Im a music and film guy, and I can't even think of the last fiercely leftist song that was allowed to break through into the mainstream. Maybe Glovers This is America? Films are a little better in the indie space, but not by much. Everything has to be a metaphor now. All this art exists, its just buried under a mountain of safe, recycled crap that challenges nothing because the gatekeepers, the rich, want it that way. Fucking MUBI sold out to private capitol, even when people do try to create seperate platforms for thoughtful art, the rich just buy and ruin it every single time. Substack is headed in the same direction, sigh.
🎶 Plan to listen to Joyce Strong right away. Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and former President Barack Obama have announced a music education collaboration. BTW: Taylor Swift said that her first memory is of finger 🎨 painting at the age of three. To my ear, the layers and textures in her music often have a delightful 'finger-painted' quality the charm of which has brought her tremendous wealth and success. KEEP THE ARTS ALIVE IN K-12 AND THE ECONOMY BENEFITS.
RE: Taylor Swift's finger painting, please see Brian Hiatt's October 25th, 2012, interview in 'Rolling Stone', (RS 1168) in which Swift says, "I think my earliest memory is my mom would set up an easel in the kitchen when I was three. And she'd give me finger paints, and I'd paint whatever I wanted. And it was always good enough."
This looks like a great epistemology question for Mike Brock's Substack. Swift-Obama-Springsteen, or ‘SOS’ item appears to be from an individual on Instagram, but even THAT could be fake AI. How do we know what we know?
My apologies. Swift, Springsteen, and former President Barack Obama are doing some political fundraising. However, that may very well ultimately translate into better funding for the arts in K-12.
My pitch here for Democrats is to tell the Captain America story. A story about the defenders of liberal democracy coming together to fight the increasingly unified front of fascist dictators throughout the world. There's a lot of inspiration to draw from here, but almost everything the Democrats want can fit into this narrative framework of being comic-book heroes that oppose the cartoonish villainy of Trump and Putin and Xi.
But whether that's the particular story you tell, the key thing here is just to create narrative out of everything you do. It's not enough just to choose individually popular or effective policies, you need a real story that ties it all together. Liberalism needs a wider narrative people can believe in, one that goes beyond just what you personally are likely to get from it.
This is something Donald Trump, with his TV background, is very good at. Everyone around him gets made into an exciting character. From the rogue's gallery of TV personalities in his cabinet, to his opponents, who get special nicknames and assigned roles. Everyone knows the personalities and foibles of his cabinet, as if they were characters in a TV show. His opponents aren't just regular boring politicians, they're "Shifty Adam Schift" and "Crooked Hillary." The way he talks about them and plays them up, it turns everyone in his orbit into a memorable TV character and gives them each a role in the story of Trump.
Democrats often complain that Trump seems politically invulnerable to scandal or failure, but this is a big part of the reason why! He's telling a story where he's the heroic rebel figure defending the public against the evil Deep State. In this story, people will forgive him his flaws and failures. No one hates Tony Stark for being an alcoholic or failing to defeat the bad guy a few times, because we believe he'll overcome his weaknesses and win in the end.
Any group that wants to have a hope of fighting back this fascist push needs to be able to tell a similar story about themselves.
The authoritarian message is that they counteract chaos by consolidating strength around a single authority. Their core theme is "many people, one truth". That theme is asserts that simple Order quells Chaos. That is a very old & powerful theme. We must center on an even older and more powerful theme, one that acknowledges the world is strange and full of wonders & terrors. It is a theme that reveals that it is not Chaos it is Nature and that we thrive by understanding all of Nature's stories, and by adding our own stories to hers. Ours is "many truths, one people"
A lot of important insights in this piece. The early labor movement and even the pamphleteers of the revolutionary war provide clear examples of how we should approach this war of images. Unfortunately, the left looks at something like “West Wing” and view it as a triumph when really it was just an exercise in fruitlessly wishcasting an alternative reality where their guy won.
Not only must the left mobilize Art to entice voters with stories illustrating the appealing prospects of leftist policies, it should also tell horror stories of the consequences of right-wing policies, like Orwell did in “1984.”
This is one of the few times I think I disagree with Mike, at least on one point. It's a common trope that Democrats try to win people with "policy papers," but that sounds like a stereotype that doesn't really exist. The policy papers are used to determine governance strategies, but never to win over voters. The Democrats always use simplistic talking points and slogans, and also used themes. Consider Kamala Harris's campaign theme of "joy," bookended against her running mate Mike Walz's labeling of the opposition as "weird." Granted, those aren't exactly the same as art, but the Democrats certainly tried to engage the public with art, in the form of songs by Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, et al. And I cringed almost to death when I saw a group of protestors in DC expressing their opposition "in the form of dance."
