VIDEO: Art Matters on Propaganda Vs Art

The continuation of a new series of Remodern America videos. Number two is a video about Pablo Picasso, his painting Guernica, and the difference between art and propaganda. Great art explores the mysteries of human experience. Propaganda seeks to influence an intellectual decision by stirring up obscuring clouds of emotionalism.

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Video 1: The Death of Art vs the Art of Death

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

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Stupid Climate Activists Make Stupid Attacks on Art

Art world links which caught my eye…

An Ignorant Assault On Civilization

For some reason environmental cultists have decided art vandalism is a nifty PR stunt for their hoax of an emergency.

The Washington Post covered the most recent revolting action in London where two “activists” from Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup on a Van Gogh sunflowers painting, and then glued their hands to the wall.

The painting was safely behind glass, and was not damaged.

Newsweek notes there have been about dozen of these attacks. So far no art has been damaged, but it seems like only a matter of time before these assholes escalate and maim something irreplaceable.

Being the darkness that makes democracy die, the Washington Post of course accepts the protesters’ wild climate premises.

Since the pandemic failed to crush society into a decimated docile serf class, now the elites have had to replace one overblown crisis with another. They’re trotting out the exhausted old climate change tropes again, but this time the kamikaze Marxists occupying the governments of the West are flying into action. They intend to catastrophically starve their populations of food and energy now to prevent imaginary problems in the future.

Astroturfed entities like Just Stop Oil and state run media like the Washington Post are sleeper cells that have been activated to reinforce the top down message of assumed doom. The hype generated provides a fig leaf for the disastrous deindustrialization the WEF insists on.

Columnist Philip Kennicot spouts the propaganda:

“When I see activists attack art, I feel the same revulsion most people do — and the sense of revulsion seems to be general and widespread. After two young supporters of the climate-change advocacy group Just Stop Oil threw cans of tomato soup Friday on a painting by Van Gogh in London’s National Gallery, social media accounts erupted in outrage. Much of this was from people who are no less committed to stopping global warming, including much of the art world, where the climate emergency is at the top of the agenda for many artists, curators and critics.

“But while I can’t defend the acts of Just Stop Oil, I can defend the anger of its supporters, who will experience the effects of global collapse further into the future than I will. They must grapple with existential decisions unprecedented even during some of the worst crises in human history, including whether to have children and continue the species, or to forgo offspring whose lives may be short and miserable.”

Kennicott’s big problem with the assaults on artistic masterpieces is that the vandals are preaching to the choir. The Postmodern art world already enforces adherence to leftist dogma as a prerequisite for participation. He protests that establishment art enthusiasts and cultural institution apparatchiks most likely embrace the climate alarmist narrative, and don’t need their opinions and actions tweaked by threats.

“Art attacks seem to be increasing. In July, the Italian group Ultimate Generazione (or Last Generation) directed its ire against Botticelli’s “Primavera” at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and in August activists from the same group glued their hands to the base of an ancient statue at the Vatican. All this is misdirected and counterproductive. It makes the urgency of the crisis seem ridiculous to people who are already disinclined to give credence to the science of global warming. And they create a false moral choice for those who love both art and the environment.

“As 21-year-old Phoebe Plummer, one of the two activists in London, asked during Friday’s incident, ‘Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?’ The premise of her question, and the people whom she was addressing, are both poorly chosen. Very likely, given the self-selecting audience that visits the National Gallery, most of the onlookers would say: ‘Both.’

But the most disgusting part of the article is when Kennicott claims the defilers are attacking art because they just care about it so much. It’s classic abuser gaslighting.

“And if you look more closely at how these attacks are executed, it’s clear they express more a desperate love of art than mere rage or contempt for it.”

A twitter post summed up the reckless delusions of these masterpiece menacing guerillas.

The clueless crusaders don’t realize stopping oil without any effective, scalable replacement technologies means the death of millions and even civilization itself.

Radicals coined the term “useful idiots” to describe the dolts they tricked into advancing their agendas. I think we can remove the useful part.

pic.twitter.com/SbvTwJL9SL

— Rothmus 🏴 (@Rothmus) October 17, 2022

In my 2018 book Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, I foresaw what actions the left would take, and what the stakes were.

