A date with Ross Douthat and the New York Times, the relationship between art and politics, why left wing art sucks, and why the right shouldn't make the same mistakes
I know Star Wars gets brought up a lot in this context, but there's a reason for that. It's both an important cultural touchstone and a great example of this dichotomy. The OT and prequels were rooted in ancient myth and symbolism, fiction that points at something undeniably true. They were good. The Sequels and subsequent TV releases were box checking exercises rooted in nothing real. They were very, very bad.
I did enjoy Rogue One, and the first two seasons of The Mandalorian are probably the best Star Wars stuff Disney has put out. Their overall batting average is pretty terrible though.
I enjoyed Season 1 while I watched it, but I never felt compelled to go back to it. Haven’t gotten into Season 2 yet, although having the word “rape” in Star Wars feels weird to me, even if the show is more adult in tone and content.
The attempted sexual assault isn’t gratuitous; it advances the idea of the Empire as something to be feared. Agreed, though. It’s not cute or campy. The scene you are talking about isn’t even the most disturbing scene in the second season.
This may turn out to be an unpopular view, but I think two of the most popular and successful works of fantasy fiction of the last few decades are “right wing,” or at least not left-wing. I refer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame and Harry Potter.
With Marvel, start with Tony Stark. He begins as a fast-talking, arrogant, womanizing playboy who routinely beds beautiful women for a night. In the visual vernacular of American film, he lives in a modernist supervillain lair. The series of films then explores concepts of courage in the face of great danger, determination in the face of hardship, loyalty to friends and family, forgiveness, and, ultimately, sacrifice. Stark ends his journey living in a cabin by a lake, monogamously married to Pepper Potts with a child. And ultimately he dies to save half the human race.
Harry Potter is similar. It’s about courage, loyalty, and truth telling. Remember, the bad guys take over the apparatus of the state and use that to enforce their version of the truth on the community.
Now, to be sure, neither of these are politically didactic, the way Atlas Shrugged is. But both are fundamentally conservative at base.
Did the clipped portions contain your response to Douthat's contention that Trump can only be a providential chastisement? And what else was there that you would've included?
Honesty is a great criterion for good art. So be honest with yourself: plenty of left wing or liberal art is honest. The Wire is honest.
Would love to hear more about how David Lynch is right wing.
Ironically, then, left wing art was not left wing in the 70s and 80s. Updike, who was implicitly on the right, Coppola, Chuck Close, Roth, Mailer, all of them told the truth, none of them tried to redeem human beings through bullshit politics. Now we have Tarantino and Mike White but other than houllebecque, no writers.
There have been whole artistic movements that attached themselves to right wing political projects. Futurism in Italy jumps out for its close association with the Fascists. It took elements of cubism but tried to capture the essence of motion, and as a result leaned heavily into themes of dynamism, vitality, and technological progress. What’s funny to me is that these themes weren’t necessarily right-coded at the time. They were leaning into radical modernism as a form of rebellion against the static nature of traditional forms of high art and the cultural sensibilities that shaped it.
Thank you for clarifying your thoughts on that. I agree - any attempt to create art within the framework of a particular political ideology would produce a dishonest, handicapped result. It would be stifling to work with that bullshit floating around in the back of your mind during the making of the piece of art, film, or what have you.
One thing the left has mastered is claiming works of art through academic criticism. For example the edition of Emma by Jane Austen that I read in college includes sections analyzing the text using Gender, Marxist, and Feminist criticism. If we're only creating are but not discussing it we should expect to lose
We don't need to create 'right-wing art', but a literary space and publishing outlet for all those who don't want to be held to the strictures of 'left-wing art'.
Before even getting to Art...in the service of 'truth', I'm hoping someone can tell me what exactly is meant by Right-Wing here, and less precisely - by the term ‘the Right’? Radical Conservatism? Integralism? Monarchism? Perrenialism? Fascism? Ethnonationalism? What are the core ideological facets of this amorphous, and expansive, right-wing ideology that are best served by artists striving towards truth without aiming to be political from the outset…but which somehow will inevitably (and miraculously) reflect an indeterminate right-wing ideological perspective? I agree that the best art is non-political, but this is because it’s universal…truth, most will agree, is a universal philosophical category. I struggle to see how reflecting ‘truth’ is inherently ‘right-wing’, a political term which originates in the turmoil of 1789… Whereas truth has a somewhat more expansive history, to say the least. Was there no truth and no art before 1789? Is the idea of truth posited here synonymous with 'facts.'? As one of the commenters below, perhaps a little ironically but also somewhat sincerely, claims: 'Reality has a right-wing bias.' But if 'The Right' strives towards truth as a reflection of an empirical reality how will it then be possible to incorporate the non-empirical - but no less profound - assertion of truth and reality that underpins almost every single metaphysical conception of the world, in religious 'faith' and 'belief'? In America, at least, this constitutes a significant proportion of the demographic amenable to 'the right'.
