The Auron MacIntyre Show - Can Artistic Forms Become Obsolete？｜ Guest： John Dee ｜ 3⧸21⧸25

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00:00:30.000 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:00:31.560 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:00:33.600 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.

00:00:38.060 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is coming out, and everyone knows it's already a disaster.

00:00:45.280 There's already talks about it being one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history.

00:00:50.700 And it's not alone.

00:00:52.320 We have seen a number of very large, very expensive, hyped-up movies come out in the last year or two.

00:01:00.000 And just completely be devastated.

00:01:02.520 In fact, there's a new term, the flop buster, for these multi-hundred-million-dollar movies that just never get off the ground.

00:01:10.960 And you have to wonder, at some point, is the movie one of those art forms that is reaching the end of its life cycle?

00:01:19.580 Some art forms, like the novel or the painting, feel pretty eternal.

00:01:23.460 But some things like the radio play and others have a life cycle that kind of begins and ends.

00:01:29.200 There's a technological advancement.

00:01:31.020 There's an exhaustion of the art form.

00:01:33.080 Something happens to push the creativity beyond what it can bear, and you end up seeing a collapse of that style of art.

00:01:41.840 I wanted to dig deeper into the idea of art forms outliving their normal life cycle.

00:01:48.000 Can this happen?

00:01:48.880 Can they become exhausted?

00:01:50.380 Can they become irrelevant or obsolete?

00:01:52.820 Or is every form of art ultimately eternal and in some way is just waiting for a revival in some kind of different aspect?

00:02:01.380 Joining me today to talk about this is one of my favorite art aficionados, Mr. John D.

00:02:06.960 Thanks for joining me, man.

00:02:07.880 Well, thank you very much for having me on.

00:02:10.940 It's a great pleasure, Aaron.

00:02:13.120 Of course.

00:02:13.960 So most people who have watched the show have probably seen you on unqualified reservations or somewhere else.

00:02:19.840 For those who are unfamiliar, though, could you give a little background so people know your relationship and your expertise with art?

00:02:27.540 Yes.

00:02:28.140 So I am, strangely enough, what you call a professional artist, which is a slightly ambiguous term these days.

00:02:34.360 But, you know, I produce and I have done for many, many years.

00:02:38.780 I've produced what's called plastic arts, you know, the sort of things that you can see and touch and sort of walk around and experience.

00:02:46.640 So I but I, you know, I mainly do painting, image making of that sort, drawing, print making, sculpture occasionally.

00:02:53.720 So, you know, and, you know, and display and sell at a commercial gallery.

00:02:59.700 And, you know, I've just generally been involved in all forms of art for for a very long time.

00:03:05.580 So so those are my sort of bona fides regarding this this topic.

00:03:10.580 But it is of general interest to me, and particularly, I think, with conversations that I see going on in various spheres, you know, people writing in the various sort of magazines and journals and sub stacks talking about the role of culture, you know, in our sort of civilization, you know, particularly in modernity and postmodernity and the role of culture in political spaces as well.

00:03:32.760 So, yeah, this is, you know, this is a sort of subject that does greatly interest me.

00:03:37.820 Yeah, you're definitely somebody who has the practical application.

00:03:41.360 You've been an artist, you've made a living on that.

00:03:43.820 You're somebody who's commented on, critiqued and also understood the wider context.

00:03:48.200 So that's definitely why I wanted to dive into the topic with you today.

00:03:52.760 Before we get to the meat of the discussion, though, guys, let's hear from today's sponsor.

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00:05:00.720 Well, Mr. D, you're the expert here, so I'll throw out some questions and let you take this discussion and kind of inform it into the structure that you'd prefer.

00:05:09.400 Like I said at the beginning here, we had a large number of Hollywood blockbusters, and they were originally named blockbusters because there was so much demand on seeing them that literally the lines would go out around the block.

00:05:24.320 Something like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, these were big movies, and yes, they had large budgets, but they were pretty infrequent.

00:05:33.020 Most movies that were put into the cinema were not these massive affairs with, you know, now obviously the modern budgets, you have hundreds of millions of dollars on a regular basis just for the making of movies.

00:05:44.560 Don't even talk about the marketing. You could easily hit four or five hundred million dollars when it comes to making a movie.

00:05:51.720 Now, originally, like I said, these were spaced out, and this was a big deal.

00:05:55.340 It was kind of appointment viewing. You had these smaller movies throughout the year, the 20, 30 million dollar movies, but then the blockbusters would come out, these big action set pieces, and they would completely dominate the movie landscape during the summer.

00:06:09.300 Now, the studio model seems to be entirely centered on blockbusters.

00:06:14.780 It's like the only thing they think that can ultimately be profitable or profitable enough for them to probably get a raise somewhere or get elevated into a different position.

00:06:25.180 And so this is what it seems like our movie industry has settled on, and the result has been a large number of movies that ultimately don't go anywhere despite having these massive budgets allocated to them.

00:06:38.880 Do you think that this is just some part of, I guess, the superhero Marvel burnout of these big action movies?

00:06:47.640 Do you think it says something about the movie industry in general, or are we actually seeing the kind of the decline of the movie as a format, as something that reliably everyone plugs into with the rise of YouTube and all these other formats?

00:07:03.440 Could it be that the movie, like many other art styles over their time, has just kind of reached the end of its arc?

00:07:10.960 I think it's a complex question, because, you know, of course, there are a lot of factors that go into this.

00:07:20.400 I mean, obviously, you know, I think, you know, if you want to sort of take it down to a fundamental level, it is, of course, the nature of the culture, the nature of the civilization that both produces art, you know, the art form, and also the ones who consume it, who watch it, you know.

00:07:39.380 And so I think that, of course, you know, we've seen extraordinary changes in, you know, the nature and the sort of tenor of our civilization over the past, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 so odd years.

00:07:53.560 And so that's certainly going to be the kind of baseline that's going to inform, you know, how these things affect people, how are people able to make them, how people watch them, what they mean to people.

00:08:04.700 Now, of course, you know, in a kind of, you know, kind of higher level, I do think that, you know, the way that people kind of think about cinema, consume cinema, you know, of course, obviously, so many things have gone from external to the home to internal, you know, to internal to the home, you know, so people are staying indoors, you know, staying in their own spaces much more than, you know, than they used to.

00:08:34.680 But yes, I do think also, you have the situation where Hollywood is no longer kind of centered in American culture, you know, that they're thinking now, as so many other industries are thinking about, you know, the global market, they're like, well, how do we appeal?

00:08:54.980 You know, we don't just want to appeal to Americans, we don't want to appeal to, you know, that to a lesser degree, the continental European market, whatever, we want to appeal to China, we want to appeal to India, we want to appeal to these, you know, Southeast Asia, whatever these broad swathes of humanity.

00:09:10.180 And of course, how do you do that, you know, I mean, you think about, you know, a film, think about a film from the past, like, I don't know, Marilyn Monroe film, The Seven Year Itch.

00:09:22.060 Well, how would that film sort of specifically relate to the average Chinese film audience today, you know, and so I think that obviously that there would have been an ability for other people to enter into these products of American culture.

00:09:41.320 But now, I think the people producing them, that they're no longer thinking at all, you know, in this way, they're just thinking about, what are the numbers that is going to be able to justify these enormous bloated productions, you know, and I do think also, as you say, I mean, this sort of superhero genre, you know, the nature of a film that is meant to be a blockbuster, is has also changed, you know, and so, you know, people expect

00:10:08.620 A giant production. And of course, that's very expensive. And again, how are you going to make those numbers work? So I do think there's a lot of things feeding in this sort of erosion that we've seen, but, but yeah, certainly, you know, and also, I just, I just, I just think certainly that there is a situation that happens where the creative people in a culture become stuck, you know, they, you know, we do get waves of inspiration and, and, and, and then

00:10:38.620 Non-inspiration that come and go. And so it may also be that we're, we're in an age where, you know, where the divine muse has not blessed our writers and filmmakers and such with, with these ideas. But I think it's a big pot full of things that are kind of causing the stew to, to go sour.

00:10:57.420 Yeah, there's a couple of interesting factors you pointed out there that I'd like to pick out just a little bit before, you know, we don't have to spend the whole time on movies, but I do find kind of the, the issues that you enumerated. They're interesting. The first one being obviously the shift to home markets, right? It used to be that you had like this 19 inch TV with a, you know, a VCR attached or, you know, maybe a 25 inch or something.