The Modern age was the greatest liberation of humanity in history. As we became more efficient in providing the necessities of existence, we had more freedom to determine what kind of lives we wanted to live.
As Modernism rose to highlight the potentials of individual initiative, leftist political movements counterattacked. Their goal was to squash humanity back into undifferentiated, subservient masses.
The elitists understood to maintain power, they had to undermine resistance. That’s why the top down cultural forces have made Postmodernism so prevalent.
Using mass media to communicate their sickening message, the establishment made dispiriting Postmodernism the terrain we all must navigate, the atmosphere we all must breathe, the environment we all must adapt to.
But this effort at control loses its presumptive prestige once its mechanics and motivations are exposed. How can the spell of Postmodernism best be broken?
You can’t beat something with nothing, even if the something is as stupid and unfulfilling as Postmodernism. A credible alternative must be established.
Remodernism is the recognition that Western civilization is still mighty. Remodernism knows we can still use our talents to create unprecedented growth. Remodernism is understanding our best days are still ahead of us, if we make the right choices, and do the needed work.
We will demonstrate this in art, to begin with. Imagine a new, decentralized creative class not invested in trashing our culture, but in celebrating it. What a choice to present to our citizens. Uplifting, honest artistry will change the tone of our entire society. Where we go one, we go all.
Renew the arts, and renew the civilization.

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

PROPAGANDA VERSUS ART

Spanish Bombs

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

It’s one of the best known paintings of the Modern era. Expatriate Spaniard Pablo Picasso created Guernica in response to an atrocity that occurred during the Spanish Civil War, an episode that was a harbinger of the ruthless slaughter of the Second World War. 

On April 26, 1937, the Condor Legion, a corps of German Luftwaffe pilots who had volunteered to assist the Nationalist forces fighting in Spain, launched a raid on the defenseless Basque city of Guernica.  Multiple waves of airplanes bombed and strafed the civilian population of the town. The total number of casualties is disputed, but hundreds were killed.

An early experiment in the terrorizing carpet bombing later refined by the Nazis, the Guernica bombing demonstrated the callous brutality and effectiveness of twentieth century warfare, and the willingness to reach beyond the conventional battlefield to strike at enemies. The world recoiled in horror, but even worse events were yet to come.

Picasso was moved by the tragic assault to make what is probably his most famous piece of art. The work is mural sized, eleven feet high and over twenty five feet long, rendered in somber grays and boney white suggestive of the starkness of photojournalism. Although its initial reception was somewhat mixed, in time Guernica has become accepted as a powerful statement against war. As such, it is often referenced by those who emphasize art as a political act.  This is an attitude very prevalent in establishment artists today.

Picasso was clear on his intentions about the painting as a statement, but what he put in the canvas is a different story. Is the impact Guernica has as art due to a political stance, or has it endured due to articulating more universal, human concerns?

What ideological side is there to be chosen amongst those tumbling ghosts and stricken animals? The power of the piece has nothing to do with a particular time or viewpoint. The details are an anachronistic mix, ranging from a sword to a lightbulb. The audience does not need to know anything about the Republic, the Condor Legion or white phosphorus to feel the horror.

We bring external knowledge to the piece, being aware of the circumstances of its creation. Apart from the title selected by the artist, there is nothing in that piece that makes it specifically about the bombing of a Spanish town or the power struggles of the 1930s. It tells a universal story of the tragic violence in life.

Don’t forget, our impressions of the Spanish Civil War, noble Republicans versus evil Nationalists, are largely a Marxist driven myth. Author George Orwell fought alongside the Communists there. What he learned from the tactics of his comrades informed his dystopian books Animal Farm and 1984; he saw their brutal totalitarian intentions in action.  Orwell’s works transcend politics to act as dire warnings about the consequences of man’s covetousness nature run amuck.

We think of the painting Guernica as a political piece not because of what we can actually see, but because of what we are told about it. We are expected to squint through filters of received knowledge and officially condoned attitudes to reach the Correct conclusions. As a result, it’s easy for the painting’s presence as art to be diminished into mere propaganda. 

There’s a lot of that going around these days.

As I state in my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

“There are important distinctions between art and propaganda. Although both are forms of visual communication, their aims are completely different. Great art explores the mysteries of human experience. Propaganda seeks to influence an intellectual decision by stirring up obscuring clouds of emotionalism.

