people shouldn't engage in and focus on their solo endeavours (they should, in all the ways you mentioned in the article, and then some), it's just that if the ecosystem is to blossom, we'll have to break through these tendencies and actually, gasp, organize.
I definitely see your point about the rules being much removed from where they were when that tactic was so effective, and about the disparity of power. Noted. At the same time, I won't abandon the concept of Volume (and Saturation) being crucial here,
The discussion of promoting alternatives to the whiggish model... is giving me ideas. I think your point about introducing doubt is crucial.
Aspiring artist here. Found this useful!
Does no one really read anymore I spent my last 5 years doing just thet and fighting crime " I even didn't watch wrestling the only TV show I do wafch for 2-3 years and onku saw one movie since 2021 " I thiugn5 read in ng had made a come back or was start ing to " i had 250 books before I immolated myself I n Xmas day