00:11:25.980 It's a relatively small screen. It probably needed a lot of work to, to play a video of decent fidelity. You still weren't getting the kind of audio today. You have much larger televisions, surround sounds, much higher quality transfers in formats that you can bring home.

00:11:44.460 The movie going experience has closed the space between the home release and the theatrical release. So the six months or a year that normally a film would be exclusive to theaters can now be just a few weeks or a few cases the same day.

00:12:00.860 Though I think Warner Brothers specifically learned the dangers of releasing simultaneously as they had a number of their large comic book movies flop because you could just watch them for free or for the, the subscription service you're already paying at home as opposed to going out to buy a ticket.

00:12:16.800 So that's a big part of it. Another big part of it is, uh, simply people don't feel safe. Don't feel, uh, that they are comfortable in large public settings. There's, I think a, a degrading of the cultural fabric. Uh, and when the social fabric like that degrades, uh, you have clashing cultures in any given movie theater.

00:12:38.720 Am I going to have to worry about getting in a fight with somebody, somebody going to be on their phone the whole time, playing some music through a Bluetooth speaker, you know, yelling at the screen. These are all things that, you know, if you don't have a culture that's kind of stretched to its limits, you're less worried about. But when people are constantly worried about the type of social interactions they might run into in those corporate settings, people are less likely to venture out and involve themselves ultimately, uh, with the art that you're talking about.

00:13:07.420 And then finally, uh, the fact that these movies are made for these larger markets means that there's very little attention paid to the specifics of producing something that really speaks to specifically say an American audience or UK audience or, you know, an Italian audience.

00:13:25.280 And instead they're just trying to get this global capture. So you have a movie like, uh, I think the Warcraft movie was famously just garbage in the United States, uh, and not a great movie in general, but kind of the shiny,

00:13:37.200 blinky lights made it do very well in China. And so even though it would have been a disaster had it only been released here in the United States by aiming towards the Chinese market, they ensured a profitable session.

00:13:48.640 And so there's really this mixture of format switching, which really dulls, I think the magic of the cinematic, uh, theater experience, uh, and the fact that ultimately the incentive structure seems to be rather than investing in 20 or $30 million movies and see if you can produce a decent profit, just taking these giant risks at every turn, everything's 200, 300,

00:14:18.640 wide enough. Ultimately we're going to recoup that if not in the United States somewhere else.

00:14:25.860 Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a very good point you make about, of course, just the experience of going to the cinema, because of course you, you get sort of moral questions, you know, there's questions about the kind of health of, of a civilization of, of a, you know, of your country, of your town, you know, so no longer, I mean, I think part of being,

00:14:44.800 going to the cinema was also the experience of being in an audience of, of people who were more or less like you, you know, you, you, you were sharing an experience of, you know, you were sharing a sort of, uh, you know, theatrical experience with people who were generally up from the same culture, who had the same sort of cultural values, the same understandings of etiquette in public spaces, you know,

00:15:11.340 there was a kind of a slightly more of a formality to it, depending on the type of film, you know, if you went to a children's film in the 1940s, then you were going to get a riotous children's atmosphere.

00:15:22.540 You know, if you went to a, you know, you went to a grownup film, then you would get, you were going to get that experience. And now, of course, as you say, you have no idea what you're getting into, you know, you, you, you know, you, you, you could, you could even, even be in danger, you know, in terms of that there could be criminal elements, there are fights, there's all sorts of things that happen.

00:15:40.280 Uh, you don't know where, you know, where people are, you know, going to be out of their head on drugs. You don't know where there's going to be this or that happening. So, so you're right. I think that it's not only the convenience of consuming things in your home, but it's also, well, why do I want to go out and experience that? It's no longer comfortable. It's no longer a kind of pleasant experience. It's no longer a kind of community experience. You know, it, it, you know, it's like trying to, depending on where you live, trying to, trying to watch, you know, a Bambi in a war.

00:16:10.280 So, uh, yeah, that, that is a significant, uh, that is a significant problem, but, but also just the question of what, you know, what does a culture value? Obviously there's always been money men, you know, Hollywood, whatever, any sort of industry, the fine art industry, you know, um, that, that in one capacity or the other, are people who are thinking about this from a business point of view.

00:16:36.140 So that's just how it is. But you, there was always an understanding that tempering that, or that sort of even, you know, augmenting that, that kind of input, that kind of aspect of culture production.

00:16:48.880 There were people who actually cared. I mean, there were people who cared about quality. They cared about inspiration. They cared about, you know, what they were producing. They had something to say.

00:17:00.560 And I think, of course, more and more, these people, either they don't exist anymore because they've been, you know, again, people generally have just been so demoralized, um, and at the prospect of ever having a balance between their kind of artistic and, um, uh, you know, um, impulses and making money.

00:17:21.060 So, so I just think people have just, you know, sort of tamped out their own, their own creative fire. Uh, and I, I think you see this in a larger sense, you know, um, you, you occasionally will get these kind of Oscar bait, you know, I mean, in a sense of film, Oscar bait, try hard, you know, we're making a statement with a capital S, but still, you know, it's, it still seems geared towards, towards a sort of temporal worldly sort of sense of profit.

00:17:51.060 You know, rather than, you know, I've got a great idea. I'm really interested in this story. I'm really interested. You know, I'm, I'm a great cinematographer. I, you know, I'm, I've got some cracking ideas for costumes, whatever people who are invested. Now it still exists, obviously to some degree, but you know, there's something, there's some, there's this kind of impoverishment of the spirit, you know, when you're just like, well, I'm a very talented costume designer and I've got to make more kind of, you know, kind of make more Spider-Man.

00:18:21.060 suits. I've got to make, you know, this or that. I mean, there's something that's, that's sort of wilts the, wilts the creative impulse.

00:18:29.780 I went to film school for this.

00:18:31.460 Yeah, exactly. I went to art school for this. Yeah. But so, so I, I do think, you know, we, it's a, it's a sort of multivalent problem.

00:18:41.140 And of course, with culture, you know, with whatever it is, cinema or, you know, you know, to a lesser degree painting or, you know, uh, literature, literature, you can sort of gauge the health of a civilization, you know, by its, by its fruits, by its products, uh, uh, artistic products.

00:18:59.760 And of course it's, it's not looking good for, for us.

00:19:04.420 Well, on that note, and I think it's important. I like that you, you keep redirecting this to seeing the production of art and the enjoyment of art as a barometer for health for civilization.

00:19:17.320 I think that's true. And to be clear, uh, I'm a Philistine. Like this is not something that comes naturally to me. Uh, I'm someone who really had to have the value of beauty, uh, explained to me very directly and just bludgeoned into me, uh, before I kind of grasped this.

00:19:34.800 So I'm still operating, you know, I, I get this in, in an abstract way and I do my best to try to, uh, you know, push things in a positive direction.

00:19:43.180 But to be clear, I'm not, uh, you know, I'm not well versed. This is not my impulse, even though I recognize that ultimately this is incredibly valuable and important.

00:19:52.380 Uh, but an interesting thing to also look at expanding beyond just the movie going specifically experience is the way in which the, uh, and I hate, uh, you know, I'm tempted to use the word consumption.

00:20:04.800 Of art, but immediately recognize how that's not good, uh, appreciation of art, but, but the general experience of art and a society, the way that that is approached, I think is important.

00:20:18.160 There's a, a scale issue that I think exists here as well, where in previous forms, you know, be it, be it, you know, the, the, the actual play, the real theater ballet, these other, uh, forms of enjoying art,

00:20:33.660 the corporate enjoyment was a place to see and be seen, right?

00:20:39.520 Now, obviously you were enjoying the art being produced itself, but there was a very important communal aspect.

00:20:45.780 Like you said, you're with people who are like you, uh, but also it's a moment where maybe, uh, you rub shoulders with those of different stratas.

00:20:53.580 Uh, you experience a type of culture that perhaps, uh, you know, exists, you know, as part of kind of who you are, but maybe you don't always get to elevate yourself to.

00:21:03.880 And it was a place where people would recognize, okay, well, being here, being, seeing, being a part of this is critical to, uh, understanding and sharing the experience of the people around me.

00:21:16.040 And it feels like, again, as we, as we talked about, because of the shattering of culture, the way in which, uh, we have kind of, uh, created these thousands of different outlets for you to just consume product, as opposed to engage in a corporate act of appreciation.