“Strong art reaches universal, shared experience by honestly presenting the results of self-exploration. Propaganda seeks to substitute that universal appeal with the presentation of ideology it assumes to be commonly held by all right-thinking people.”

Propaganda is distortion, intended to drive the audience into a pre-determined conclusion. It is far removed from the mysterious communion genuine art provides.

Despite the popular pose struck by many contemporary artists, who fancy they are bold rebels making a stand against injustice, the ideas advocated by most of today’s political art are actually advancing the values of the doubling dealing so-called elites they pretend to criticize.

The contemporary art scene was weaponized by the Postmodern deconstruction of reality, where The Narrative and the will to power matters more than truth. There are no consequences for hypocrisy in the Postmodern mindset. Any actions are permissible to the select few, as long as the correct ideas are publicly endorsed.

Enduring changes start in the arts. The power of art to define our way of life, to show us how to be, has been tragically underestimated. The Postmodern corruption I first observed in 1980s art school has seeped out and tainted our entire society. Our cultural institutions no longer provide us knowledge, education, real news, or responsible governance. We are enmeshed in an entire ecosystem of lies, sustained by the media, the academy, Big Tech, sellout corporations, and traitorous politicians. The monopoly is enforced by censorship and retaliations. You would think by observing the actions of the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected, our Constitutional Republic is dead; all that remains is for them loot and oppress the rest of us into oblivion.

One of the ways to counter this ruthless assault is with art. Not the bait and switch artifice which the establishment has pulled, substituting leftist activism for creativity. There is no chance newly created real art will receive institutional support these days. Based on the art world news I follow, the Inner Party has decreed the mission is now supposedly countering racism through the flaunting of blatant and despicable racist behaviors and attitudes. All the museum, gallery and artist sheep are dutifully baaing along.  It’s all just another manipulative social engineering project, like everything the Cultural Marxists produce. This will do nothing but further alienate the people from the resources real art provides.

The elitist-driven degeneration of art into propaganda denies our society the inspiration to live up to ideals; the encouragement to think and feel deeply; the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. The establishment blocks real art from us because they know how weak we are without it.

We need art as the timeless experience which is as old as humanity itself.  For, as President John F Kennedy noted, “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”

Elitists went scorched earth against civilization in their pursuit of unaccountable power. Their attempt to replace all means of communication with propaganda is supposed to keep us from noticing. Our credentialed classes react to truth like a vampire does to a crucifix. So that is why it will be important going forward to independently cultivate art which fulfills the John Keats insight about the visual expression of Western philosophy: “”Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

There is a huge opportunity here. Establishment mismanagement has driven the arts out of relevance for the majority. But the human need for it persists, just like all our other instinctual appetites. Creatives can contribute to rallying the human spirit in resistance against the darkness being imposed on us from above. What a glorious way to out-evolve our stifling, would-be rulers.

The elites can’t stand beauty because it shows their ugliness. They can’t stand truth because it exposes their lies. They can’t stand individual expression because it’s outside of their control. They can’t stand talent honed into skillful expression through dedication, because it reveals their own mediocrity, incompetence and laziness. They can’t stand art because it demonstrates the human spirit as created in God’s image, as creators articulating divine order.

The elites can’t beat real art, only suppress it. Let’s make it impossible for their propaganda to gain any traction by presenting a powerful alternative.

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

Visit other posts for more commentary on the state of the arts.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

Update: Welcome Instapundit Readers! Enduring changes start in the arts. Renew the arts, and renew the civilization.

INTERVIEW: Chris Muir’s Shadowbanned Webcomic “Day By Day” Illustrates Free Speech

DAY BY DAY Brings the Pain to Elitist Culture

Winston Churchill’s masterful summary of the totalitarian blockade around captive cultures as an Iron Curtain has received a Twenty-first century revision.

Thanks to Big Tech, the repressive dynamic being enforced now is a Silicon Curtain. It’s no longer limited to Eastern Europe. We have a worldwide will to power attempting to throttle the greatest source of information and communication in history: the internet. Early innovators grew into citadels of monopoly. Being smart with computers gave these would-be overlords conceits of their own omnipotence. Look at that nasty Bill Gates, eager to inject the world’s population with his own special blend of God knows what, in a response to a manufactured Scamdemic he sure seemed to be planning for. With a creepy scheme like that, Gates is one volcano headquarters away from being a James Bond villain-and who knows? He may have one already.

