Post-Modern Postmortem (An article from our new Freeper-run literary magazine!)

The Tarpeian Rock ^ | 1/1/2003 | Antoninus

[Antoninus]

Post-modern Postmortem

On January 10, 1963, A. S. Herlong, a Democrat congressman from Florida read a strange list, known as the “Current Communist Goals,” into the Congressional Record. Originally lifted from a book called The Naked Communist by Cleon Skousen, the list seemed at the time to be an alarmist sequence of unattainable military, political, and cultural threats posed by international communism against the free world. Most intriguing among these are the cultural goals:

• Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

• Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

• Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

Now, whether or not one is willing to don the tinfoil hat and buy into the notion that communist partisans have been covertly working toward these goals for the past forty years, it is undeniable that atheism, amorality, vulgarity, and emptiness have conquered the arts.

Shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms now dominate the landscape. Walking through the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo several years ago, I was dismayed to see the “sculpture” scattered around campus—rusting hulks of iron that bore little resemblance to anything outside of a scrap metal yard.

Ugliness, repulsiveness, and meaninglessness in graphic art have also become a plague. Blasphemy is considered chic. Works that combine blasphemy with scatological themes such as Piss Christ or The Holy Virgin Mary smeared with elephant feces are especially treasured by our post-modern academia and cultural elite.

Literature, cinema, radio, and television are not unaffected by this scourge. Nihilism, atheism, and obscenity are common fixtures in all of these media to an extent that would have been unimaginable forty years ago.

Architecture suffers as well. One need not be an art critic to realize that the brand new $192 million Our Lady of the Angels cathedral in Los Angeles is an ill-shapen megalithic monstrosity. It is little more than a warehouse with a bell-tower—and an ugly warehouse at that. And when one considers the beautiful 19th century Romanesque cathedral it replaced—with its ties to two millennia of ecclesiastical artistic tradition—the tragedy becomes complete.


These post-modern atrocities have made such headway not through any merit of their own, but through a surrender of the field by those who should naturally oppose them. The armies of artistic tolerance have decreed that the most awful filth should be given a fair showing and in many cases, pride of place. Not wanting to be viewed as intolerant—that most egregious of all post-modern sins—the decent, polite mass of society has patted them on the head like spoiled children. We dare not raise any objection lest a temper tantrum of scurrilous accusations and epithets result. Well, after forty years of shock, junk, vulgarity, and nonsense, the bloom is clearly off the fungus. The spectacular success of movies like Gladiator, Braveheart, and The Sixth Sense points toward a yearning for works with positive messages and unmistakable nods toward history, tradition, and Judeo-Christian spirituality—three taboos that are hardly ever addressed in post-modern schlock art and literature, except as objects of ridicule. Rather than continue to whine and complain about the dominance of post-modernism, the time is ripe for our side to counter-attack.

The Tarpeian Rock is a foot-soldier in that counter-attack. In this, our inaugural issue, you will find work from authors who are unknown or underappreciated. Our objective is to present works of high quality that are enjoyable, clever, thought-provoking, uplifting, humorous, and ultimately gratifying. We were highly intolerant when it came to selecting works for inclusion. We hope that you will read the works herein with the same discerning eye.

If you appreciate what we’ve done here, we’d love to hear from you—tarpeianrock@arxpub.com. If you’d like to give us an earful of petulant post-modern absurdist free verse, please use our alternate email address—totalfraud@artandlit.com.

Now removing tinfoil hat….

[Antoninus]

Hi everyone. We are proud to announce the creation of our literary magazine, The Tarpeian Rock. It boasts contributions from no less than three Freepers: Antoninus, Claud, and fporretto. It's free so if anyone wants a copy, just send us your snailmail address at tarpeianrock@arxpub.com

Another article from our first issue is available on the web site, so feel free to check it out.


The Tarpeian Rock

[Antoninus]

FYI...

[Antoninus]

Ping... BTW, we're already looking for submissions for next year's issue...

[Antoninus]

Almost forgot you folks...

[Siobhan]

Very interesting, Antoninus. All the best this new year!