I do agree that emotional appeals must be a part of the message, but on the other hand, I don't think Trump became president because of "dark enlightenment" artistry and such -- he became president because millions of voters still thought he was a "businessman" who "tells it like it is" and were harboring residual annoyance at an inflation spike that had happened two years earlier.
No, I think the key is, and has long been, the sheer volume of propaganda from the right.
Billy Joel. Springsteen. Dylan. Peter Paul & Mary. Some relevancy and carrying on to people today. Superman (though I think many will misconstrue who is who, or just fail to notice any contemporary applicability). Mostly left wing art has been comedic — but again that’s a critique not a mythology.
Authoritarians have better set design than we do. They stage the myth so well their lies feel like destiny, while democracy shows up with a spreadsheet and wonders why no one’s clapping. If we want people to fight for freedom, we have to make it sing, dance, and burn itself into memory. Beauty is the bait. Truth is the hook.
At whatever point liberals ceded the term “freedom” to conservatives, we lost. What do we believe we are fighting if not freedom? We have allowed conservatives to define patriotism and what it is to be an American. Hence the fervor for driving out those who are not American and punishing those who aren’t part of their cause. What’s the alternative to bigotry, nationalism, and faux religiosity in the hands of a bizarre comic book villain? Sounds so easy to create. But I live in the art world, and responding to obvious and insidious absurdities is hard to do when so few are potentially open to the fact that their comic books are fictional and their ideals are jokes to enhance the wealth of their leaders.
I didn’t mean to leave the impression that all our art need be derivative of WW2. I would suggest there are a lot of ways to explore the deep cultural wealth of that time and make real connections. Here is a link to my latest, a little two minute animation of Woody Guthrie’s 1944 song , ‘This is Your Land’
Well said, but I think we will find that we have already internalized many of the most effective stories to fight this battle and that these are part of a great legacy from the same conflict that consumed Tolkien as he was writing the Lord of the Rings. That Victory was far from certain is very much a part of this. Churchill confronted this saying, “But if we fail, then the whole world will sink into a new Dark Age, perhaps made more deep and pernicious by the lights of perverted science.” Reading this its almost hard to believe he wasn’t describing our time. The call to action is indivisible from this and the story is a template we can follow with our own actions, Our part to play in the Gathering Storm. Will we risk our own safety and comfort to hide the hunted, to pursue justice and throw off the collaborators? It is early days yet and we all have a part to play and certainly Canada will be at the center of it.
The public schools (K-12) need to support the arts. This is why it matters that people push back on budget cuts at the local level. All politics really is local.
Why should only richer children get good training in the arts?
What really needs to happen in education — but absolutely will not happen — is that the United States needs to do away with local funding for schools. That money should come from the Federal government, and be distributed such that every school, of every size, received that same funding per student (adjusted for some fixed costs that would require a longer essay to explain). That would ensure that children everywhere could receive equally good educations. In our current system of local funding, the richer the town, the better the future its schools can offer the children. Poor and rich children should all have equal opportunities, if we are to best develop everyone's potential.
“Art” in K-12 public education is unequivocally BROKEN across the United States. It is sad sad irony that US K-12 art teacher is by far and away the most homogeneous profession in America—99% of new hires are white 20yo know-nothing cuties. They are hired by midwit sportsbro principals who think it reflects well upon themselves to tell others that they “can’t draw a stick figure.” (It takes me a second hand to count the number of principals who’ve told me that personally.) These midwit sportsbro principals just want a cutie happy to play classroom dress-up just happy to have a job, who will never question their authority. US public schoolkids “learn” the Principles & Elements and Johannes Itten colorwheel from know-nothing cuties who they themselves were prevented from learning science, history, economics, and culture in their own public educations. US schoolkids everywhere are prevented from learning science, history, economics, and culture. Our schools are Failures. Everything is Wrong.
This is right on. Sometimes I wonder if liberals have the capacity to be creative, or are we just too rational?
Our culture has lost its core mythologies these days, although Tolkien is an excellent candidate. (Harry Potter is too dualistic and unnuanced, and then there are the problems with the author)
It's probably okay for each generation to have their own mythologies, but can these last entire lifetimes or do people just forget them after awhile?
We did at least get Andor as an amazing anti-authoritarian story that appeals to both progressives and conservatives.
I needed this so much today - it is beautiful and it made me feel like what I'm doing matters. Thank you.
Im a music and film guy, and I can't even think of the last fiercely leftist song that was allowed to break through into the mainstream. Maybe Glovers This is America? Films are a little better in the indie space, but not by much. Everything has to be a metaphor now. All this art exists, its just buried under a mountain of safe, recycled crap that challenges nothing because the gatekeepers, the rich, want it that way. Fucking MUBI sold out to private capitol, even when people do try to create seperate platforms for thoughtful art, the rich just buy and ruin it every single time. Substack is headed in the same direction, sigh.
