Why are artists liberal?
October 10, 2008
Why are so many of my favorite artists so liberal. Alec Baldwin is super talented, so is Matt Damon, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Sean Penn and so on. All of them are very liberal—Marxist liberal. Why?
Do artists in general tend to be liberal? Or is it just the mob/peer pressure of Hollywood?
Is it just the cool starving artist thing to do even though all of these guys are rich?
My hope is that it is distorted compassion. I can appreciate compassion, even when it is misguided. I get why someone would protest against war—I hate war. I get why someone would try to protect animals from unnecessary harm—we should be good stewards to God’s creations. But I cant understand how someone can fight so veraciously to protect a monkey from cosmetic testing and yet think its ok to kill a baby still in his mothers’ womb.
I say I hope it is distorted compassion because I don’t like believing that people are motivated strictly out of a desire for immoral, personal, freedom. It’s often the case, but it is disheartening to think artists I admire so much for their talent can be so misguided. I would be ok with Bruce Springsteen telling me he hated war and violence and everything else we all hate if he would only also wage war on the genocide that is abortion. I’m ok with Matt Damon thinking Bush made bad decisions if only he would acknowledge that fetal stem cell research encourages and promotes creating babies for destruction and experimentation.
I’m a conservative, but I can appreciate liberalism when it comes from compassion. However, I cannot understand liberalism when it comes from and angry desire to protect all from everything except the weakest from death and the world from the Truth.
October 10, 2008 at 1:55 pm
The source of this curious phenomenon is the same source of so much bad art in the past century or so: expressionism. When artists think Art=Expression, art very quickly distorts into social activism — and conservativism doesn’t lend itself to activism as it is predicated on contemplation as opposed to (largely) indescriminant action.
I don’t think artists per se necessarily have a proclivity to liberalism — but I think bad artists do
October 10, 2008 at 10:29 pm
David,
It’s good to hear from you again. I think you’re right especially when it comes to painters, but what do you think of the Hollywood “artists” such as Sean Penn. Do you think they are bad artists or would you say that they are talented, but misguided?
October 22, 2008 at 4:48 am
Most artist are indeed liberals. Creative types are liberal because liberalism is about being open to new experiences and not about being repressed, stuck in the past, and unable to let go of tradition. Conservatives are almost never true artists because their minds can’t exist within the space of emotional and intellectual freedom. Their minds are being choked by rigid and stubborn religious views and outdated politics that might have made since 150 years ago but are absolutely ridiculous now.
Liberals are about FREE THINKING: an idea that conservatives will reject because they can’t even conceptualize the thought in their closed minds.
October 23, 2008 at 2:11 am
Farmer’s market,
I find your argument interesting. You claim that artists are liberals because liberalism is about “free thinking.” You also imply that conservatives are often not artists because they are held back by tradition and religion and therefore lack intellectual freedom. What interests me is the irony of your argument.
I come from a very large family on both sides. To the best of my knowledge, not including children, my wife or myself, there are a total of three church going Christians in my family—only one of which is Roman Catholic. I am also pretty sure that all but two of my family members will be voting for Obama this year. Though anyone who makes a choice is a “free thinker” in my book, the fact that I am from the family I am from, yet happen to be a practicing Catholic who will most definitely not be voting for Obama, is certainly a more convincing proof of my ability to think freely than is the rest of my family members’ choices. And if the pole numbers are of any consequence, I am in the minority among my fellow citizens as well.
If true intellectual freedom is believing in whatever you like, then why am I not considered a free thinker? I freely choose to embrace tradition. I freely chose to enter the Catholic Church. I believe what I believe because I made the choice to—a free choice—a choice which puts me at odds with most people in my family and most people I know.
Is it only possible to have free thoughts if nobody has had them before? If that is true, than progressive liberals are no more free thinkers than robotic drones. If real art can only be made in a void free from tradition, then there has been no real painter since the first person to ever pick up a paintbrush.
November 15, 2008 at 4:29 am
Is it really true that “…liberalism is about being open to new experiences..?” As a conservative, am I open to old experiences or not open to new experiences? Does every liberal believe this stuff?
November 27, 2008 at 7:56 am
I think that the terminilogy is all twisted here. The literal meaning and the political meaning of conservatism and liberalism do not coincide. A political liberal dedicated to what political liberals have historically dedicated themselves to can be called a conservative within the framework of the political liberal. Being free thinking – open to new ideas – willing to consider and accept or reject those ideas on merit is a mark of intellectual integrity and is quite different from being a liberal or conservative in a political sense.
To me, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp disappoint me most with their stances. They sing songs of the common man, but their views are often far removed. I strongly believe that the Vietnam War was a pivotal event in the lives of these two men. I think that it has likely permanently colored the thinking of these two beyond any sort of logic. In a concert captured on the mid 80’s box set- in a preamble to ‘WAR’, Springsteen said, ” To have faith in your government or your leaders will get you killed.” Yet, he backs a political ideology that places faith in government and not the individual.
The true free thinker, the one that wishes for the maximum amount of liberty for the individual will be a libertarian. I am an independant that identifies most closely with the libertarian party. In general, political parties are bad. They force candidates upon us that adhere to a rigid set of beliefs. Often the populace lies somewhere in the middle of these polar opposites, and we are asked to make a choice.
The Democrat and Repulican parties are flip sides of the same coin. Both have outlived their usefulness and do more harm than good.
February 12, 2009 at 11:01 pm
[...] 12, 2009 · No Comments A while ago I asked the question, Why are artists liberal? I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about this question recently. Though I don’t feel I [...]
May 7, 2009 at 6:01 pm
If Liberals are all about free expression why then do they tend to shout down and surpress views that they don’t agree with?
October 29, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I’m a libertarian with very conservative leanings. As I understand it, this country was built on conservative values and tradition, and became the greatest country in the world. Everyone wants to come here; everyone tries to emulate us in some way. It would seem that the goal of liberalism is to reverse everything that made this country great, i.e. create government-run healthcare, more taxes (on things like soda? wtf?), firearm restrictions, reduction of military power, etc. These “free thinkers” are taking away our freedom of choice! Pretty soon they’ll be telling us what color car we can purchase and how many children we can have. Except they’ll be telling us in spanish or chinese.
But… It would be a cure for illegal immigration. They’ll make this place such a @#$% hole, Americans will be hopping the fence to get into Mexico.
October 29, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I am an artist too, by the way.