00:21:33.580 Uh, we've kind of broken away from that ability to kind of share a zeitgeist, uh, when we're looking at a movie, looking at a play, listening to a piece of music.

00:21:46.080 There's just something about that shared experience that is often lost.

00:21:50.460 I still feel it when I go to a concert, uh, for the most part, but I definitely don't feel it in kind of these other formats in which art is usually enjoyed.

00:22:00.260 We'll see you next time.

00:22:30.260 Yeah, absolutely.

00:22:33.640 I mean, you bring up really a lot of great points there.

00:22:36.480 I mean, so, so one thing I, I should clarify that the, that, that art exists in a whole strata, you know, you can think about a kind of step pyramid where, uh, perhaps that's a bit too hierarchical, you know, but I mean, there are different forms of art and different sort of levels of arts and, uh, and or entertainments for, for, for different people.

00:23:00.240 For different situations, for different types of engagement, you know, for instance, there's the entire, you know, if you're, you know, particularly if you're a, you're a Roman Catholic in, you know, in, in, in medieval, you know, Britain.

00:23:12.760 And, uh, part of your experience of going to, to church is a, a, a, a, a whole, a totalizing aesthetic experience.

00:23:23.000 You know, there is scent, there is music, there is sound, there's voices, there's, again, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's liturgy, sermon, there's the, the words of the mass, you know, there's stained glass, depending on, you know, the size of the church you're in.

00:23:37.960 And, I mean, this is a kind of high experience because, of course, it's all tied up in the expression of your religious faith, your faith in God and your worship of God.

00:23:48.320 Well, those same peasants, of course, would also very much enjoy going to a, going to a, a, a, a cockfight, you know, or to, or to watch a bear being baited.

00:23:59.360 But, uh, if you take, uh, the example of Shakespeare's, you know, the period when Shakespeare was living, uh, very, very near, uh, where the Globe Theatre was, there was a, a famous cockpit, you know, which was a place where literally people would go and watch chickens tear each other apart.

00:24:16.300 There was a bear baiting, um, arena very close to where the Globe was, where people would go and watch a, watch a bear be annoyed and poked and, and prodded around, you know.

00:24:25.900 And then, of course, even at the Globe, where Shakespeare plays and other plays were being performed, there was literally a kind of, kind of hierarchical tear, you know, down on the ground, right, you know, right below the area of the stage was where, you know, where the cheap seats, the groundlings, you know, as they call them, the people would, would, would, would be there, generally standing.

00:24:48.920 And then, of course, as you went up in the kind of tiers of the theatre, they were kind of higher and higher personages, you know, with better, you know, with seats, with, with, with better clothes, with different decorum, but they were all watching the same play, you know, they're all getting their own experience out of it.

00:25:05.780 Now, of course, Shakespeare, or whoever else, who else was writing the drama, had to understand that he, that he was, that he had to engage all, all the people watching, you know, the people on the ground had to, had to get something from it.

00:25:22.400 So they would get intrigue, they would get fights, they would, you know, they would get, they would get these probably more visceral things that made more sense to them, a more, more kind of tear to their experience, as did, you know, the people in the higher up seats, you know, they would have, you know, interest in more kind of complex, martial, historical conflicts, whatever, there was something for everyone.

00:25:42.120 But you're right, I mean, you know, art doesn't, there's just not one type of good art, there's, there's things for everyone.

00:25:49.280 So I'm not suggesting that everything has to be a kind of, you know, a kind of didactic, intellectual sort of masterpiece, you know, that there, there are, there have always been, you know, different levels of things, but, you know, for different types of people for different types of consumption.

00:26:04.300 So I thought that was a good point.

00:26:06.640 Yeah.

00:26:07.980 So one of the things that I have that kind of got me thinking about this, ultimately, along with the failure of these large movies, was the level of proficiency that now exists.

00:26:19.280 For guitar players.

00:26:21.800 Obviously, the guitar has existed for a very long time, and has existed in its electric form for, you know, at least since, what, the 1930s, 1940s.

00:26:32.380 And in that time, we've seen an explosion in ability.

00:26:37.300 You know, I'm, I'm someone who obviously likes heavy metal, in case people couldn't tell from behind me.

00:26:42.000 And this is an art form that is known for its proficiency, its technical proficiency, which was already gaining impressive kind of differences between, say, the 1960s or 70s and the 80s.

00:26:57.200 Kind of, kind of the new wave of British heavy metal and the, the, the ability that many people displayed in that moment.

00:27:03.800 Now, of course, we always get moments where the complexity of art is stripped down.

00:27:09.900 And I know people will cringe at heavy metal being called art, but it is, obviously.

00:27:14.080 And so, you know, there are moments where you get like a grunge reaction where people want something more basic, you know, something a little less focused on ability.

00:27:26.060 But ultimately, we continue to see kind of a compounding of technical skill in something like the guitar playing to the point now where you just can see videos on the internet of, you know, 10 year olds playing just these insane guitar solos that were just revolutionary when someone like Dave Mustaine or somebody was playing them back in the 1980s.

00:27:50.300 And now there are these, you know, bands that are just doing, you know, they're playing poly rhythms, like they're, they're, they're doing one thing, like several different rhythms all happening simultaneously as they play and syncing up like the technical quality is extremely high.

00:28:07.060 And yet people feel like the innovation is gone, like they've lost something spiritually, ultimately, that was driving the quality of the music.

00:28:19.200 And again, we could say the same thing when we look at the technical aspects of filmmaking, obviously, theoretically, we have more computer generated graphics, you could do whatever you want, in theory with a lot of this stuff.

00:28:31.280 And yet it's nowhere near as captivating as a classic kind of Hollywood action movie that would have used real explosions and squibs and things in the 80s.

00:28:43.580 Do you think that there's a possibility that formats, artistic formats can be solved in a way where they can reach a level of technical excellence that is so high that ultimately, there's not a lot more to do inside that?

00:29:01.300 Or is there's always the cyclical quality where complexity will eventually break down, and kind of a new form of artistic approach will break through, even though it might be more simplistic, technically?

00:29:15.940 Absolutely.

00:29:16.720 I mean, and sort of, you know, I mean, you have this sort of large form, you know, the drama, you know, music, whatever.

00:29:23.480 And then, of course, there's kind of subcategories upon subcategories.

00:29:27.480 And yes, absolutely, certainly, what people often think of as styles or genres of music, for instance, they run their course.

00:29:36.720 You know, so I'm particularly fond of Baroque period music, you know, 17th, 18th century.

00:29:44.280 I mean, obviously, J.S. Bach, you know, Handel, you know, many of the great composers and lots of lesser composers from that period.

00:29:55.580 And so you think of someone like J.S. Bach, you know, who we understand as a kind of one of the absolute transcendent geniuses of all of human history, certainly in that world of music.

00:30:10.400 Well, Bach wrote, you know, he wrote in sort of high Baroque style.

00:30:15.020 He was very interested in fugal writing.

00:30:17.300 He was very interested in counterpoint.

00:30:20.160 And but Bach lived a very, you know, he lived relatively a very long time.

00:30:25.080 And by the end of his life, in about 1750, he was a his type, his style, his the genre in which he expressed himself so divinely.

00:30:40.400 He was was out of fashion.

00:30:42.880 You know, he was you know, he I mean, his final sort of thing that he was working on was called the Kunst der Fugue, the Art of Fugue, which was, you know, just a set of absolutely incredibly complex and intellectually powerful fugal compositions.

00:30:59.260 But this was something that a genre that had been spent, you know, people were it was we were progressing towards the classical era.

00:31:05.980 We're starting to think about Mozart.

00:31:07.800 We're starting to think about Haydn, you know, you know, and so even in that in at that level.

00:31:13.540 Yeah.

00:31:13.800 Yes.

00:31:14.360 Forms become exhausted.

00:31:15.560 And certainly you get you get figures like J.S.

00:31:17.920 Bach.

00:31:19.600 He's he's sort of he sort of went through a lot of the manifestations of that style or that type of writing.

00:31:26.580 So, yeah, absolutely.

00:31:27.560 Things become exhausted.

00:31:29.160 But I do think that one of the problems that we have now is is that it I hate to quote Douglas Murray because I find him such a loathsome person.

00:31:40.780 But, you know, there's this line which my friend academic agent used to like, which which was this idea that European civilization was tired, you know, that that we're all just sort of we're exhausted with tired, we're fagged out.