Big Tech has partnered with authoritarian regimes to beta test techniques of tyranny they have every intent of inflicting upon us all. Have no trust in these trusts, which are sorely in need of busting.

But in the meantime, freedom still manages to break through the controls. Officially condemned Wrongthink can still be found online, if you know where to look. That’s why I was so glad to rediscover Day by Day, a daily political webcomic by Chris Muir.

I used to follow Day by Day in my early days of internet political obsessing in the early 2000s. It was the glory days of the Blogosphere, before so much of online engagement was squashed into filtered social media silos. The strip was featured on various sites I compulsively visited. DBD’s combination of sharp, insightful commentary and expressive drawing was very compelling.

Day by Day in 2008

Through the years, as my browsing habits changed, I lost touch with comic. But when I recently rediscovered it, I observed it had undergone an upgrade. The Alinsky-style weapons of satire and sarcasm directed at leftist tropes was as powerful as ever, but the art was richer, more elaborate.

Muir has great skill at figurative work, especially when depicting lovely ladies. As Muir’s dialogues are often set in intimate domestic situations, he frequently draws his characters nude. Any criticism directed at him for celebrating the female form, coming from cultural thought leaders who promote Cardi B, is rank hypocrisy. To me, Muir’s frank depictions prove his commitment to honestly sharing his free expressions. The salty politics are leavened with some sweet beauty.

Day by Day Bares Arms and More 

Chris Muir is participating in Remodernism, the spirit of liberty which is persisting around the globe, despite the Postmodern establishment’s best efforts to smother it.  As I state in my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

“Remodernism acknowledges artists as individuals responsible for their own actions. Artists have the duty to honestly express the spirit of the age filtered through their unique perspective and skills. Remodern artists use their art to show the enduring triumph of the human spirit over any negative circumstances.

“We must overcome the Postmodern efforts to censor and subvert the culture by suppressing free expression. We don’t need anyone’s approval or permission to create.”

I recently conducted an email interview with Chris Muir, discussing the past, present and future of his creative endeavors.

Question: How did you begin Day by Day? How is it going currently?

Chris Muir: In 1996, I became frustrated at the bias I saw in media-all media. I always had a thing for American history, and to see how warped the presentation of it was in ‘News’ and comics-like Doonesbury and many other syndicated toons-I thought ‘I can do better than this’, and set out to do so. I did practice toons from 1996 to 2002 (unreleased) to see if I could do this as a night job (my day job for 30 years was as an Industrial Design consultant). I also did a single panel/day non-political strip for FL Today called ‘Altered States’ as additional practice to ensure I could meet a daily deadline.

Q: Your draftsmanship is part of what keeps Day by Day so interesting. What’s your artistic background?

CM: I’m self taught, much practice at Photoshop and Illustrator inasmuch as I did renderings of designs for various clients over the years-boats, electronic products, etc. This set me up well for the inevitable time when comics would be all digital.

I was one of the first to do an all digital comic strip, and being versed in Production techniques, I was able to do it all with one person-me! Today there are hundreds of cartoonists and artists who are all digital (Like Deviant Art), though I chose this method primarily because my day job took 80% of my time, and I had to be fast and accurate, as daily strips must be daily without fail. One has to get on readers’ short list of daily reads, especially now (unlike back in 2002 when I launched) because of thousands of content choices. One must become a habit for that reader(s) for they are your income(and shared values).

Q: Were there any notable influences on your art or content?

CM: Richard Corben, Vargas, Milton Caniff, Dean Yeagle, Wallace Wood, Gil Evgren, Bruce Timm.

Q; What’s been your most controversial strip?

CM: I had Hillary in blackface, pandering to the black vote, back in 2003? That was notable back then, but in today’s political climate, Americans don’t debate much with the Left as they have truly gone off the reservation.

Q: When did the censorship begin? Were you surprised, or did you see it coming? How have you been censored?

