“The far right can’t take away our hopes and memories. Culture is our weapon” writes Milo Rau in the Guardian:
Because all three of the values underpinning the revolution – liberty, fraternity and equality – are now disappearing into thin air in Europe, the birthplace of democracy.
And the political changes seem irreversible: In seven European democracies, far-right parties have entered government, and in several more states, including France, they are pushing at the gates of power. Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia and, of course, Russia, have quasi-autocratic governments. Last Sunday the Austrian Freedom party (FPÖ), a party that even the conservative media describe as “radical rightwing”, won a general election for the first time. They campaigned on the slogan “Fortress Austria”, in effect advocating an ethnically and culturally cleansed country. The term is reminiscent of “Fortress Europe” – a phrase favoured by Goebbels.
The FPÖ manifesto calls for “two genders” to be enshrined in the constitution, “remigration” to be radically implemented and for the creation of a two-tier society in which only “real” Austrians are entitled to social benefits. In the words of the FPÖ, it wants to “gain full power over government, space and people”.
“Ethnically cleansed” … “Goebbels” … “full power over government, space and people” … With the mad courage of despair, in the next sentence Mr Rau gets down to specifics about what form this onrushing horror will take:
In the area of cultural policy, it wants to follow the example of neighbouring Hungary and Slovakia and cut public subsidies for “woke events”, such as the Eurovision song contest
I wasn’t expecting that.
and the Vienna festival, which I am the director of.
Ah, now I understand.
In the eyes of the FPÖ, “woke” is presumably anything that is not brass band music, operetta or Germanic-pop schlager music.
In doing so, it is politicising a trend that has been apparent throughout Europe for many years: I remember in 2019, when I was still artistic director of the NTGent in Belgium, we demonstrated against the Flemish region’s budget cuts. The process of allocating subsidies was akin to distributing scarce food after a natural disaster: institutions and independent companies were thrown together into a pool that had far too little money at its disposal.
In neoliberal fashion, the actual problem – namely, insufficient subsidies for the arts – was translated into a competitive conflict.
From what I have read about the FPÖ, it does seem that the party’s “far right” label has more substance behind it than is usual, but the party “cutting cultural budgets on the grounds that they are not economically viable” does not contribute to my having that opinion. Mr Rau seems to think that that the disbursement of government subsidies being a political matter, taxpayer money being treated as a finite resource, and subsidy-funded arts organisations actually having to compete with each other all constitute outrages against the natural order.
After drudging through the tedious and clichéd Guardian article, this paragraph piqued my interest:
”When Xerxes the Persian king marched against Greece to end the freedom of the city states, he sent a messenger who demanded that the Greeks hand over their swords and shields. The Greeks proudly replied: “Come and take them.””
Now I’m not a classicist and am wary of being too anachronistic, but I’m pretty sure Xerxes’ Persia was the cosmopolitan multicultural and universalist leaning empire and the Spartans and other Greek states were the local particularists. So the authors to claim to use Ancient Greeks to defend modern multicultural internationalism doesn’t work.
Because “Please stop giving our tax money away to every crook, conman and charlatan that asks for it.” Is clearly far right horror akin to genocide.
I must say that the idea that the left embodies “liberty, fraternity and equality” made me gasp with astonishment, I’m obviously not as immune to their nonsense as I thought.
As an Instapundit commenter remarked, when you hear the phrase “a threat to democracy” the last word should be understood to mean “bureaucracy.”
The interesting thing about state funding of the arts is…
Well, let’s take the RSC. RSC tickets are pricey despite large subsidies. Oddly enough in the days of the original Globe Theatre William Shakespeare himself managed to make a profit putting on his plays. And, by all accounts, the clientele of the Globe were not exactly the upper echelons of society… Indeed all that quaffing of ale and whore-mongering sounds positively proletarian!
Fast forward a bit and a certain obscure Austrian wannabe painter didn’t seem to have much problem affording his Wagner tickets either…
In the context of the OP I kinda had to include that.
PS. Good point Martin. The Persian Empire was indeed multi-cultural (though also tyrannical) and the Greeks were, in their way, very provicial in outlook. Those city-states were tiny and often at war with each other.
PPS. To draw this comment together… Weren’t there a load of Thespians at Thermopylae? Did they put on a bit of “Half-time Sophocles”?
When everything is labelled as fascist, nothing is.
The problem with this approach is that when there are genuinely ugly things being advocated, the broad public get desensitised to it because of how everything that certain folk don’t like is likened to the next coming of tyranny.
Removing subsidies for works of “art” or whatever is not fascism.
When everything is labelled as fascist, nothing is.
The problem with this approach is that when there are genuinely ugly things being advocated, the broad public get desensitised to it because of how everything that certain folk don’t like is likened to the next coming of tyranny.
Removing subsidies for works of “art” or whatever is not fascism.