[Alamo-Girl]

Kudos! Thank you so much for the heads up!

[Desdemona]

Congradulations! Request sent!

[Scupoli]

• Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

They succeeded.

[St.Chuck]

Thank you.

[Antoninus]

Ping for the Hobbit Holers!

[Antoninus]

Ping to the Poetry Branch!

[Radix]

Post Modern post Mortems.

The lefties new favorite cereal!

The breakfast of the Democrat Party!

[SAMWolf]

Bump.

[Antoninus]

As for the thread article, I have for some time been printing the 45 goals of the American Communist Party from the Naked Communist for any friends and family that I could get to read it.

I post it all over the place too. I'm proud to say that I even posted it on Smirking Chimp once. After all, it was read into the Congressional Record by a Democrat. I still got my posting privileges yanked. But what do you expect from a bunch of free-speech fearing commies, anyway?

[Antoninus]

The lefties new favorite cereal! The breakfast of the Democrat Party!

Strangely enough, we came up with a bunch of nazi breakfast treats a while back which the totalitarian left would probably like, too. They included:

Fruity Goebbels

Luft-waffles

Dunkin Doenitz

Master Race Krispies

Vichy French Toast

Schliffen Bran

and for the Weimar lovers out there, we have...

von Pappen Tarts

[Antoninus]

Gracias!

[My back yard]

Lyric Poetry of 30 lines or less will be considered, but must be positively brilliant to be published. Such poetry should have an identifiable meter and ideally, a rhyme scheme as well. Longer works of up to 200 lines will be considered, but held to an even higher standard.

Well, I like the idea of this.

[Antoninus]

Foxhole bump. We love military historical fiction.

[Antoninus]

Well, I like the idea of this.

Thanks. I've seen a lot of what
Passes for poetry
These days and to be honest,
A lot of it is
Just intellectual laziness.
Some might even consider this
Post a poem.
I wouldn't, though.
It's just a post.

[SAMWolf]

Friday Morning Bump.

[Jen]

Very interesting article and magazine. Thanks for the ping.

[Valin]

Bump and bookmarked.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[Claud]

Some might even consider this
Post a poem.

LOL...I might even consider it more in the nature of post-structuralist performance art....

[Antoninus]

LOL...I might even consider it more in the nature of post-structuralist performance art....

Hold on a second while I coat myself in chocolate, talk about my privates, and eat a dead baby. Now that's what I call art!

[Antoninus]

Ping to Culture Warriors...

[Antoninus]

From an article posted on a previous thread:

At the Frankfort School, established in 1933 at Columbia University in New York City, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse launched the program that would lead to the mainstreaming of cultural Marxism. Their assault on American values left Pro-American intellectuals in the dust scratching their heads wondering what had happened to the philosophy of the founders. Freedom, liberty, and morality, ideas that established the greatest society in history, have since been reduced to saloon talk on radio shows and websites.

Exactly what was the allure of the godless foursome? Why didn´t freedom advocates check them on the battlefield of ideas? The simple answer is that the Marxists offer sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

The reason they are so hard to combat, besides the fact that they offer sex and drugs, is that they don´t actually stand for a culture. The cultural Marxists actually represent an anti-Culture. They seek to tear down any notions of culture and replace them with…well…nothing. They stand for nothing and everything at the same time. This becomes apparent when trying to debate a cultural Marxist, and if you don´t believe me try it for yourself.

From Calling all Culture Warriors See post 77.

[ELS]

It sounds like a good endeavor. May God bless your efforts.

[Bernard Marx]

I was acquainted with Cleon Skousen at the time "The Naked Communist" was published. He was police chief in Salt Lake City.

Like most anti-Communists of the time (late 50s, early 60s) he was attacked in the media and made to look like an extremist maniac (thinking of Trent Lott, things haven't changed much, have they?)

I'll personally attest to the fact that Skousen at that time was rational, civil, intelligent, pleasant -- and dead right.

[serinde]

Thanks for the ping. I have ordered my copy, and am looking forward to getting it.

[Antoninus]

Thanks!