CM: First Facebook, then Google, around…10 years ago, I think. I was not surprised, saw that coming from the start, having gone through the Cold War with the Left’s Idol, the USSR. I would guess I have been shadow banned to some extent, but inasmuch as I have always decided to be direct to readers, it doesn’t affect me that much. I was lucky to have been a slightly large frog in the Blogosphere Pond when it bloomed, and that set the readership pretty much from there.

Q: What’s your new project?

CM: A SciFi project based on today’s Red vs Blue conflict but set on a different world. www.HolyTera.com should be up November-December this year.

Q: What appeals to you about the science fiction genre?

CM: I suppose the invention of Worlds, what might be, and especially Men and Women-not Xis or Zirs- in such settings.

Q: What do you want your fans to take away from your comics?

CM: A desire to fund me! Well, mostly I aim to be a 15 second read on the day’s political/cultural/MenWomen news in comic format. In today’s attention span deficit era-and I include myself on this-it is a powerful way to entertain and inform in a multiverse of endless online content. So, readers get a summary, in a fun form, of what’s going on.

Q: In this technologically advanced but fragmented age, what future do you see for comics?

CM: A good one, actually-there’s never been a better time for any content provider or artist, as the ‘net delivers for free to unlimited readers-no gateway, editor, middleman, or social justice idiots to drag one back down into the crab bucket. But I would suggest whatever you do, make it constant, for once you lose a reader, you are lost to them in the noise of Many Choices!

Q: How can people find your works?

www.daybydaycartoon.com , www.holytera.com  – or just Google my name! I still seem to be on the first page of results.

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART 

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts.

George W. Bush’s New Immigrant Paintings Show His True Colors

 

“There’s Always Something I Could Do To Improve…” 

George W Bush Paints

 

2020 is an appropriate year to indulge in hindsight. I must admit now, when looking back, I got played.

I profoundly misunderestimated the true intentions and agenda of a man I once respected. I suspect I was not alone in buying into the delusion. We all can’t blame ourselves too much for being fooled. We were up against a massive psyop of enormous subtlety and resources, and the alternatives we had presented at the time were outright monstrous.

No, the only way we could be at fault would be to deny the reality of what we underwent, now that it’s been revealed.

I now thoroughly distrust George W. Bush. Not for the same reasons that the deranged Leftists who loved to hate him during his presidency did. They were fooled too. They shouldn’t have been melting down over this guy, they should have been celebrating him.

I distrust W because, in many important ways, he advanced Anti-American globalist interests, carrying on his father’s work. In this, Bush was on the same side as the Leftists all along.

W was taking an active part in the same Postmodern schemes that have brought Western Civilization to the brink of collapse. Bush was both controlled and colluding “opposition,” enabling the illusion of choice in the direction of our Republic. He invoked the authentic goodness and power of the USA, and used that as cover while he and all his Uniparty political cronies continued to arrange for our destruction.

It’s hard to reconcile this with my long term impressions of George W Bush, of a flawed but ultimately decent man in a very difficult role. I believed he loved America. Could he really be that good of an actor? Or has he just been able to persuade himself of the inevitability of the totalitarian cabal’s domination, and he was trying to manage our decline as gently as possible?

As we continue to undergo the illuminating unmaskings of the Trump era, Bush has exposed himself. The motivations of all his actions and inactions, his talking points and silences, all need to be examined in a new light. We see what he is willing to do, and who he is really aligned with.

 

It’s a Big Club, and We Ain’t In It 

Now, in another sad move, George W Bush is taking his sincerely felt art, and applying it as a backhanded propaganda ploy.

I’d written before on Bush’s paintings of veterans he’s come to know. In his interviews regarding the book, Bush described his authentic engagement with painting, speaking a language that I recognized through my own experiences as an intuitive painter:

“The thing about painting is you never finish a painting. I mean, there’s always something, at least in my case, there’s always something I could do to improve, and so at some point in time, you had to have the discipline to say I’m moving onto another portrait.”

“…I don’t think the quest to develop a style that you can express yourself as fully as you want ever ends.”

Bush has a new book coming out now. Given the moment we find ourselves in, I believe this offering does capture Bush’s true style: Take something positive, and give the appearance of revering it, while simultaneously delivering a Deep State Parseltongue-bath twist which taints the whole enterprise.