00:31:54.960 And I think that there is an element of the postmodern moment that has it's not just that this mastery that you that you and that is, again, part of it that they kind of exhaust these various forms.

00:32:10.780 But there's also something pernicious that I think is eaten away people's very will to master things, very will to express things in a kind of higher way.

00:32:22.480 And in addition to that, of course, I think another problem, which, you know, obviously comes up a lot in, you know, you've talked about it and written about it.

00:32:31.200 But the idea of democracy as a kind of philosophical concept, not just as a political concept.

00:32:38.760 And democracy is absolutely terrible for for great art, I think.

00:32:44.380 So there's this idea that now that I think that even people who are against it, you know, we've grown up in this soup, this this sort of foul broth that says, well, in the end, everything.

00:32:57.000 There should be an egalitarian aspect to everything.

00:33:01.340 You know, everyone has something tribute.

00:33:03.320 Everyone has something to say.

00:33:05.640 And, you know, they only need, you know, the place to do it, the encouragement to do it.

00:33:09.720 You know, everyone should have a voice.

00:33:12.120 And of course, that's very nice for people's self-esteem.

00:33:15.160 But it's terrible for art.

00:33:18.280 You know, art is, of course, the process of exclusion.

00:33:21.540 You're excluding people along the way, people who are less talented, less inspired, who have less mastery of their craft, you know.

00:33:29.620 And unfortunately, we live in this just absolutely totally media-saturated world where everyone has access to a theoretically limitless audience.

00:33:39.180 And so anyone can go out there and play licks on their guitar or play their lute or paint pictures of monkeys or whatever.

00:33:49.260 And so you're just competing against this utterly vast, endless supply of content.

00:33:55.820 And I think that that is absolutely poisonous to the kind of hierarchical nature that great art aspires to.

00:34:04.020 Yeah, that's a very interesting way to approach that because, of course, in some sense, as you already pointed out with the different levels of, you know, Shakespeare, he was appeasing both the low and the high.

00:34:17.900 But some aspect of art, especially the most avant-garde art, has always been its exclusive nature.

00:34:24.440 You couldn't get it everywhere.

00:34:26.080 You couldn't immediately participate.

00:34:27.880 You couldn't immediately see it.

00:34:29.540 And that limited aspect has a lot of very powerful ways of impacting the human psyche, especially when it comes to access.

00:34:40.520 You know, if I was inside this artistic circle, if I could see what was going on, if I had the ability to reach in and create, then that was a very exclusive, that was a very high status thing that happened.

00:34:53.280 Again, the cultivation of kind of exclusive access not only created status, but also limited the ability to produce, which meant there was a very specific type of person who was able to be elevated to that.

00:35:08.300 And, you know, parallel, not exactly, but it just kind of triggered this thought for me.

00:35:13.100 And I want to remember it before, you know, we don't, if this is a rabbit trail, we don't have to go too far on it.

00:35:18.720 But another big thing is this democratizing of access, as you pointed out, in some ways, it's great.

00:35:27.080 I mean, guys like me, who otherwise wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing now, get the ability to do it because we all have the ability to create a platform.

00:35:35.560 And so in many ways, that breaks kind of the cartel monopoly on, say, political, you know, commentating or, you know, art or philosophy or any number of things that we can involve ourselves in.

00:35:48.960 But due to our access of kind of everything all the time, we lose the appreciation of kind of the regional talent, right?

00:35:58.200 Like the person who is excellent in their time and in their place, but maybe they can't win against every person who's ever done this on the planet simultaneously.

00:36:08.780 And so that lack of kind of regional and particular accomplishment, that exclusivity means that everyone is constantly competing.

00:36:18.760 Everyone is constantly being judged against every possible aspect of anyone doing that artistic form across the globe.

00:36:27.000 And you really lose that ability to say, there is that poet from our hometown, there's that great artist from our area, there's that playwright that has transformed and made us famous in the world for bringing our style or our understanding or our voice into the mainstream.

00:36:45.060 You really lose that aspect.

00:36:47.260 And I think that's critical because what is so much of what's important about art is its ability to reflect us, to reflect who we are and our specific experiences.

00:36:56.280 And when you don't have that particularity, when you don't have that regionality, instead, you just kind of have the experience of the gray goo.

00:37:05.060 And that means everyone's participating, everyone's involved, everyone can create, everyone can critique.

00:37:10.320 And there's never any kind of level of gatekeeping or level of friction between kind of the individual and this kind of larger creative Melu.

00:37:22.000 And that sounds good in theory, but it can also remove some of the refining process that really makes it what it is.

00:37:30.500 Absolutely.

00:37:31.300 I mean, you know, there's something absolutely terrible about this leveling.

00:37:35.100 I mean, you hear, and for instance, you know, I mean, you think about, think about someone writing poetry, think about someone writing, writing songs or ballads or whatever.

00:37:42.720 I mean, part of that experience of the music of language is going to be informed by your pronunciation, your regional dialect, the words that you heard that had the kind of contributions from, you know, all the people who kind of settled and built up the area where you're from.

00:38:00.980 And of course, one aspect of the global society is that it's eroded away.

00:38:10.540 I mean, now when you hear, particularly Americans talk, and now there are some exceptions to this, for instance, that the American South, even though there, I mean, even though those regional dialects are also dwindling and disappearing, but they persist a bit more than other areas of the United States.

00:38:29.640 But, you know, it's all kind of coalescing on this flabby, vocal fry, up-talking California, you know, sort of trans-California kind of sound, and we lose all of this regional variation.

00:38:44.980 I mean, you take England, for instance, and it used to be that from village to village, you would hear different manifestations of a dialect, of an accent, of a way of pronouncing words.

00:38:57.620 And of course, when everyone is consuming the same thing, everyone is hearing the same voices, this, of course, very quickly, it starts to erode away.

00:39:07.280 It's like a jagged rock in a stream, and depending on the power of the water, the rock gets smoother and smoother and smoother until there are no features left, you know.

00:39:17.340 I mean, what do we see?

00:39:18.660 You know, think about someone who is, you know, inspired to be a landscape painter or photographer.

00:39:24.760 Well, they go out of the house, and they walk around, and what do they see?

00:39:28.660 Well, you know, they see a Red Robin, they see a Chick-fil-A, they see, you know, they see a whatever, you know, big box stores.

00:39:38.320 They see McDonald's, which all have the same completely denatured, bland architecture.

00:39:45.380 All of the features that would have been particular to their town or to their region, again, they're all going away, and one place begins to just look like every other place.

00:39:57.180 Now, of course, you know, Europe has a slight advantage because there's much longer kind of built history there.

00:40:05.700 You know, there's lots of buildings from lots of periods which are still standing, and so it resists to some degree this kind of leveling.

00:40:15.120 You know, America, for good or ill, has a much shorter history and, of course, has a much more kind of transitory feeling about the physical environment, about buildings, particularly now in the modern era, where we don't care at all.

00:40:28.900 We build things to last for 20 years at most, and they barely make it that far.

00:40:33.760 So I do think that, yes, this flattening of kind of particularity of place is an absolutely terrible thing.

00:40:39.940 Another thing that is, you know, that is absolutely corrosive to the kind of detail of a broad and rich tapestry of culture.

00:40:52.480 The other thing I should mention, of course, is that I think that creative people, even though, of course, this is absolutely against the way that everyone thinks about the arts, but I think in a way, being a creative person, whatever, whether you're a musician, writer, artist, whatever, tend towards what we call the right wing.

00:41:16.660 You know, I mean, there is an inherent understanding, or at least there used to be, an inherent understanding of the value and power of hierarchy.

00:41:25.300 You understood, you know, in your bones, this sense of hierarchy, this nature of things, this way that the world properly functions.

00:41:36.180 And again, even though the low level politics of creative people has been so infested with, you know, kind of leftist pablum over the years, but I do think that there's an inherent kind of hook for an elite, elitist hierarchical understanding.

00:41:54.020 You know, I encountered this all the time, so for instance, people know that I have a very broad palette of, I mean, if you take painting, you know, there are many periods and many places and many styles of painting that I admire deeply.

00:42:10.860 And of course, one of those is high modernism, you know, and so of course, you know, I will occasionally tweet out images of artwork, I tweeted out a couple of Picassos the other day, I mean, Picasso, of course, you know, he's, this is work that was produced over 100 years ago, I mean, it's, there's nothing, there's nothing new or shocking about Picasso in this day and age.

