DISQUS

Anonymous · 1 year ago

Will, I agree with basically everything you said, and I even like Rothko, but that Bouguereau painting is beautiful. I actually gasped when I followed that link. Does this mean trouble?

Jaap Weel · 1 year ago

Frankly, I have never understood visual art very well, but let's see if I can muster a similarly snotty analogy based on classical music. I propose the bombastically impressive Der Ring des Nibelungen versus J.S. Bach's deceptively simple-sounding partitas and fugues for violin solo.

Rue Des Quatre Vents · 1 year ago

I simply thought the analogy between classical liberal thinking and modernist design strained. However, you could have kept your best line and analogy and still made you strongest point: nationalist conservatism feels just like the musty lion hunting club you describe. But clearly there are more styles than the modernist or that of a Rush Limbaugh inspired Jumanji Den?

Given what you've described as your reasons for supporting classical liberalism, I would think Louis Sullivan's famous dicta about the skyscaper--that form ever follows function--would serve you quite nicely.

And incidentally, I am a Rawlsian libertarian just like yourself.

Rue Des Quatre Vents · 1 year ago

As an aside, my photo essay on digitally driven architecture can be found here:

https://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19869/

By the buildings I chose to profile, you'll see have no quarrel with moderism.

kkhjlk · 1 year ago

Rothko was a more complex thinker with more modernist sensibilities. That makes him a greater painter? I suppose Schoenberg is a greater artist than Dvorak too. Ah the sublimity of casting off creaky old forms.

Sigivald · 1 year ago

Wright? A hack that made cold houses with leaky roofs.

Happy?

bjk · 1 year ago

But all of McCain's wars are in the name of a morally superior state of affairs. Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, his support for intervention in Darfur, Somalia, Rwanda, etc.
McCain's support for amnesty is of a piece with his enthusiasm for invading the world. Both satisfy his considerable appetite for sanctimony. By the way, post-nationalism is the future and always will be.

Laure · 1 year ago

Hmm, I think that comparing systems in which one is organized to art an be problematic. Perhaps it's unfair to apply one's personal experience in such matters (though the understanding of art seems to invite if not beg the reaction) but whereas I might describe my experience as a libertarian-leaning person as that of someone whom, as you suggest, rationally prefers to have things work in a sensible and unconstrained-as-possible manner, my experience with Rothko, for example, is an emotive, quasi-spiritual gut reaction that considers the conceptual aspects of the work as an afterthought. In all of your examples I am on your aestheic "side" and yet I don't feel like I can buy fully into the metaphor.

Then again, I am subject to an emotional reaction when it comes to personalities- when I find someone creepy (which can occur with politicians), I am more likely to find their ideas suspect too. I don't *think* this indicates a lack of intellectual evolution on my part- I think some emotion adds to one's experiencing of many things, including social structure.

So maybe I like your analogy after all. :-)

Glen · 1 year ago

I liked the old analogy better. I agree that the Bouguereau is terrible... but Rothko is better? Seriously? Allow me to play the philistine by saying that Rothko sucks. Yes, I took the requisite college art classes that were supposed to make me appreciate modern non-representational art, I even went to see the Rothko exhibit in person... and I still think it sucks. C'mon, it's big stripes of color. Okay, okay, they're layered and stuff. Whatever, they're still just big colored stripes. Simultaneously pretentious and unimpressive.

alphie · 1 year ago

Sounds very nice...in theory.

In reality, China's Commies managed to grow their economy at a rate of 11.5% last year while America's economy is actually shrinking.

People who live in glass hunting lodges...

a Duoist · 1 year ago

'Virtue,' Montesquieu noted, is the "glue" that holds together republics, while 'honor' is the glue that holds together monarchies. Bowman's book noted that all of the Judaic/Christian cultures began a post-honor sociology as a consequence of WWI, which leaves us with only 'virtue' and a wistful nostalgia for 'honor' as the glues to hold republics together. "Honor,' by the way, is always an important 'glue' for the military, as in "Duty, Honor, Country" as the motto at West Point.

M noted one other glue, however: absent 'virtue' or 'honor,' FEAR can hold a society together: he called such fear societies, "tyrannies."

Perhaps the best way to understand Senator McCain is to think of the phrase, 'men of honor' whenever he mentions 'virtue.'

cby · 1 year ago

And, of course, the virtues required in war are not something that could possibly have any relevance for a modern president . . .

Steve Burton · 1 year ago

To prefer Rothko to Bouguereau, these days, is not to display even the slightest flicker of mature judgment. It is merely to display a superficial familiarity with the conventional wisdom of recent times.

The smug self-satisfaction of WW's second paragraph above just makes me cringe.

Will Wilkinson · 1 year ago

But you have to admit that to prefer Rothko to Bouguereau back in Bouguereau's day would have been AWESOME.

Ben A · 1 year ago

There is much to be said for the argument that the government has no business imposing on its citizens a commitment to "a cause greater than one's self." There is much less to said for the argument that a flourishing life does not require commitment to a cause greater than one's self. I am very surprised that Will thinks invoking the second argument against national greatness conservatism is likely to cast libertarianism in a favorable light.

TGGP · 1 year ago

Wow, that Rothko is utter crap. To prefer that at any time would just indicate terrible eyesight.

Why is Mitt your man? He's wholly behind the war, he wants to double Guantanamo, he was pushing socialism/corporatism in Detroit and he's entirely made of plastic. If you had said you were for Gravel or Kucinich I would have respected you more, and I don't even know if they're still in the race.

wilberforce · 1 year ago

i would just like to applaud steve burton for putting WW in his place. seriously WW, did you even follow your own links? you can't be smugly superior to the unwashed masses' taste in art when your taste is shared by mostly nouveau riche creeps and peter gabriel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_%28Peter_Gabrie....

Brian Moore · 1 year ago

I like Bouguereau and I don't like National Greatness. :(

*sniff*

I think this only displays that it's hard to make analogies like this. I'll forgive everyone's art taste if they promise to say bad things about McCain.

Will Wilkinson · 1 year ago

For Rothko-haters, I recommend the episode on him in Simon Schama's Power of Art series.

Steve Burton · 1 year ago

WW: why not provide the link? Simon Schama's Rothko bit may be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXZFLf9zHjs&...

Personally, I can hardly imagine a more damning attempt at a defense. Schama shows not the least sign of visual sensitivity. Which is something the French Academic painters of the 19th century all learned, as a matter of course, if they didn't possess it naturally.

redfish · 1 year ago

I find much less people understand Bouguereau than understand Rothko.

Bouguereau critics find little more in that painting than a bunch of pretty girls, while in fact the painting is a lot more complex than that aesthetically, and thematically.

Also, its one of Bouguereau's less effective paintings, because the composition is too staged. But I understand why you used it, because you want the easiest foil as possible.