Bush’s latest book is Out of Many, One. He evokes the motto of the United States to present 43 portraits of immigrants. So far so good. The melting pot was the traditional American immigrant experience. These immigrants loved the idea of freedom so much, they worked hard on a difficult process to come to our nation of laws. They left their old lives behind to start again, taking on all the risks and benefits of liberty; it is the essence of the American dream. Those are exactly the kind of people we should be welcome here.

As I state in my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

We are the only country ever founded on the idea that the people tell the government what to do, and not the other way around. We are the only country that acknowledges our rights and equality come from God, and are not granted to us by any earthly authority.

American is not a race, or an ethnicity, or a class. American is a set of principles, and appreciation for the opportunities those principles provide. That’s why the United States was called a melting pot for so long: despite all of our varied origins and circumstances, America gives a fresh start. We were forming a new civilization together, making many into a new dynamic Unum, the likes of which the world had never seen.

The world didn’t like this.

But Out of Many, One, being by George W Bush, we have to scrape off the appearances and get to the implied implications. After all, W’s beholden to that world that hates the USA so much, and he’s doing his part against us.

Our Postmodern administrative class fractured the Melting Pot long ago. Arrivals are no longer encouraged to unify as part of our great national efforts. Now they are encouraged to hyphenate and separate, and above all, to despise the very land which has offered its hospitality. Look no further than the growing Mogadishu in Minneapolis for the results of those efforts. You can take the war lords out of the ruins, but you can’t take the ruin out of the war lords.

Another pose struck here is the relentless conflation of immigration with illegal invasion. “Act of love,” droned the feckless Bush brother Jeb! Wrong. Illegal immigrants by definition have blown their side of the deal right off the bat, by disregarding the same system of laws that made our country thrive. You can’t cheat your way into being an American. Yet the elites lump the criminals in with the promising citizens, and accuse anyone who knows the difference of being a racist.

This, of course, segues right in the real point of George Bush’s book: Orangemanbad, and you’re bad too, if you support him. End of story.

Sorry George W Bush, I’m not buying your propaganda any more. I’m sorry that I now have to look at your paintings knowing what you’ve done, and why.

I’m much more interested in another tale: just what was in that envelope you received in the National Cathedral?

 

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts. 

Countering a Culture Programmed by Traitorous Hacks

On the Turning Away

Richard Bledsoe “Fugue” acrylic on canvas 20″ x 16″ 

 

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.”

-George Orwell, 1984

art

That quote, and many others from the same seminal work, are frequently cited on the internet these days. Orwell’s prophetic concepts are being enacted in real time right now, all around us. It’s frustrating because it’s all so contrived, and choreographed; nevertheless, actual damage is being done.

But the great unmaking is not a new phenomenon. The long-planned destruction of Western Civilization has been going on for decades, hidden in plain sight. The corrosion was gradually implemented by the imitation of improvements, so-called updates and upgrades enacted under the camouflage of compassion, done in the sacred name of “progress.”

Across our nation, the sleeper cells have been activated. The Democrat Party is openly fomenting crime and treason. The Republican shtick of acting like feckless nincompoops has been exposed as just another aspect of the racketeering. The GOPe isn’t really the Stupid Party; they are in on the plot, and are knowingly betraying us.

What the last few months have proven is that the elites intend to progress us right back into feudalism. The portion of the general population allowed to survive will be the cowering serfs under the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected.

Who gets to be part of these new overlords? To be part of the ruling establishment, you don’t need to actually be competent, or effective, or creative; you just need to conform to the dogmas, assertively and ostentatiously. That’s where their conceits begin to break down.

Postmodernism is the default globalist position. This rancid philosophical disguise for Marxism denies truth, dismantles rationality, and seeks to create unaccountable power for its acolytes. Virtue signaling and parroting work great for navigating the intricacies of the Postmodern hierarchies. However, outside their invented ecosystem, reality is a ruthless judge of the results the drones of the hive mind produce.

The undermining of our heritage, growth, and potentials didn’t start with the toppling of statues. In my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, I discussed how the establishment drained the vitality out of the culture, to preserve their own privileged status:

Postmodernists often raid from the past and the efforts of actual craftsmen in order to cobble together their disjointed offerings. The elitists presumed an aristocratic privilege to loot and pillage. They justified the misuse by asserting they were doing it ironically, which leads to questioning, and just what is art anyway, blah blah blah.