00:42:32.060 But it is interesting how it still produces a certain violence among certain people, they get very angry, this isn't art, this is trash, Picasso ruined, ruined art.

00:42:44.120 Well, the thing is, Picasso isn't for you.

00:42:46.880 You know, you can't just, again, it is this vestige of egalitarianism, where people think, well, you should be able to stumble into a museum, I'm going to take a group of eight year olds, and I'm going to force them to walk through an art museum,

00:43:00.080 and they're going to sit still and be quiet, and they're going to look at all these things, and they're going to like them.

00:43:04.760 Well, that isn't how it works.

00:43:06.400 You know, unless you've been training these children in the rigorous way that education used to happen a couple of hundred years ago,

00:43:13.040 they're not going to have the tools to be able to understand anything that they're seeing, you know, or relatively few things.

00:43:19.600 You know, the average punter, you know, he's going to like a rosy-cheeked painting of a maiden with a flower garland in her hair,

00:43:27.360 but coming to Picasso's analytical cubism, cubist period, you're not going to get it, and that's okay.

00:43:33.480 Again, everything isn't meant to appeal to everyone.

00:43:37.760 I mean, you take a counterexample.

00:43:39.720 You know, I'm very fond of 70s progressive rock.

00:43:43.800 I also occasionally, back in the day, used to listen to early Megadeth, which may surprise some people.

00:43:49.760 But again, you're not necessarily going to come to that music, and immediately you're going to understand why people like it,

00:43:57.840 what's good about it, what talents are being displayed.

00:44:01.020 It's going to take some effort on your part.

00:44:03.860 It's going to take instruction.

00:44:05.120 It's going to take meditation.

00:44:06.600 Sounds a bit odd talking about popular music, but it's true.

00:44:09.400 It's true about popular music.

00:44:10.560 It's true about high art, whatever.

00:44:12.500 It's not for everyone.

00:44:14.040 And I think just people need to shed this idea that everything needs to appeal to everyone, that there's a whole world out there.

00:44:21.540 And this is why I always think of the art.

00:44:23.040 There is no kind of magical, lofty land of art that's good.

00:44:29.440 There are all sorts of arts, and there are all sorts of levels of art.

00:44:33.280 So I think that's a very important thing to understand.

00:44:35.780 And it is so much related to kind of political ideas that I think people are – it's easier for people to grasp the idea of hierarchy in something like politics.

00:44:46.900 But, you know, they go into popular arts, whatever, and suddenly they're all egalitarian again.

00:44:52.320 I should be able to understand this right away.

00:44:55.200 So it's a very good point.

00:44:56.560 And it is something related, I think, to also this – pardon the word – but this kind of slopification of everything.

00:45:04.360 So to draw the discussion back to art forms and to touch on the topic of particularity that you were discussing there, everything isn't for everyone all the time.

00:45:16.440 Art forms may not continue to be eternal if they're not practiced and they're not created in the context of the people who are ultimately meant to be enjoying the art.

00:45:29.000 I'll go ahead and fill out the bingo card for people who are playing along at home.

00:45:33.380 Oswald Spengler pointed out that he believed art was really very much tied to particular civilizations and that the attempt to revive art forms in new civilizations was good but was ultimately something very different from its original form.

00:45:54.380 So famously his point was that the Renaissance, while it was reviving many of these kind of forms from antiquity, was itself its own distinct thing.

00:46:04.580 And even though in many ways they were aping or inspired by that art from antiquity, ultimately the form could only ever be that of kind of the Italian Renaissance.

00:46:15.000 It was defined by that period, it's marked by the culture, the people who make it, the people who will ultimately appreciate it.

00:46:23.300 And so therefore art forms do die, their life cycles do end with the civilizations that give birth to them.

00:46:31.960 And new synthesis can arise, appreciations of old forms can revive themselves into new forms, but it's always a new form.

00:46:43.600 Would you agree with that?

00:46:45.280 Do you think that that's overstating it?

00:46:47.300 How do you feel about the culture particularity of forms in their life cycles?

00:46:51.960 I think you're, I think that's absolutely correct.

00:46:54.640 You know, but, but with the caveat that there's been a great sort of rupture in this natural process of, of, of, of, of birth and, and, and, and flourishment and death and, and, and then rising again, you know, the, the, some of the components of those things, taking new forms and taking new meaning as, as, as different type, you know, periods of time embrace them.

00:47:18.460 I think, unfortunately we are now beached on the, on the rocky shores of, of, of, of kind of postmodernism or even post postmodernism, whatever that, that may actually mean to the, to the point where, again, it's almost as if people have, have just been deflated to the point where the idea of a kind of authentic reaction to something, you know, it's, it's just no longer within many people's reach.

00:47:47.520 Even very talented people, even, you know, very technically proficient people, very thoughtful people.

00:47:52.980 So I'm, I'm thinking, of course, you know, I, and I think about architecture in this way.

00:47:57.500 Well, you ask, you know, ask sort of your average kind of right-wing people, what, what, what do they want to see in architecture?

00:48:02.580 Well, we can all agree that we are in this absolutely dire moment where just, just sort of the worst forms that have, that, that have come up in the past, I don't know, I would say 75 years, maybe longer, have just kind of, we can never get rid of them now.

00:48:20.900 Because again, they represent a kind of cost, you know, a cost benefit ratio that favors the corporate structures that pay for these things.

00:48:31.160 And so we're just endlessly stuck with this kind of glass, steel, concrete, you know, one abomination after the other.

00:48:38.720 So we can all agree there's something wrong, even in kind of small scale architecture in, in like new builds, you know, which are, which are even more dire than the glass and steel skyscraper at this point.

00:48:50.500 But then you ask, well, what do we do?

00:48:52.860 How, how do we, how do we get out of this?

00:48:55.340 Well, obviously there needs to be a kind of return to quality.

00:48:58.160 You know, we need to stop relying upon cheap, you know, illegal immigrants to cobble together our terrible new builds. 1.00

00:49:05.400 But also, how do we think about a kind, how do we think of beauty that, that is genuine, that comes out of our moment?

00:49:13.520 And of course, I think a lot of people don't do this, particularly, you know, for some reason, people on the right, they, they, they want this sort of endless,

00:49:20.120 endless recurrence of, you know, sort of Georgian, this, this kind of blend of Georgian and, and, you know, you know, and sort of, sort of neo-Gothic, you know, classical, this, this kind of miasma of the kind of gestures of beauty forever.

00:49:38.000 But in a way, that's just more of a postmodern moment.

00:49:41.980 That is just a kind of simulation of the, the, the, the resonant styles of the past, you know.

00:49:49.320 So, and, and, and even, you know, if you go to periods where, like, where Georgian architecture, Palladian architecture sort of took over, even then, that, that kind of wave of neoclassical, you know, let, let sort of ape proportions and features of, you know, Roman and, and, and Greek architecture.

00:50:09.940 Well, that also swept away a kind of native architectural style and, and, and sentiment in, in England, for example.

00:50:18.140 If you look at this period where just before the kind of Palladianism began to take over neoclassical and Georgian styles, you know, which came later, there was a kind of native architecture that was not, it was not continental.

00:50:31.120 It was not really classical, it was its own thing.

00:50:35.360 I mean, the, the Renaissance in, in Britain had a very different form from the Renaissance in Florence or wherever.

00:50:41.920 And, you know, again, there was a native style.

00:50:44.540 For instance, there's an architect who I very much admire from that period called Robert Smithson, that's Smith with a Y.

00:50:50.620 But again, this was very quickly blown away by Inigo Jones and the, and again, the advent of, of, of this kind of neoclassical style, which in itself was a kind of weird revival.

00:51:02.840 So we think of this as a kind of problem of ours, but it is something that has gone on before.

00:51:08.700 But I do think there's a particular problem in that you just can't revive pastiches of, of past forms and say, well, that's, that's how we're going to kind of revive art.

00:51:20.820 You know, I mean, the question is what, what is something that will speak in our voice, in our time, but, but speak with beauty and force.

00:51:30.160 The, the most recent example that I think people are aware of is Art Deco, which was a movement, you know, in the, in the, you know, 19, early 1920s, 1930s, and tailing off in the 1940s.

00:51:42.880 And you saw manifestations of it all over America, all over Europe.