Most generously, it seems a little naive and presumptuous…at worst, since this chap is being interviewed in the NY Times…I suspect it's a little more cynical, and this particular brand of non-committal, amorphous ‘Right-Wingism’ is ripe for recuperation since it poses no real threat or challenge, and can easily be integrated into the institutions of the current status quo….the dominance of which is, in the final analysis, based on economics and class.
I suspect it is also meant to be vague and non-committal to deflect from the fact that the vaunted cultural revolution of the ‘Right’ is as equally motivated by Ressentiment, and personal grievances writ large, as the Liberal left have been. Both are merely two counter-vailing, and in the end complimentary, forms of Political Romanticism.
Right-wing meaning an embracement of the world as is, with its natural hierarchies, unfortunate brutality, elegant genius.
And Left-wing meaning a projection of what could be, and perhaps what ought to be, an imposition of an ideological system of values onto the natural world and its chaos and inelegance.
Aristotle vs. Plato
Nietzsche vs. Kierkegaard
etc.
Many political movements map across elements of each side, primarily for their own political utility rather than any deeply-felt morality.
Most religions, including Christianity, align heavily with the left-wing framing, particularly in their political expressions.That said, the Incarnation synthesizes both elements in the person of Jesus, God and Man, connecting in one way the natural and spiritual realms, a unification that will occur fully in the Resurrection of the Body at the end of time.
So called ‘Safe Spaces’ - leftwing art - don’t generate enough tension, fear and excitement to be genuinely powerful. ‘Left Wing’ art is blasé - safe for consumption.
while I agree that Art isn’t inherently political, if I had to put Lynch on one side, it would be on the right. because he famously refuses to explain his movies, I can see why the left would want to claim him.
probably his most misunderstood film is Blue Velvet.
every retarded critic thinks it’s an indictment of the traditional morality of 1950’s America, that Lynch was ripping off the scab to reveal the hypocritical underbelly…but nothing could be further from the truth. it’s clear to me from reading his auto-biography that he has a great fondness for the citizens of Lumberton and Twin Peaks because they represent the idyllic world that Lynch grew up in. all of his films take place “Between Two Worlds”. his characters always navigate Heaven and Hell, light and dark…just like the real world. he pierces the veil to reveal the horrifying and enchanted reality we all inhabit.
It's hard to imagine why you think "Girls" was right wing? I mean it did make a group of liberal feminist college grads look like crap, and in a way that the more glamorous "Sex and the City" does not. Is that what you mean? Like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "White Lotus" you could see it as a savage parody of upper middle class liberalism? I thought that https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/gays-of-the-white-lotus
Because the soul doesn’t just crave accuracy—it longs for a story that reveals who we are, what we’re for, and what’s worth dying for.
One of the most devastating things the left destroyed is our mythological substrate. For decades, Hollywood has been quietly reprogramming the moral imagination—not through debate, but through narrative.
And the core truth they’ve attacked isn’t economic or even political. It’s men, women, and the sacred pattern between them.
If there is to be such a thing as right-wing art, let it begin not with politics or grievance—
but with the mythic reconstruction of the sacred order that was lost.
Great interview. Reality has a right-wing bias. Also explains why Ross and the NYT crowd clutch their pearls so hard over memes ;)
I know Star Wars gets brought up a lot in this context, but there's a reason for that. It's both an important cultural touchstone and a great example of this dichotomy. The OT and prequels were rooted in ancient myth and symbolism, fiction that points at something undeniably true. They were good. The Sequels and subsequent TV releases were box checking exercises rooted in nothing real. They were very, very bad.
You know Star Wars is a bit like the Wizard of Oz:
Cowardly lion - Chewbaca
Tin Man - C3P0
Toto - R2D2
Dorothy - Luke
Wicked Witch of the West - Darth Vader
Wizard of Oz - Lando Calrissian
Emerald City - Cloud City
Scarecrow - Hans Solo?