But now a more insidious tactic has taken form. The Postmodernists want to keep us frozen in this cultural moment, where they call the shots. This involves stifling new developments. They are still stealing like crazy, but are fencing their booty in such a way they are pushing sentimental buttons, not ironic ones. It’s a warmer, cuddlier version of the con.

The clearest cultural examples of this can be seen coming out of Hollywood. The film industry has been devoured by remakes, reimaginings, sequels, prequels, and self-referential “universe” combines. We’ve even had to invent a new term for awkward hybrids of remake and sequel: the requel.

Instead of displaying actual creativity, movies are just hoping to remind the audience of something that was once creative. The 2015 production Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a prime example. I’ve already discussed how George Lucas exposed himself as a haughty Postmodern technocrat in the terrible prequels he released. Those pictures might have made big box office coasting on the reputation of the original Star Wars trilogy, but the money-men were alarmed by the poor quality of the product. The studios don’t really care about quality, but they needed to keep the brand name viable, and they didn’t trust the mind that brought us Jar Jar Binks. To save the franchise, Star Wars was purchased from Lucas and farmed out to hired studio hands.

I enjoyed The Force Awakens as a superficial popcorn movie. But I noticed it was constructed out of self-conscious references and obvious rehashes of elements from the original Star Wars. It was like a washed up band with a couple of its elderly members still on board, playing alongside politically correct diversity hires. They trotted out the golden oldies from decades before. Hey, remember this one— Luke’s Jedi training drone? And so on and so on.

The film and its subsequent followups are full of shout outs like that. It is distracting to keep seeing oblique references to earlier, better movies. Not only that, but these updated versions ruin the legacy of the classic previous films with the addition of nasty, muddled Postmodern philosophizing. These artless attempts to reprogram the archetypes are off-putting, and add another layer of disgraceful failure to the projects.

(Note that I wrote this before the franchise killer The Last Jedi shat upon us all. I won’t be watching The Rise of Skywalker, because it’s pointless at this point. )

Ah, those were the good old days, when the elites were still feeding us soma to keep us passive and distracted. No more lulling for us. Now we are getting the boot to the face, good and hard.  The intimidation, destruction and violence were lurking behind the pleasure dome ambiance all along. It’s the Leftist way.

As our current establishment is seemingly committed to descending from cultural stagnation into outright collapse, what can be done?

Enduring changes start in the arts, because real art gives tangible form to ideas. Art translates concepts into action and influence.

I will continue to use the liberty I have to express my visions. I will encourage art that understands life is a beautiful gift, full of both individual and shared significance.

I’m finding inspiration from outside of the arts, and looking to transmute convictions into communications. For years I’ve been following the persecution prosecution of General Michael Flynn.  To me, this man is potentially the linchpin for undoing the globalist scheme. The Deep State puppet judge is still stalling, but it seems like the conclusion of Flynn’s show trial may be coming.

This impression was reinforced when Flynn recently released a remarkable editorial, “If We Don’t Act, 2% of the People Are About To Control the Other 98%.” In it, Flynn offers encouragement:

Don’t fret. Through smart, positive actions of resolute citizen-patriots, we can prevail. Always keep in mind that our enemy (these dark forces) invariably have difficulties of which we are ignorant.

For most Americans, these forces appear to be strong. I sense they are desperate. I also sense that only a slight push on our part is all that is required to defeat these forces. How should that push come?

Flynn goes on to recommend prayer and support for our beleaguered law enforcement, vital advice. But even more so, he calls on all lovers of freedom to take action. Now. While we still can.

I’m a painter, not a pastor, policeman or a politician. But I get the message. I can do my part of making that slight push, through art. To provide an alternative to the institutional dreck being forced on us. Break the monopoly, and break this evil spell.

I became involved with the international arts movement Remodernism over 10 years ago. Finally I saw people speaking out against Postmodern decay, and providing an alternative.

It was so much more fun to counter the silliness, when the art market was presenting obscenely priced obscenities and folly. Now the art world, like every other aspect of life under our credentialed-but-ignorant elites, is merely another part of the totalitarian combine. Grim and incompetent leftwing propaganda has assimilated the art world.

