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]

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