Art for Politics' Sake

The height of trite: Whenever government puts out something on the arts, it must be illustrated by people dancing. This is from the home page of the PCHA. Art, by contrast, will strive for something fresh and surprising. 

The insanity continues to spread. Now all seventeen appointed members of the Presidential Committee on the Arts and Humanities have resigned in protest against Trump’s even-handed response to the rioting in Charlottesville.

To be fair, these were all Obama appointees, and so may be primarily political hacks. But still—there is something very wrong when every appointed member of the committee on Arts and Humanities is actually opposed to Arts and Humanities.

Maybe this demonstrates the wisdom of the common people in electing Trump. It shows the depravity of the artistic elite. “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” it has been called by one French author. Those in charge in the Arts and Humanities not only no longer believe in either the Arts or the Humanities—they openly and eagerly want to tear them both down.

Here is the full joint resignation letter, with commentary interposed:

Dear Mr. President:
Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville.

[You know something evil is afoot when there is an obvious lie in the first sentence. Trump condemned these groups in a press conference, even before the incident in which someone got killed. He has arguably been a lot better than his immediate predecessor in condemning terrorism.]

The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions.

[Did any of these guys condemn the hate? Are they prepared to even now? Have they, and will they, condemn Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and La Raza? If, on the other hand, they are adamant in condemning only “white” people, or white males, or cis white males—they are the hate.]

We are members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH). The Committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues.

[This looks deceitful—the current members have nothing to do with President Reagan, but were appointed by Obama. They looak as though they are trying to make it appear they do. So much for their moral character.]

We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners and the private sector to address, initiate, and support key policies and programs in the arts and humanities for all Americans.

[And how exactly is Trump interfering with their doing this? No, clearly, these resigning members of the committee are doing this, not Trump, allowing their politics to come before their stated jobs, and then blaming Trump for it. Lie once, and you will lie about everything.]

Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. 

Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American.

[Indeed it is. And that is just what these committee members are doing. But note that term, “un-American.” It is an interesting term. What might it imply?]

We have fought slavery, segregation, and internment.

[No, I wager you have not. You merely benefit from that fight. You are trying to take credit for the good deeds and hard choices and sacrifices of others. This again reveals your moral character, and it is not attractive to look at.]

We must learn from our rich and often painful history. The unified fabric of America is made by patriotic individuals from backgrounds as vast as the nation is strong. In our service to the American people,

[More cringeworthy self-congratulation. One wildly imagines the American people might be capable of, and prefer, speaking for themselves. Like in electing their president, say.]

we have experienced this first-hand as we traveled and built the Turnaround Arts education program, now in many urban and rural schools across the country from Florida to Wisconsin. 

Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President. But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so. Art is about inclusion.

[No, it is not. First off, art is not about “Speaking truth to power.” This is insisting that art must be subservient to, and serve, politics. This is a fundamentally anti-art position. Nor is art about “inclusion.” Neither museums, galleries, nor literary publications accept all comers. Just the reverse: It would be truer to say that art is about exclusion. Good art is the rejection of bad art, and of all the humdrum and humbug in the world. These people actually have no sense of what art is.]

The Humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both.

[Trump has attacked neither—neither inclusion nor a free press; whether or not either has to do with art. (And neither really does.) The left, however, with their “hate speech” and “political correctness,” and open hostility to “cis white males” has.

This is one of the main pillars of Trump’s appeal to his constituency: the fight for a free press and freedom of speech. Perhaps the main one.

Racists call anti-racists racists, and themselves anti-racists. Fascists call anti-Fascists Fascists, and themselves anti-Fascists. If you want to do something you know is wrong, the first instinct is to call it the opposite of what it is. You love your children by aborting them. Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. After all, you work for the Ministry of Truth.]

You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding.

[Morality, in other words, means giving more money to bureaucrats. Or, as Jesus called them, Pharisees. Bureaucrats are not the poor, and they are not the artists.

Note that it was not Trump that threatened nuclear war, It was Kim Jong Un. Once you have walked through the wonderland mirror, everything is presented as its opposite.]

The Administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act, and attacked our brave trans service members.