Glenda - Obi Wan Kenobi
Witch's castle - Death Star
Even more intriguing -- did Frank Baum think of Homer:
Poseidon - tornado
Circe, Calypso - wicked witches
Phaeacians/island of Scheria - Emerald city
Odysseus - Dorothy
Lotus eaters - Poppy fields
Scylla? Charybdis? Polyphemus? - Scary forest
Athena - Glenda
Giants - Munchkins
But doing Homer/Star Wars doesn't work as well.
Andor is actually quite good, as is Rogue One.
I did enjoy Rogue One, and the first two seasons of The Mandalorian are probably the best Star Wars stuff Disney has put out. Their overall batting average is pretty terrible though.
I think Andor is the best Star Wars since Empire Strikes Back.
I enjoyed Season 1 while I watched it, but I never felt compelled to go back to it. Haven’t gotten into Season 2 yet, although having the word “rape” in Star Wars feels weird to me, even if the show is more adult in tone and content.
The attempted sexual assault isn’t gratuitous; it advances the idea of the Empire as something to be feared. Agreed, though. It’s not cute or campy. The scene you are talking about isn’t even the most disturbing scene in the second season.
But it’s well worth watching.
Well, then Houellebecq is for sure right then?
This may turn out to be an unpopular view, but I think two of the most popular and successful works of fantasy fiction of the last few decades are “right wing,” or at least not left-wing. I refer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Iron Man to Avengers: Endgame and Harry Potter.
With Marvel, start with Tony Stark. He begins as a fast-talking, arrogant, womanizing playboy who routinely beds beautiful women for a night. In the visual vernacular of American film, he lives in a modernist supervillain lair. The series of films then explores concepts of courage in the face of great danger, determination in the face of hardship, loyalty to friends and family, forgiveness, and, ultimately, sacrifice. Stark ends his journey living in a cabin by a lake, monogamously married to Pepper Potts with a child. And ultimately he dies to save half the human race.
Harry Potter is similar. It’s about courage, loyalty, and truth telling. Remember, the bad guys take over the apparatus of the state and use that to enforce their version of the truth on the community.
Now, to be sure, neither of these are politically didactic, the way Atlas Shrugged is. But both are fundamentally conservative at base.
Did the clipped portions contain your response to Douthat's contention that Trump can only be a providential chastisement? And what else was there that you would've included?
Honesty is a great criterion for good art. So be honest with yourself: plenty of left wing or liberal art is honest. The Wire is honest.
Would love to hear more about how David Lynch is right wing.
Ironically, then, left wing art was not left wing in the 70s and 80s. Updike, who was implicitly on the right, Coppola, Chuck Close, Roth, Mailer, all of them told the truth, none of them tried to redeem human beings through bullshit politics. Now we have Tarantino and Mike White but other than houllebecque, no writers.
There have been whole artistic movements that attached themselves to right wing political projects. Futurism in Italy jumps out for its close association with the Fascists. It took elements of cubism but tried to capture the essence of motion, and as a result leaned heavily into themes of dynamism, vitality, and technological progress. What’s funny to me is that these themes weren’t necessarily right-coded at the time. They were leaning into radical modernism as a form of rebellion against the static nature of traditional forms of high art and the cultural sensibilities that shaped it.
Thank you for clarifying your thoughts on that. I agree - any attempt to create art within the framework of a particular political ideology would produce a dishonest, handicapped result. It would be stifling to work with that bullshit floating around in the back of your mind during the making of the piece of art, film, or what have you.
One thing the left has mastered is claiming works of art through academic criticism. For example the edition of Emma by Jane Austen that I read in college includes sections analyzing the text using Gender, Marxist, and Feminist criticism. If we're only creating are but not discussing it we should expect to lose
We don't need to create 'right-wing art', but a literary space and publishing outlet for all those who don't want to be held to the strictures of 'left-wing art'.