00:51:46.260 And it was, again, a truly modern form that was absolutely obsessed with beauty and, and, you know, and, and, but also kind of dealing with the, this new, the coming machine age.

00:52:02.000 And it did it beautifully and people love it.

00:52:04.200 You know, people can find people on the right and left who say this, now this is good architecture, you know, but how do we make that synthesis again?

00:52:10.840 And I wonder, you know, whether we're so deadened that it's even possible without some great sort of cultural revival, some great springing forth of, of new, of new forms, new ideas.

00:52:24.800 So it is, it is an eternal problem.

00:52:27.240 Yeah.

00:52:28.300 Yeah.

00:52:28.760 I did, I had Art Deco in the back of my mind the whole time you were speaking until you got to it there as well.

00:52:34.460 You know, it was just one of those that I feel like ultimately did not, it did great things, but, you know, maybe it was gone before its time, perhaps due to, you know, some post-war feelings, I suppose.

00:52:49.080 Absolutely.

00:52:50.360 But, but, but, but some, something that still has vibrancy and perhaps it could, could be brought back only because it, it did not exhaust itself.

00:52:57.940 I feel like that there's still something there, but, but I'm far from an expert there.

00:53:02.700 I, I think that it's, it really, you, you bring out the, the real crux of the issue and one that we're probably not going to solve today ultimately, which is finding kind of that true voice in the moment, finding art that feels real and speaks to kind of where we are now, bringing elements of the past, bringing elements of beauty that have maybe been shunned in the modern world.

00:53:27.280 Uh, but not just aping, uh, these previous art styles, recognizing that return is not the goal, but ultimately, uh, beauty is the goal expression in, in kind of the current moment, uh, in the current form is the goal.

00:53:41.440 But that, that, that is of course a much harder thing to do, uh, which is why critiquing art and making art are very different things.

00:53:48.820 Uh, and, uh, and the, uh, former is much easier than the latter.

00:53:52.560 Uh, we could go into this topic for quite a long time and I think we should do another one of these because this has been a great conversation, uh, so far, but we are stacking up quite a few, uh, super chats.

00:54:03.640 So if we want any hope of getting through them at a reasonable time, we should probably get started.

00:54:08.240 Uh, but Mr. D, is there anything you want to direct people to anything you're working on or you want people to know about spaces you're doing or, or any writing you're doing anything like that?

00:54:19.880 Yes.

00:54:20.560 So people, people who are interested can, can, can go.

00:54:24.380 My primary online thing, uh, is, is, you know, I, I use Twitter, uh, particularly the spaces function.

00:54:30.700 So you can visit me on Twitter at John D and that's, that's with an I rather than a J I O H N D E E, uh, at Twitter slash X.

00:54:40.560 Uh, and I do these frequent spaces.

00:54:43.140 They often late at night, but with, with various friends, people who watch your, uh, channel or in will, will know many of the people who are regulars on my spaces.

00:54:51.180 We have a kind of forum.

00:54:52.760 Often we talk about art.

00:54:54.100 We talk about politics.

00:54:54.900 We talk about all sorts of things, you know, animals, uh, you know, cocktail napkins.

00:55:00.700 Whatever.

00:55:01.400 So, uh, if people are interested, if they can figure up late at night, you can visit me on Twitter and I will be having one of these spaces, uh, tonight at 11 PM Eastern.

00:55:09.860 So, uh, that's, um, that's where you can find me.

00:55:12.960 Uh, I also may in the future be, I I've still got incipient desire to, to start a YouTube channel.

00:55:21.160 Maybe I'll do that.

00:55:22.400 Uh, but thank you very much for having me on.

00:55:24.480 It's an honor and a pleasure, uh, Oren.

00:55:26.700 And, uh, it was a great conversation.

00:55:28.140 Of course, like I said, we will definitely need to do this again.

00:55:31.400 We didn't get a 10th of through what I wanted to explore and, uh, certainly, uh, would like, would like to find another opportunity to do.

00:55:38.520 So let's go to the questions of the people here, here real quick.

00:55:42.080 Uh, Maddie G says, I watch a Mr. D stream.

00:55:45.200 I super chat simple as well with a man as high quality as Mr. D.

00:55:49.460 I totally understand.

00:55:52.000 Uh, Melon here says D has educated many of us plebs on this subject and that is invaluable.

00:55:58.300 Yes.

00:55:58.580 That's, that's why I went to Mr. D for sure.

00:56:00.900 Uh, like I said, I am a Philistine, uh, but I, I know at the very least I should be appreciating art.

00:56:05.720 And so I will at least bring people on to help us better understand how to do so.

00:56:11.240 Uh, perspicacious heretic says, I think the real problem is that we don't have enough soulless committee stitching together scripts.

00:56:18.640 Uh, do you want to comment on that very quickly, Mr. D?

00:56:21.380 Obviously, like you said, the money men have always been a part of art to some extent, but do you feel there's something particularly about the kind of current commercialization that makes it difficult to break through and be authentic?

00:56:34.500 Yes.

00:56:34.980 I mean, in fact, that, that is something that you can even apply that to a broader extent.

00:56:39.140 I mean, the, the committee, again, which is a totally quote, democratic, egalitarian experience.

00:56:44.900 It is just the death of any kind of creativity, whether you have interesting ideas in business, whether you have interesting ideas in, in, in, in politics, the focus group, the kind of, you know, the kind of polling, the kind of poll driven or, or, or kind of committee, community, dare I say long house approach to everything.

00:57:04.800 It's just the absolute death of, of creativity and vibrancy, you know, I mean, whether it's, you know, a kind of, whether it, you're talking about the American government, you're talking about a kind of film, you need strong unitary figures with their own ideas and their own sort of bravery and approach.

00:57:23.560 And you're not going to get that if everything is eroded and washed away by, by, by the, by the bland, blandification of the committee.

00:57:33.000 So that's absolutely true.

00:57:34.620 Yeah.

00:57:34.780 And it's something that kills, certainly has killed, killed, killed popular cinema.

00:57:41.140 Yeah.

00:57:41.640 You definitely need that singular vision.

00:57:43.680 And a lot of people say, well, singular vision could fail, you know, and yes, singular visions fail more often than they succeed to be sure.

00:57:51.460 But when you're looking for quality, when you're looking for inspiration, when you're looking to make a statement that defines an era, you have to be willing to fail.

00:58:00.280 You have to, you can't just set up products and committees to minimize loss.

00:58:05.060 You don't want the Nash equilibrium when you're making art.

00:58:08.480 Actually, you want the tails.

00:58:10.400 You want the things that are going to maximize the possibility of radical success and radical failure,

00:58:18.500 because it's only the radical successes that ultimately will stand out and be something that inspires a generation.

00:58:25.500 Indeed.

00:58:27.320 Blood based here gives us a salute and a generous donation.

00:58:31.400 Thank you very much, sir.

00:58:32.720 Very much appreciate you doing that.

00:58:36.100 Perspicacious heretic says, I don't think the desire for profit in theaters and creative output necessarily have to be separate,

00:58:42.320 which is why modern Hollywood is so baffling as they fill movies with things most people hate.

00:58:49.400 You know, heretic, I will say this. 1.00

00:58:51.520 I think that that's true to an extent, but I think that once you get beyond a certain kind of range of appeal,

00:58:58.280 you do actually have to start putting in things that you think people will hate.

00:59:04.260 Like that does actually happen that the decision making that gets you to the wider audience eventually gets you to the point where you lose the core audience.

00:59:15.080 And so you always you see this.

00:59:18.020 I'm a gamer in like tabletop games and other things.

00:59:21.460 You see this with different attempts to expand the audience for something like Warhammer or Magic the Gathering.

00:59:29.540 They want they they don't want it to be a nerdy hobby anymore.

00:59:32.720 Dungeons and dragons.

00:59:33.700 They want it to appeal to everyone.

00:59:35.180 And so in their desire to appeal to everyone, yes, for a while they widen the expanse of the audience.

00:59:41.980 But ultimately, they hollow out the core of the thing that gave it any distinct meaning.

00:59:45.900 So I understand that it's kind of at odds, it feels like.

00:59:49.880 But ultimately, I think that the desire to expand kind of the audience or the consumer base for many of these artistic endeavors ultimately does drive you to include things that will make people hate it, even though that's counterintuitive.

01:00:06.900 I don't know.

01:00:07.260 Dee, what do you think?