[Never mind the arguments for or against each of these policy decisions; never mind even if what they say is literally true, as of course it is not. This is to chain the arts and humanities arbitrarily to specific policy decisions. To do so is obviously against the interests of the arts and humanities. It is to enslave and then destroy them for your political purposes.]

You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country.

[Another outright lie. Trump has never proposed banning “refugee women and children” from the US. Unless perhaps they mean to suggest that it is immoral to deny automatic entry to any woman or child who claims to be a refugee. In which case, besides being profoundly harmful to the US, this policy would be sexist in the extreme. Only women, and not men?

Trump has never called for anything more than a temporary ban on allowing Muslims into the country. But, even if he had proposed a permanent and total ban, even this would have been a perfectly defensible position. Nobody has an inherent right to immigrate, and no country believes they do. Countries, as voluntary associations, have a right to choose to exclude as well as include when deciding their membership. How they treat citizens—members – is a different issue. Some grounds for discrimination might yet be frivolous, but surely not religion. Religion means values, and shared values are fundamental to the ability of any society to succeed.]

This does not unify the nation we all love.

[I think the charge of dividing the nation falls heavily on those who have been pushing “identity politics” for generations. That would be the left. If these folks are against identity politics, why have they been silent for so long? And they are still pushing division and identity politics here and now. They demand that Trump condemn only one side in a riot with two sides, both using violence. What could be more divisive?]

We know the importance of open and free dialogue through our work in the cultural diplomacy realm, most recently with the first-ever US Government arts and culture delegation to Cuba, a country without the same First Amendment protections we enjoy here.

[I thought they were in favour of First Amendment principles. They just said they were. Shouldn’t this mean condemning Cuba? Sequitur, meet non. I expected those with backgrounds in the Humanities would have some command of basic logic.]

Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed.

[This is an assertion without any visible argument or evidence. It immediately follows what seems to be a demand for closer ties with Cuba. How empty can rhetoric get?]

Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions.

[Again, this is just employing prejudicial language. They offer no examples of “hateful rhetoric,” only the assertion. Yeah, and your mother is ugly!]

We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

[Interesting. They seem to be using this as if to pull rank. Are they unaware that the President also takes such an oath? They seem to be implying he does not. Nor do they explain how resigning from an arts advisory council supports or defends the US Constitution--even if Trump were somehow violating it. If he were, the recourse would be to the Supreme Court.]

Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values.

[Again, a bit of prejudicial language. Without argument or evidence, at least none apparent here, they are simply asserting that Trump believes in “supremacy” (presumably they mean “white supremacy,” because the word “supremacy” here without a modifier is nonsensical. Anyone with a background in the Humanities ought to understand this much English), discrimination (presumably they mean “racial discrimination”; same problem), and “vitriol.” Maybe Trump believes in vitriol. He should; there is obviously a place for vitriol. Presumably the authors of this letter also believe in vitriol, since they are employing it themselves.

Making them, in their own terms, “not American.”

But then, they also clearly imply there is something wrong with that. Isn’t this the height of nativism? If there is something wrong with being “not American,” what does this say about immigrants? Are they so utterly lacking in self-awareness as not to see this?]

We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.

How is that for claiming the moral high ground? They are declaring themselves “better” in some vague but absolute moral sense. In morality, saying it is always the obvious substitute for doing it.

And, the first letters of each paragraph in the letter, together, spell the word “resist.” Just in case you imagined this was all non-partisan and disinterested.

The final and most important irony is that at the event which initiated this resignation, one side had assembled in support of art and the humanities, and the other side was adamantly opposed to them. We cannot honestly know what else the “alt-right” side believed in; they were not permitted to speak. But one thing we do know with certainty: they were there to protest pulling down a public art installation commemorating American history. There you have it: Art and the Humanities, as they intersect with public life. The one thing we can know for certain about the other side—some have called them the “alt-left,” but we really have no better idea who they were and what they thought—is that they approved this pulling down of monuments.

Trump tried to be neutral. But guess which side his Arts and Humanities Commission falls down on?

They are working against exactly what they were appointed to protect.

On one issue, then, they were right. They absolutely ought to all have resigned.

One hopes Trump will appoint some people who actually like the Arts and Humanities. Or at least know something about them.