esvrld , 10 months ago it's actually a curse to be this correct all the time, with my magazine What is the ‘good’ art protagonists of the reactionary view want? First of all it is representative. It must look like something: it must be interpretable on the surface level. It must not confuse, must not present any space for ambiguity. For art to be ‘challenging’ is for the reactionary view a moral ill. Second, it is affirming. Thee reactionary goes to the gallery (supposing he does) to be amazed, perhaps, but ultimately to be put at ease. When a gamer sights a woman or a minority in a video game, they deplore this as lack of ‘realism’ — realism, in a game about dragons or space aliens? What they mean, precisely, is that the game does not extend their sense of reality. It does not affirm their ideology. Thee reactionary wants art that presents the political structures they rely on as apolitical givens. Therefore it can present no appearance of having a politic — any suggestion it could must be excoriated — because to the reactionary the only politic is the enemy’s politic, their own being simply ‘how reality is’. So, then, for art to reflect and represent reality means for it to reaffirm the reactionary view of reality.
it's actually a curse to be this correct all the time, with my magazine
What is the ‘good’ art protagonists of the reactionary view want? First of all it is representative. It must look like something: it must be interpretable on the surface level. It must not confuse, must not present any space for ambiguity. For art to be ‘challenging’ is for the reactionary view a moral ill. Second, it is affirming. Thee reactionary goes to the gallery (supposing he does) to be amazed, perhaps, but ultimately to be put at ease. When a gamer sights a woman or a minority in a video game, they deplore this as lack of ‘realism’ — realism, in a game about dragons or space aliens? What they mean, precisely, is that the game does not extend their sense of reality. It does not affirm their ideology. Thee reactionary wants art that presents the political structures they rely on as apolitical givens. Therefore it can present no appearance of having a politic — any suggestion it could must be excoriated — because to the reactionary the only politic is the enemy’s politic, their own being simply ‘how reality is’. So, then, for art to reflect and represent reality means for it to reaffirm the reactionary view of reality.