If you want to experience songs that will light up the people, check out Joyce Strong (https://substack.com/@joycemstrong?utm_source=substack-feed-item). My favorites are We're Coming for You (https://suno.com/song/4b534981-49b9-440f-9cc3-ea16dff128be) and Blue Butterfly (https://substack.com/@joycemstrong/note/c-142924108?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2sauq).
🎶 Plan to listen to Joyce Strong right away. Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and former President Barack Obama have announced a music education collaboration. BTW: Taylor Swift said that her first memory is of finger 🎨 painting at the age of three. To my ear, the layers and textures in her music often have a delightful 'finger-painted' quality the charm of which has brought her tremendous wealth and success. KEEP THE ARTS ALIVE IN K-12 AND THE ECONOMY BENEFITS.
Please provide research. The photo and story I found was fake AI driven. I could not validate as true.
RE: Taylor Swift's finger painting, please see Brian Hiatt's October 25th, 2012, interview in 'Rolling Stone', (RS 1168) in which Swift says, "I think my earliest memory is my mom would set up an easel in the kitchen when I was three. And she'd give me finger paints, and I'd paint whatever I wanted. And it was always good enough."
This looks like a great epistemology question for Mike Brock's Substack. Swift-Obama-Springsteen, or ‘SOS’ item appears to be from an individual on Instagram, but even THAT could be fake AI. How do we know what we know?
Swift, Springsteen, and Obama are the oligarchy, full stop.
My apologies. Swift, Springsteen, and former President Barack Obama are doing some political fundraising. However, that may very well ultimately translate into better funding for the arts in K-12.
🦋 'Blue Butterfly' is also revitalizing. Thanks again! 🦋
🔥 Joyce Strong's 'We're Coming for You' got me all-fired up! Thank you for the recommendation.🔥🔥 🔥
That's more an observation about how capitalism ultimately subsumes, subverts, and suppresses criticism of it.
Oh, I wrote about this recently!
https://kirazublin.substack.com/p/democrats-for-the-future-what-would
My pitch here for Democrats is to tell the Captain America story. A story about the defenders of liberal democracy coming together to fight the increasingly unified front of fascist dictators throughout the world. There's a lot of inspiration to draw from here, but almost everything the Democrats want can fit into this narrative framework of being comic-book heroes that oppose the cartoonish villainy of Trump and Putin and Xi.
But whether that's the particular story you tell, the key thing here is just to create narrative out of everything you do. It's not enough just to choose individually popular or effective policies, you need a real story that ties it all together. Liberalism needs a wider narrative people can believe in, one that goes beyond just what you personally are likely to get from it.
This is something Donald Trump, with his TV background, is very good at. Everyone around him gets made into an exciting character. From the rogue's gallery of TV personalities in his cabinet, to his opponents, who get special nicknames and assigned roles. Everyone knows the personalities and foibles of his cabinet, as if they were characters in a TV show. His opponents aren't just regular boring politicians, they're "Shifty Adam Schift" and "Crooked Hillary." The way he talks about them and plays them up, it turns everyone in his orbit into a memorable TV character and gives them each a role in the story of Trump.
Democrats often complain that Trump seems politically invulnerable to scandal or failure, but this is a big part of the reason why! He's telling a story where he's the heroic rebel figure defending the public against the evil Deep State. In this story, people will forgive him his flaws and failures. No one hates Tony Stark for being an alcoholic or failing to defeat the bad guy a few times, because we believe he'll overcome his weaknesses and win in the end.
Any group that wants to have a hope of fighting back this fascist push needs to be able to tell a similar story about themselves.
The authoritarian message is that they counteract chaos by consolidating strength around a single authority. Their core theme is "many people, one truth". That theme is asserts that simple Order quells Chaos. That is a very old & powerful theme. We must center on an even older and more powerful theme, one that acknowledges the world is strange and full of wonders & terrors. It is a theme that reveals that it is not Chaos it is Nature and that we thrive by understanding all of Nature's stories, and by adding our own stories to hers. Ours is "many truths, one people"
A lot of important insights in this piece. The early labor movement and even the pamphleteers of the revolutionary war provide clear examples of how we should approach this war of images. Unfortunately, the left looks at something like “West Wing” and view it as a triumph when really it was just an exercise in fruitlessly wishcasting an alternative reality where their guy won.
Not only must the left mobilize Art to entice voters with stories illustrating the appealing prospects of leftist policies, it should also tell horror stories of the consequences of right-wing policies, like Orwell did in “1984.”