Before even getting to Art...in the service of 'truth', I'm hoping someone can tell me what exactly is meant by Right-Wing here, and less precisely - by the term ‘the Right’? Radical Conservatism? Integralism? Monarchism? Perrenialism? Fascism? Ethnonationalism? What are the core ideological facets of this amorphous, and expansive, right-wing ideology that are best served by artists striving towards truth without aiming to be political from the outset…but which somehow will inevitably (and miraculously) reflect an indeterminate right-wing ideological perspective? I agree that the best art is non-political, but this is because it’s universal…truth, most will agree, is a universal philosophical category. I struggle to see how reflecting ‘truth’ is inherently ‘right-wing’, a political term which originates in the turmoil of 1789… Whereas truth has a somewhat more expansive history, to say the least. Was there no truth and no art before 1789? Is the idea of truth posited here synonymous with 'facts.'? As one of the commenters below, perhaps a little ironically but also somewhat sincerely, claims: 'Reality has a right-wing bias.' But if 'The Right' strives towards truth as a reflection of an empirical reality how will it then be possible to incorporate the non-empirical - but no less profound - assertion of truth and reality that underpins almost every single metaphysical conception of the world, in religious 'faith' and 'belief'? In America, at least, this constitutes a significant proportion of the demographic amenable to 'the right'.
Most generously, it seems a little naive and presumptuous…at worst, since this chap is being interviewed in the NY Times…I suspect it's a little more cynical, and this particular brand of non-committal, amorphous ‘Right-Wingism’ is ripe for recuperation since it poses no real threat or challenge, and can easily be integrated into the institutions of the current status quo….the dominance of which is, in the final analysis, based on economics and class.
I suspect it is also meant to be vague and non-committal to deflect from the fact that the vaunted cultural revolution of the ‘Right’ is as equally motivated by Ressentiment, and personal grievances writ large, as the Liberal left have been. Both are merely two counter-vailing, and in the end complimentary, forms of Political Romanticism.
Right-wing meaning an embracement of the world as is, with its natural hierarchies, unfortunate brutality, elegant genius.
And Left-wing meaning a projection of what could be, and perhaps what ought to be, an imposition of an ideological system of values onto the natural world and its chaos and inelegance.
Aristotle vs. Plato
Nietzsche vs. Kierkegaard
etc.
Many political movements map across elements of each side, primarily for their own political utility rather than any deeply-felt morality.
Most religions, including Christianity, align heavily with the left-wing framing, particularly in their political expressions.That said, the Incarnation synthesizes both elements in the person of Jesus, God and Man, connecting in one way the natural and spiritual realms, a unification that will occur fully in the Resurrection of the Body at the end of time.
So called ‘Safe Spaces’ - leftwing art - don’t generate enough tension, fear and excitement to be genuinely powerful. ‘Left Wing’ art is blasé - safe for consumption.
So if you have to choose between art and politics which one are you choosing in the end? It seems like you’re unlikely to give up politics.
Lynch is my favorite filmmaker.
while I agree that Art isn’t inherently political, if I had to put Lynch on one side, it would be on the right. because he famously refuses to explain his movies, I can see why the left would want to claim him.
probably his most misunderstood film is Blue Velvet.
every retarded critic thinks it’s an indictment of the traditional morality of 1950’s America, that Lynch was ripping off the scab to reveal the hypocritical underbelly…but nothing could be further from the truth. it’s clear to me from reading his auto-biography that he has a great fondness for the citizens of Lumberton and Twin Peaks because they represent the idyllic world that Lynch grew up in. all of his films take place “Between Two Worlds”. his characters always navigate Heaven and Hell, light and dark…just like the real world. he pierces the veil to reveal the horrifying and enchanted reality we all inhabit.
I could go on, but you get it…
It's hard to imagine why you think "Girls" was right wing? I mean it did make a group of liberal feminist college grads look like crap, and in a way that the more glamorous "Sex and the City" does not. Is that what you mean? Like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "White Lotus" you could see it as a savage parody of upper middle class liberalism? I thought that https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/gays-of-the-white-lotus
“Just tell the truth.”
Exactly. I’d only add: tell it mythically.
Because the soul doesn’t just crave accuracy—it longs for a story that reveals who we are, what we’re for, and what’s worth dying for.
One of the most devastating things the left destroyed is our mythological substrate. For decades, Hollywood has been quietly reprogramming the moral imagination—not through debate, but through narrative.
And the core truth they’ve attacked isn’t economic or even political. It’s men, women, and the sacred pattern between them.
If there is to be such a thing as right-wing art, let it begin not with politics or grievance—
but with the mythic reconstruction of the sacred order that was lost.
Because if we want to win—
We won’t do it with rules or outrage.
We’ll do it by giving them a myth worth living.