Friday, February 16, 2007

Is Art a Masculine Thing?

By Drew

Michael over at 2 Blowhards makes an interesting observation: "Why do so many American males consider arty and aesthetic matters to be faggy?"

It's an intriguing question, and a troubling one as well. You should read the entire article because Michael makes a lot of interesting points, but I'll pull out this particular section. After mentioning how in many other cultures the very "artistic" qualities we talk about are seen as masculine, Michael makes this comment:

Where does this aversion to aesthetics come from, historically speaking? My hunch is that it has less to do with Puritanism than it does with our history as a place where people who want to get away from traditional cultures come to. The real American man is felt to be the adventurer and the frontiersman -- the man who escapes the shelter, nay, the claustrophobia of female-dominated "civilization." By these lights, we're all little Huck Finns, forever investing our masculinity in our quest to light out for the territories ahead of the rest. Where a guy from another kind of culture might express his straight-guy masculinity within the parameters of his culture, we straight-guy Americans are masculine because we reject civilizin'.

I think this is particularly evident in the crudity we see so often in young males - the need to be a man is in such conflict with today's PC-enforced sensibilities that their rejection of civilizin' is expressed in a defiance of the most basic types of civilized behavior. Put another way, men don't seem to have much of an opportunity to be men anymore.We've stripped young males of so many opportunities to be masculine that a return to caveman-like behavior is one of the few avenues left. (As an aside, it will be interesting to see, as young women increasingly follow the crude behavior of their male counterparts, if there's some kind of shift of behavior from the men, searching for another way to be unique.)

You see and hear about the same phenomenon in the Church, for example: the preponderence of women in the pews, and increasing numbers of them in leadership positions within parishes. More and more often men speak of the "feminized" (not necessarily "feminist") church, as if there's something vaguely unmanly about religion. It's true that there was nothing unmanly about the early Church, so I"m not quite sure why things are the way they are, other than to say that they are. Perhaps it's the submissiveness required by a true disciple, possibly it has to do with the loss of ownership required when one opens the heart completely to Christ.

While we're at it, we might also wonder why so many of theses artistic endeavors are seen as the province of the liberal establishment, the arts and croissants crowd? Interestingly enough, it's an assumption shared by conservatives as well as liberals - that red Americans turn to NASCAR and country music while blue Americans own opera and literature. It's also one of the main aspects that makes the "crunchy con" movement so intriguing. Is there anything to the linkage between liberal politics and homosexual politics, that they share the same interests? Probably a subject that demands more time and study.

At any rate, what all these things share is a need for diversification among its membership. For years conservatives have decried the liberality of institutions such as the media, acedemia, and the entertainment industry. The answer has always been the same: if more conservatives were willing to go into those fields (setting aside, for the moment, the obstacles many of them face when they try), diversity would follow. What are you left with? Michael supplies the answer:

The fact that straight American guys consider aesthetic matters to be self-evidently gay becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it means that the aesthetic fields in America in fact become ever-more gay.

And that's not a good thing. In fact, it can become a propaganda tool. The young boy who shows an interest in classical music or interior decoration must be a closet homosexual - why not come out of the closet, show your inner feelings, be the "man" you're supposed to be. If you're told this often enough, might you not come to believe it? I am told, therefore I am.

Not only that, such lockstep thinking denies a difference of opinion, a contrary outlook, a unique perspective. Without that, you wind up with a uniformity of opinion that is neither honest nor intellectually compelling.

Michael's conclusion: "Wouldn't we all be a bit better off if the aesthetic fields had a few more straight guys in them?" To that I heartily agree. It is time to reclaim that which belongs to us, which belongs to everyone. Diversity, the mantra of the very patrons of these fields, would seem to demand no less.

4 comments:

  1. Drew,

    Very good questions indeed!

    If that's the case, why do NASCAR legends participate with arts companies for charity benefits and do things to support their communities -- Ward Burton (welcome back Wahhhdddd!) doing narration for a local ballet company in Virginia, and Darrell Waltrip at the Nashville Ballet (in a tradition in Nashville, well-known celebrities -- more often men than not -- in the area play "Mother Ginger" in their Nutcracker as Tennessee Titans TE Ben Troupe, country singer Hal Ketchum have also played the role in the 2006 version).

    I am a conservative looking for the girl of my life (I don't know if my voice teacher is it for now) but I enjoy hanging with classy women who are modest.

    Much of the Left's control of the arts reminds me of what Charles Colson said was a problem in the 20th century. Colson noted that the era was marked by a "worship" of art instead of God. Bach mentioned music was "Solely for the Glory of God" and we have lost that thought. The "Church of High Art" is a byproduct of such crises.

    http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=785

    I enjoy classical music as it requires you to think deeper. As a classically trained vocalist, I find it pleasing that it does not require amplification or earplugs -- and earplugs are annoying because if you do not wear them, you risk losing your hearing that the sermon will not be understood as your ears have been pierced by the garbage.

    I would think conservatives are more likely to have literature to read, since liberals go only by feelings, and not by reading and inferring information!

    As for the feminisation of the church, it is the whole society going women. Think of the fact men's schools do not exist in the Palmetto State since the Clinton Supreme Court (which we still live) forced The Citadel to become coed (and the loss of men's sports is the penalty -- I've called it the Federal Feminazi Academy, owing to Rush Limbaugh), and there are at least three women's schools -- one at the secondary and two at the collegiate level -- in our state still.

    The 1996 election set the rules -- Women make the rules, men are to be ignored. A recent episode of The Apprentice showed that was not a good idea. One team won because their men's product was much better than the other team's. The person who proceeded to put through the inferior men's product was torched.

    In a January 28 article in the Orlando Sentinel, direct marketing consultant Mike Ellis cited John Eldridge's Wild at Heart and David Murrow's Why Men Hate Going to Church for his analysis.

    Oddly enough to most, he blamed modern worship, calling it "dreamy songs with lovey-dovey words," and Martha Stewart-style decor.

    Rather, they want to hear the image of God as a mighty warrior ready to fight against evil.

    http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=24966

    ReplyDelete
  2. For starters, we need to rid our dialogue of the phrase and all it variants: "young males." "Young men" is more appropriate because it doesn't create that disdainful distance desired by the groups who can't bring themselves to talk about men without using the word "males" as though we were the subject of one of Jane Goodall's documentaries. And no scare quotes around "men" either.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yahmdallah,
    Couldn't agree with you more. It's very easy to lapse into the common phraseology, but you're absolutely right that these are young men, and one of the best ways we have of helping them achieve a mature manhood is by treating them like men.

    Bobby,
    Thanks for your comments - as always, you make excellent points and contributions. Hope to see more of your posts soon!

    Drew

    ReplyDelete
  4. I know this articles is years old, but since this blog still runs I will express my opinion. It's a very strange assumption that a young boy with artistic attributes would start having erections for other males just because people start telling him he is "gay". I am a homosexual man myself, not because someone decided, but because it's the way it happened. For as long as I can remember I've been told that basketball and country rock music are not my stuff, as if I was not a real man, a claim that is based on stupid prejudice. I agree that arts don't belong to men with homosexual orientation, and it should be reverenced as Western civilization heritage by everybody. But I also will say that any classic masculine activities don't belong to men with heterosexual sexual orientation either, and as part of American culture, shouldn't be denied to men with same-sex atraction. Both situations would be bigotry. And I hope you don't erase my comment.

    ReplyDelete

Remember: Think Before Commenting.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...