01:00:09.780 Yeah, I think there's certainly something to that.

01:00:12.960 I mean, you know, we also live in this this weird kind of perverted echo of the Victorian age, you know, where, where, of course, like the policing of morality, you know, is is is kind of becomes a primary importance.

01:00:28.580 But the difference of, of, of, of, of, again, what they want to top the cultural idea of a morality now where we're kind of insisting on this morality that is, of course, the most amoral, immoral things imaginable.

01:00:47.460 But once you start trying to make what should be artistic decisions with, with kind of a dogmatic set of moral imperatives, it's just going to be the worst thing ever.

01:01:02.660 You know, it's just, it's just this very weird idea where it's just like, we all know that this, this person is not particularly attractive.

01:01:09.660 We know that this person isn't particularly talented.

01:01:12.100 We know that this particular person has a loathsome personality.

01:01:15.000 But we're, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to put it in anyway, we're going to fail, it's going to be complete disaster, like Snow White.

01:01:24.420 But we're going to do it despite this, because it's the right thing to do.

01:01:28.340 It is really weird that this, this, this, this kind of immoral morality that we're forced to, that is just liquefying everything around it.

01:01:37.800 But I mean, the wonderful thing, of course, is that people still, in their heart of hearts, know what's good and know what's bad, at least some of them do.

01:01:46.400 And of course, we do see these things fail, which is nice.

01:01:49.300 Yeah, I do believe, of course, being a adherent of elite theory, that there's a lot that the elites can do, the upper crust, the highest tier, can do to influence, taste, and drive things.

01:02:03.340 But ultimately, there is a limit.

01:02:04.820 I am not one of these people that think power is just completely unbridled.

01:02:09.200 There are no natural limits.

01:02:10.440 Power does whatever it wants.

01:02:11.620 And that's as true for art as it is for politics, right?

01:02:14.800 That ultimately, you can have these degenerate elites, and they can push kind of these radical, ugly aspects and try to make that art.

01:02:24.620 And it works for a while, but there is ultimately a hard stop on that kind of power.

01:02:30.320 It does undo itself if it's not undone by something else.

01:02:34.400 And so I think we are hitting that limit when it comes to the type of moviemaking you're talking about.

01:02:39.260 Yeah, even in governance or politics, you know, hard authoritarian power, which is against the kind of general will of the people it's being inflicted upon, it may work for a short time.

01:02:53.220 You know, I think of the Peronists, you know, or something like that. 0.94

01:02:58.560 But of course, if it is pushing against the general sort of will of the populace, it will break.

01:03:07.540 It's brittle.

01:03:08.520 It will work for a moment, but it is very brittle.

01:03:11.140 And it is absolutely true in, you know, in art and culture as well.

01:03:15.600 You know, people will only be pushed against their instincts for so long.

01:03:23.140 And then, of course, it will break.

01:03:25.360 Yeah, as an elite, you're better off guiding those instincts rather than entirely trying to transform them or push directly against them.

01:03:33.980 And so you can see that the higher level of influence, be it in art or politics, comes when an elite knows how to work within the real rather than trying to force a highly artificial frame onto something.

01:03:46.800 And I think that just manifests itself across the board, both in art and in politics.

01:03:51.320 Again, Mr. Heretic says, as I've grown, I've seen less influenced by Boomer Truth.

01:03:58.280 I find it difficult to reconcile that art I grew up with.

01:04:01.420 How should I approach this?

01:04:03.580 So I guess it would be like I look through the kind of art that happened, I guess, for the last 40 or 50 years.

01:04:12.160 And I don't know.

01:04:13.740 I don't know.

01:04:14.180 How would you interpret this, Mr. D?

01:04:16.160 I'm not sure exactly how to answer that.

01:04:17.680 Well, I come against this.

01:04:19.880 People come at me about this all the time.

01:04:22.640 You know, for instance, you know, I'll take a very contentious subject, John Lennon.

01:04:26.480 You know, I really like John Lennon.

01:04:30.160 You know, I don't like, of course, everything that he did.

01:04:32.500 And, of course, it does not mean that I am a fan of, you know, his particular politics or lifestyle or whatever.

01:04:40.220 I mean, this is something that if you really appreciate art, at a certain point, you've got to understand that great art, to some degree, will transcend these temporal issues.

01:04:52.380 I mentioned Picasso earlier.

01:04:54.080 I mean, Pablo Picasso was a ridiculous communist, a communist living in a villa, you know, literally going to Communist Party meetings when he was a rich and internationally famous artist. 0.87

01:05:09.340 Many such cases. 0.96

01:05:10.920 Many such cases.

01:05:12.220 Again, this is something we will all be familiar with.

01:05:14.520 And yet, at a certain point, even though occasionally it does influence his art, but you also understand that he was producing art that came from a different place.

01:05:27.180 Occasionally it would inflect his artwork, his politics or whatever, his character.

01:05:31.480 He was also kind of a loathsome person as well.

01:05:33.400 But, again, in a sense, you've got to make this disconnect, you know.

01:05:38.560 You cannot throw out, you know, sort of genuinely great products of artistic production, you know, just because, of course, it feels political.

01:05:49.260 I mean, that's, in fact, the worst thing to do.

01:05:50.920 If you like, and you obviously it's undeniable that certainly the Beatles produced some absolutely astounding work, and a lot of it is still quite enjoyable today, just go with it.

01:06:04.760 Don't let petty politics besmirch kind of what I think is a kind of higher order of human experience.

01:06:14.200 You know, you've got to learn to separate the two.

01:06:17.240 Now, of course, occasionally it gets difficult.

01:06:19.160 You know, no one is going to go back and say, well, I absolutely love watching old reruns of Jim will fix it because Jimmy Savile was great.

01:06:26.700 No, I mean, there's a certain point where the product is so poisoned that that's more difficult.

01:06:33.880 But, yeah, don't allow people to kind of, you know, to kind of do this, you know.

01:06:41.220 Think of your aesthetic taste, your artistic appreciation of things, your love of music, whatever.

01:06:48.260 Think of this as a realm higher than all of these petty temporal concerns.

01:06:53.580 That's my advice.

01:06:55.920 John Morton says, great stream, guys.

01:06:58.060 Thank you.

01:06:58.560 Well, thank you very much, Mr. Morton.

01:07:00.140 Appreciate your support.

01:07:02.340 Bloodbase says, the way artistic grants are handed out has a lot to do with this and the impact of flies under the, of, sorry,

01:07:10.940 and the impact of flies under the radar when compared to scientific research grants, et cetera.

01:07:17.300 Yeah.

01:07:17.480 As a, as a working artist, how do you feel about the way that grants or other kind of government incentives warp the art world?

01:07:24.820 Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's horrendous.

01:07:27.640 I mean, I, I think it's, you know, certainly in, in, in art.

01:07:30.220 I mean, if you think about, there's almost nothing more dire than public art, you know.

01:07:35.240 I mean, almost anything that is, that is funded by a, I mean, with a few exceptions, but funded by a kind of committee that, that gives a public grant.

01:07:45.340 I mean, it's, it's just, it's going to be something that, something that no one likes, you know.

01:07:49.360 So, no, it's, it's very difficult.

01:07:51.440 But, but of course, you also have to understand that there's always going to be a patron.

01:07:57.100 There's, there's always going to be a patron and a client, you know, and, and of course it worked this way back into the midst of, of, of, of, of history.

01:08:07.080 You know, I mean, if, if you were, if, you know, if you were an artist, you required a generally a powerful patron, whether it be a figure in the church, you know.

01:08:16.720 So, take the, the, the artist, Michelangelo Caravaggio, you know, who was, who was, who was patronized by, by members of the, of the church.

01:08:26.520 Or you take Anthony Van Dyke, you know, who was, of course, patronized by Charles, you know, Charles I of England, you know.

01:08:33.640 There's always going to be a patron, but there's, again, a difference between the kind of, kind of working in synergy with a unitary patron who is, who is giving you something in return for something.

01:08:45.040 That's a mutualistic relationship.

01:08:46.960 But when it, when it evolves into kind of a grant panel, yeah.

01:08:51.700 Dreamless, faceless committee.

01:08:53.260 It just, yeah, you're, again, it's, it's, it's, it's the sort of, you know, it's the kind of democratization or the, or the eternal, the eternal longhouse, to use that term again.

01:09:04.280 You know, where, where you, you're not getting the kind of, the, the taste and, and, and sort of, um, uh, power relationship that you get in a proper patron-client relationship.