This is one of the few times I think I disagree with Mike, at least on one point. It's a common trope that Democrats try to win people with "policy papers," but that sounds like a stereotype that doesn't really exist. The policy papers are used to determine governance strategies, but never to win over voters. The Democrats always use simplistic talking points and slogans, and also used themes. Consider Kamala Harris's campaign theme of "joy," bookended against her running mate Mike Walz's labeling of the opposition as "weird." Granted, those aren't exactly the same as art, but the Democrats certainly tried to engage the public with art, in the form of songs by Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, et al. And I cringed almost to death when I saw a group of protestors in DC expressing their opposition "in the form of dance."
I do agree that emotional appeals must be a part of the message, but on the other hand, I don't think Trump became president because of "dark enlightenment" artistry and such -- he became president because millions of voters still thought he was a "businessman" who "tells it like it is" and were harboring residual annoyance at an inflation spike that had happened two years earlier.
No, I think the key is, and has long been, the sheer volume of propaganda from the right.
Billy Joel. Springsteen. Dylan. Peter Paul & Mary. Some relevancy and carrying on to people today. Superman (though I think many will misconstrue who is who, or just fail to notice any contemporary applicability). Mostly left wing art has been comedic — but again that’s a critique not a mythology.
Authoritarians have better set design than we do. They stage the myth so well their lies feel like destiny, while democracy shows up with a spreadsheet and wonders why no one’s clapping. If we want people to fight for freedom, we have to make it sing, dance, and burn itself into memory. Beauty is the bait. Truth is the hook.
At whatever point liberals ceded the term “freedom” to conservatives, we lost. What do we believe we are fighting if not freedom? We have allowed conservatives to define patriotism and what it is to be an American. Hence the fervor for driving out those who are not American and punishing those who aren’t part of their cause. What’s the alternative to bigotry, nationalism, and faux religiosity in the hands of a bizarre comic book villain? Sounds so easy to create. But I live in the art world, and responding to obvious and insidious absurdities is hard to do when so few are potentially open to the fact that their comic books are fictional and their ideals are jokes to enhance the wealth of their leaders.
“Men must have heroes or they will die of strangeness.” —Les Murray
This may be the best piece of yours I've ever read, and that's saying a lot! Thank you!
I didn’t mean to leave the impression that all our art need be derivative of WW2. I would suggest there are a lot of ways to explore the deep cultural wealth of that time and make real connections. Here is a link to my latest, a little two minute animation of Woody Guthrie’s 1944 song , ‘This is Your Land’
https://vimeo.com/1096145803
Well said, but I think we will find that we have already internalized many of the most effective stories to fight this battle and that these are part of a great legacy from the same conflict that consumed Tolkien as he was writing the Lord of the Rings. That Victory was far from certain is very much a part of this. Churchill confronted this saying, “But if we fail, then the whole world will sink into a new Dark Age, perhaps made more deep and pernicious by the lights of perverted science.” Reading this its almost hard to believe he wasn’t describing our time. The call to action is indivisible from this and the story is a template we can follow with our own actions, Our part to play in the Gathering Storm. Will we risk our own safety and comfort to hide the hunted, to pursue justice and throw off the collaborators? It is early days yet and we all have a part to play and certainly Canada will be at the center of it.
The public schools (K-12) need to support the arts. This is why it matters that people push back on budget cuts at the local level. All politics really is local.
Why should only richer children get good training in the arts?
What really needs to happen in education — but absolutely will not happen — is that the United States needs to do away with local funding for schools. That money should come from the Federal government, and be distributed such that every school, of every size, received that same funding per student (adjusted for some fixed costs that would require a longer essay to explain). That would ensure that children everywhere could receive equally good educations. In our current system of local funding, the richer the town, the better the future its schools can offer the children. Poor and rich children should all have equal opportunities, if we are to best develop everyone's potential.
“Art” in K-12 public education is unequivocally BROKEN across the United States. It is sad sad irony that US K-12 art teacher is by far and away the most homogeneous profession in America—99% of new hires are white 20yo know-nothing cuties. They are hired by midwit sportsbro principals who think it reflects well upon themselves to tell others that they “can’t draw a stick figure.” (It takes me a second hand to count the number of principals who’ve told me that personally.) These midwit sportsbro principals just want a cutie happy to play classroom dress-up just happy to have a job, who will never question their authority. US public schoolkids “learn” the Principles & Elements and Johannes Itten colorwheel from know-nothing cuties who they themselves were prevented from learning science, history, economics, and culture in their own public educations. US schoolkids everywhere are prevented from learning science, history, economics, and culture. Our schools are Failures. Everything is Wrong.
This is right on. Sometimes I wonder if liberals have the capacity to be creative, or are we just too rational?
Our culture has lost its core mythologies these days, although Tolkien is an excellent candidate. (Harry Potter is too dualistic and unnuanced, and then there are the problems with the author)
It's probably okay for each generation to have their own mythologies, but can these last entire lifetimes or do people just forget them after awhile?
Stunning and essential post.