I really think that no arts should be subsidised by tax money at all. If Joe Blogs wants to go to see the Rolling Stones he has to pay the market price. If Tarquin and Jocasta want to go to the RSC they are subsidised by Joe Blogs.
If you want art, pay for it. Then we’ll see if it survives.
Mark Richards’ point is also expressed by asking why my elderly, disabled, and northern little old Mum should have to forgo an extra tin of cat food for Tiddles or go without heating for a day or two because of the additional tax she has to pay. An outcome that’s made worse because her tax money gets spent on a night’s entertainment for the sort of Metropolitan bastards who still curse her bones for voting for Brexit! They’ll happily take her winter fuel allowance… but they won’t let her even give Tiddles a treat!
The Guardian article is largely, not totally but largely, an inversion of the truth.
It is they, the Guardian types, who hate Western culture and wish to destroy Western culture – as they and their Fabian and Bloomsbury (and Cambridge Apostles Club) intellectual ancestors have been working to do since Victorian times.
And it is they, the Guardian types, who hate democracy and wish to destroy democracy – in the sense of policy being decided by the people, rather that the people being “educated” to accept policy.
It is also the Guardian types who have the real contempt for the immigrants – Islamic and non Islamic. The Guardian types see the immigrants and the children of the immigrants merely as “cannon fodder” a weapon or tool with which they, the Guardian types, can destroy the West and impose their own half baked Collectivist doctrines – from Karl Marx, Rousseau (the “Law Giver” being the only person to decide what the “General Will” is – ordinary human beings just being the despised “will of all”) and so on.
The Guardian types do not understand that the immigrants and their children (and children’s children) have a culture of their own – certainly they may share the hatred for Western civilization that the Guardian types have, but they are NOT just weapons or tools, they are NOT puppets.
Should Western civilization be destroyed, as the Guardian types fanatically desire, the Guardian types will get a nasty shock.
What replaces Western Civilization will NOT be the “In The Days Of The Comet” (H.G. Wells – burn all traditional art, destroy all traditional music, destroy all beautiful buildings, live in tents till the ugly modernist blocks are finished – destroy the family, motherhood married husband and wife and their children, destroy private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange) style “Progressive” Collectivism the Guardian types crave – it is far more likely to be Islam, which is a great civilization in its own right, and no tool of Guardian leftists.
The Guardian types think the immigrants (and the descendants of the immigrants) are their puppets to use – but they are going to get a shock about who is really using who.
The arts in the United Kingdom were in a far better state before the “Arts Council” was created in the 1940s – and this is not an accident, as Lord Keynes and his friends were not friends of traditional culture.
As for “Goebells” – an inversion of the truth, as it is some of the Islamic immigrants – and some of their descendants, who the Austrian Freedom Party is against, who wish to kill the Jews.
This is the rabbit hole that modern “liberalism”, which is not really liberalism at all, has gone down – in the name of being “anti Nazi” modern “liberals” support forces that want to kill the Jews.
Real liberals, such as John Bright and Gladstone (and Winston Churchill) held rather different opinions on the matter of Islam.
Again Islam is a great civilization in-its-own-right and many centuries old – the idea that these Collectivist “liberals” can use it as their puppet, their tool, in their campaign to destroy Western nations and replace them with whatever Dr Klaus Schwab and the Collectivist United Nations can dream up (“you will own nothing”), is absurd.
By the way – someone who is taking taxpayer money, as the head of the Vienna Festival does, should not insult any political party. If he wants to express his political opinions – he can refuse the taxpayer money and fund the festival himself.
But then someone who seems to have no idea what happened to his city, Vienna, in 1529 and 1683 is clearly not the “cultured intellectual” he presents himself as being.
History did not start in the 1930s.
I find the government’s attitude to Islam to be a fine example of doublethink. “There is no conflict between Islam and the west, and we support Islam.”
“a threat to democracy” the last word should be understood to mean “bureaucracy.”
And when you hear a journalist use the word “expert”, that word should be understood to mean “moron.” I automatically make that translation inside my head when listening to any modern news show.
Roue le Jour.
Western leaders, since at least President Bush and and Prime Minister Blair, support an “Islam” that exists only in their minds – and which has nothing to with what Muhammed taught or personally did. Muslims themselves tend to be rather better informed than the Western establishment – the Islam that Muslims support tends to be based on the teachings and personal example of Muhammed (which has no connection with the “Islam” of Mr Bush, Mr Blair and the rest of the Western establishment).
SteveD – yes good translations Sir.
This is wrong. In fact the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda issued a directive banning the phrase Festung Europa (“Fortress Europe”) from all mass media. The reason given was that a fortress, however strong, can easily be surrounded and besieged, and is doomed to fall unless relieved by outside forces. If Nazi-controlled Europe was a fortress, then it was already surrounded, besieged, and doomed.