01:09:15.440 So, yeah, it's, it's utterly, um, usually utterly awful, whatever comes out of that arrangement.

01:09:22.700 Tiny Stupid Demon says, 70s prog rules. 0.61

01:09:25.860 I, uh, I was a prog-rog baby.

01:09:28.500 Mr. D, putting you on the spot, top three prog bands you would recommend?

01:09:34.280 Oh, well.

01:09:36.500 Okay.

01:09:37.000 I mean, I, I, I could give them more than three, but I, I, I mean.

01:09:40.620 Yeah, well, we, we could also be here till Tuesday.

01:09:42.820 So I tried to do my.

01:09:43.520 We could also be here till Tuesday.

01:09:44.280 Yeah, yeah.

01:09:44.780 All right.

01:09:45.280 Um, Gentle Giant, uh, King Crimson and Jethro Tull.

01:09:51.200 There you go.

01:09:52.100 There you go.

01:09:52.640 Uh, Kruber Reardon says, what do you say to people who say we need to lean into kitsch or be avant-garde fetish art, for example, or memes?

01:10:02.940 It sounds cringe to me personally.

01:10:04.780 I'll let you approach that one.

01:10:08.060 It, it happens, you know, I mean, again, memes, I mean, memes are, again, it, it, it is art in the sense that it is a manifestation of our kind of moment, political moment, cultural moment, whatever, you know.

01:10:24.220 I mean, obviously it is an expression, and again, I'm just saying that there are different tiers of art.

01:10:29.040 I mean, it's, there's nothing wrong with calling these things, all of them coming under the general aegis of art, you know, that, that's happily true.

01:10:35.940 Whether it's memes, whether it's pop songs, even, even a bloody advert can, can be considered kind of, again, cultural production, a form of art, you know, but, but then you understand that there are, there are kind of tears.

01:10:50.780 There's a kind of situation where one thing, one thing is, is, is going to be at the top of its little category, but it's, it's not going to be the same as some other, some other sort of great, greater work, you know, and, and, and that's fine.

01:11:03.280 And it happens, but it is, it is undeniable.

01:11:05.860 I mean, I, you know, I see, see people, oh, sorry, my dog is being set off.

01:11:10.140 I see people, again, just constantly arguing, well, how can you say a painting of a soup can is, is great art?

01:11:15.920 How do you compare this to, you know, Peter Paul Rubens or something like that?

01:11:19.280 And I'm, I'm not, again, that they are two different modes of two different artists in two very different times, but they are both manifestations of the, of, of the creative spirit of their time.

01:11:30.320 And, and, and they're both legitimate.

01:11:32.840 So what you're saying is the Oren McIntyre gallery collection is just inevitable.

01:11:37.860 Eventually we'll be, you know, putting sign tapping memes, you know, manifest media says,

01:11:45.900 how do you feel about reels slash Tik TOK style videos and the type of content it popularizes, how brain dead things are compared to even 10 years ago.

01:11:55.040 Honestly, when I started doing this professionally, when I moved from doing a part-time with another gig to moving to the blaze full-time,

01:12:02.640 that's when kind of the YouTube shorts, reels, whatever started to make their way.

01:12:08.120 And it's what everyone is doing.

01:12:09.740 I made them at the time.

01:12:11.200 And honestly, I just stopped because I felt like the, you know, the medium is the message to some extent.

01:12:16.280 And I just, I felt like I was degrading the content to try to get it into the parameters.

01:12:23.680 I'm sure there are people who are doing great things with it, but it was very clearly not for me or what I was making, but I'll get let Mr. D speak on it.

01:12:31.960 I'm sorry.

01:12:33.860 I had to step away to silence the dog.

01:12:36.100 So I missed that one.

01:12:37.180 I'm sorry.

01:12:37.580 Oh, no problem.

01:12:38.160 He's just saying, how do you feel about how like reels and Tik TOK and these things kind of ultimately warp the idea of producing art or artistic content?

01:12:47.740 Oh, absolutely do.

01:12:49.820 I mean, maybe another time we can talk about how my theory is that, is that the internet actually destroyed the human soul.

01:12:57.320 So I do think, I do think, I mean, I just got finished saying, oh, of course memes can be art and, you know, there's a limit to that, you know, and I do think that, well, in a way, again, it goes back to this idea of kind of democratization, the kind of, the kind of blanket, you know, access that people have to something.

01:13:15.980 And I mean, there's nothing worse for civilization than, you know, the Tik TOK video.

01:13:21.280 So, but I mean, I remember all, I remember all of these progressive steps towards, towards oblivion, like Vine and, you know, and, and, and Instagram and, and MySpace.

01:13:36.040 And I mean, all of these things have just chipped away at the human soul.

01:13:38.760 So, yeah, yeah.

01:13:39.400 I think in the end, if we really want to save human, human culture and art, you know, we've got to nuke the internet and don't even get me started on quote AI.

01:13:49.680 So there you go.

01:13:51.280 Uh, Novatrix says art is supposed to reflect the artist and most are hollow and decrepit these days charged with, uh, oasian for the, uh, for the past, present and future. 0.98

01:14:04.580 It's supposed to lift the spirit, not smother it.

01:14:10.580 Uh, to a degree.

01:14:12.320 Yeah.

01:14:12.580 Yeah.

01:14:12.720 I'm sorry.

01:14:13.340 I did.

01:14:13.660 Yeah.

01:14:13.820 It's okay.

01:14:14.220 I didn't know if I had more to say on that.

01:14:15.560 Yeah.

01:14:16.100 I just, I would caution people because I do think that it's a particularly modern notion.

01:14:21.280 The idea that art is always an expression of the artist.

01:14:25.020 And that is not, it is true, but it is not true in the kind of biographical way that we tend to think of it.

01:14:32.500 You know, again, we, there, there is too much, uh, emphasis on the idea of art as self-expression.

01:14:39.280 And in the end, of course, if your art is only onanistic self-expression, it's, it's just, you know, again, it's, it's, it's fall out of the category of art and just, just come, you know, just, just become dreck.

01:14:56.500 You know, so, so I, I do think that the idea of self-expression needs to be tempered by higher order, uh, concerns.

01:15:04.680 And finally, super Joe's midlife crisis says only question that matters are YouTube poops art like the emoji or is there like poop videos on YouTube?

01:15:12.840 I don't know about, I don't want to know about them to be clear.

01:15:15.300 So if that's the case, I'll just remain ignorant, but, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm assuming the emoji there or something, but yeah.

01:15:22.060 No, they used to be, they used to be very long time ago on YouTube.

01:15:24.840 There used to be the, these things called YouTube poop, which was just kind of, yeah, I'm just kind of miserable videos cobbled together.

01:15:32.340 I just, I vaguely remember it, but I think that's what he's talking about.

01:15:35.860 Okay.

01:15:36.620 Yeah.

01:15:36.860 I didn't know if I was missing a joke there or if that was a real reference.

01:15:40.560 All right, guys, well, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.

01:15:43.340 Of course, if you enjoyed Mr. D and why wouldn't you, he's on Twitter.

01:15:47.760 He's got his spaces tonight.

01:15:49.400 If you're up a little late, so check that out.

01:15:51.500 If it's your first time on this channel, you need to go ahead and subscribe, click the bell notifications, all the YouTube stuff.

01:15:58.320 So, you know, when we go live, if you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need to subscribe to the Orr McIntyre show on your favorite podcast platform.

01:16:06.900 And if you do leave that rating or review, it really helps with the algorithm magic.

01:16:11.240 I don't say this often enough, but the show just continues to grow on podcasts.

01:16:15.120 Of course it grows here on YouTube and other platforms as well, but really the podcast has just continued to expand.

01:16:21.140 Impressively.

01:16:22.160 So thank you guys so much for listening in and telling other people.

01:16:25.440 Very obvious that you are helping out.

01:16:27.860 I want to thank everybody for watching.

01:16:29.860 Have a great weekend.

01:16:31.060 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 21, 2025

Can Artistic Forms Become Obsolete？｜ Guest： John Dee ｜ 3⧸21⧸25

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 21, 2025

Can Artistic Forms Become Obsolete？ ｜ Guest： John Dee ｜ 3⧸21⧸25

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Can Artistic Forms Become Obsolete？｜ Guest： John Dee ｜ 3⧸21⧸25