[Antoninus]

Like most anti-Communists of the time (late 50s, early 60s) he was attacked in the media and made to look like an extremist maniac (thinking of Trent Lott, things haven't changed much, have they?)

It's funny, even anti-communists today are made to look like idiots chasing will-o-wisps. "Don't you know that the Soviet Union fell 12 years ago?" Meanwhile, we now have marxist totalitarian maniacs like Chavez and Lula de Silva right there in South America.

[Antoninus]

I'll personally attest to the fact that Skousen at that time was rational, civil, intelligent, pleasant -- and dead right.

He was and is. History is showing him to be more right with each passing day. I'd love to get a copy of his book ... I wonder if my local public library would have it (ha, ha).

[Antoninus]

Local publishing bump!

[Antoninus]

Post-postmodernism bump...

[IronJack]

Request sent! Phenomenal effort, folks! It's time to shed some conservative light in the twilit halls of beaux artes. Or is that "bozo arts"?

[fatima]

bump

[Physicist]

nazi breakfast treats

Das Bootmeal

Sudetenbran (für das Raisinsraum)

Die Schutzwaffle

(I can't top "Dunkin Doenitz", though.)

[PhilDragoo]

I have heard the thermobaric mermaids singing each to each.

Soon they will sing, "Saddam, payback's a beach."

[185JHP]

Thanks. It's amazingly obvious where the good stuff comes from. Likewise the dreck. There is a real devil - and he is relentless.

[Jhoffa_]

Bumpo!

[tallhappy]

Thanks a lot for the ping.

Yearly? Long time.

[Bernard Marx]

The book is actually still in print. You can order a copy ($14.95 paperback with probably some shipping cost) from:

http://www.skousen2000.com/Political%20Writings/communist.htm

I'd be astonished if your library had it despite all the First Amendment concerns by professional librarians about keeping internet access to pornography available to young minds.

Meanwhile, there's another book you and contributors to this thread might find interesting. I've read only a review so far (H.A. Scott Trask writing in the January 2003 "Chronicles.")

"Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy" by Paul E. Gottfried is published by the University of Missouri Press (astonishingly!) It details how America is now ruled by cultural Marxism.

Agree with him or not, Gottfried makes some points I think may be very much worth considering. As Trask points out:

"Gottfried is one of the few scholars to notice that the social democratic left won the Cold War. Neoconservatives have been strutting around for a decade, pronouncing the 'death of socialism,' the triumph of democratic capitalism, the ascendancy of conservatism, and the dawn of universal freedom.

"Gottfried makes it clear, in painstaking detail, that all this is fantasy. While Soviet-style communism has failed and has been repudiated by everyone except Castro and Kim Jong Il, the Western form of democratic socialism -- the mixed economy, the welfare state, redistributive taxation, government regulation of business -- stands unchallenged."

Most interestingly to me, Gottfried sees Third World immigration as a tool used by anti-American elites to force social and demographic change and cultural revolution; and Political Correctness as a manifestation of a "deformed Protestant culture" that has been adopted as a substitute for Christianity: "...a misplaced quest for religious redemption that takes the form of worshiping at the multicultural shrine."

I'm not prepared to debate the book until I've read it myself, but the author appears to have some very interesting thoughts that impact the subject we're discussing here.

[Antoninus]

Das Bootmeal

Sudetenbran (für das Raisinsraum)

Die Schutzwaffle

I love these! You have successfully added three new ones to our list which has been growing at a rate of about 1 per year. Excellent work!

[Antoninus]

Thanks. It's amazingly obvious where the good stuff comes from. Likewise the dreck. There is a real devil - and he is relentless.

Exactly. I'm pretty sure the real general secretary of COMINTERN is Old Scratch.

[Antoninus]

Thanks. It's amazingly obvious where the good stuff comes from. Likewise the dreck. There is a real devil - and he is relentless.

Exactly. I'm pretty sure the real general secretary of COMINTERN is Old Scratch.

[Antoninus]

Yearly? Long time.

It's true but that's the way it must be for now, considering the gigantic pile of other work we have to do. We do have an inkling of increasing the frequency at some point. We'll see how the first issue does and judge from there.