Our current cultural institutions are run by toadies and apparatchiks, not creatives. They can’t compete in an open exchange of artistic efforts and ideas, because all their training and inclinations consist of spreading ideology, not art. And let me tell you, despite the irrelevance which elitist malfeasance has forced onto art, it remains a potent force of humanity, currently being underutilized.

Real art provides society the inspiration to live up to ideals, the encouragement to think and feel deeply, the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. Real art can tear the wheels off the dehumanizing, corrupt juggernaut that was stealthily constructed to crush us all.

The unexpected tenacity of American citizens has rattled the insiders. They’ve had to make their move too soon, before their battlefield was fully operational. Exposed, they are weakened.

As I share in Remodern America:

We need an art for this era, and we won’t get that by mimicking the outer appearances of works from long ago. Remodernism does not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We do our own work.

As Modernism showed us, genuine art both reflects and shapes the time of its creation. Remodernism is about capturing the spirit of this age in personalized expressions. The Postmodern institutions are working hard to suppress this cultural evolution. They are desperate to maintain their social monopoly, and the stakes are even higher than the art world. The longstanding globalist plot is in real jeopardy.

 

Renew the arts, and renew the civilization. Where we go one, we go all. Envision the opportunities of a Remodern America, represented by art of the people, by the people, and for the people.

 

*************

I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts. 

The Postmodern War on America

Is It Really Better to Rule in Hell? 

Richard Bledsoe “Tank” oil on wood panel 30″ x 36″ 

When I was a teen I read some of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books. The last book of the series Fleming created, not really completed at the time of his death in 1964, was The Man with the Golden Gun. Considered a weak finale for the legendary spy, the plot had Agent 007 travelling to Jamaica to disrupt an attempted alliance between the Mafia and the expansionist forces of international Communism.

Bond missed the real target here. He should have gone to Chicago.

The crime syndicate dominated Windy City was fertile ground for the plot of world conquest. The Mob was already in the business of brutality, deception, and despotism, the same means Leftists use to achieve their goals. It was a natural partnership. Through the bait and switch tactics of “community organizing,” Frankfurt School corruption of education, and the nurturing of toxic radicals like Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, and Barack Obama, the Illinois spawned alliance of Marxist Crime has now long marched its way into being the political system of Globalism.

It’s not called what it is, of course. Leftists lie and distort; it’s necessary to hide their evil intentions. We’ve come to call this mass cultural subversion Postmodernism. And what we’ve been going through in 2020 is the push to bring Postmodernism to its final solution: the destruction of Western Civilization. Postmodern partisans seek to switch off the Enlightenment, in order to rule over a new Dark Age.

When I started writing this piece just a few short weeks ago, I had plenty to say about how the wacky woo hoo virus hysteria exposed massive corruption and Chinese influence in our traitorous elitists. Arbitrary and needless shutdowns devoured American prosperity, coincidentally right when a new trade agreement undercut Chinese market manipulations, and a tectonic scale spy scandal started emerging regarding the Obama administration and all their cronies.

China’s rigid totalitarian system is the desired outcome of the majority of the world’s administrative classes. They won’t admit this, but look at their actions, instead of listening to their empty words.

Events overtook the essay I was preparing. So now we have divisive race riots being inflamed, on top of the Overblown Outbreak. This is just a continuation of the same war, a new battlefield of the thoroughly planned and prepared Postmodern assault on the United States. It’s being facilitated across our culture by a massive betrayal by the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected, our own countrymen. As they’ve demanded society mask up to pretend to prevent disease, and to facilitate looting, our betters have been unmasked as the deeply embedded enemies within.

This is Postmodern War for the 21st century. It’s not fought openly with bombs and soldiers. It’s combat waged by other means, with biological agents, economics, propaganda, data manipulation, sabotage. President John F. Kennedy warned what was coming in a 1961 speech:

“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence — on infiltration instead of invasion — on subversion instead of elections — on intimidation instead of free choice — on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.

“It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly-knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed”.

Speaking out on these schemes is probably what got JFK killed. The plans continued to advance in all the decades since. We are living through the harvest of the wind which was sown.

How to describe the present moment? Some say it’s a civil war. This time instead of being divided along roughly geographic lines, we are in opposed camps of status: The rich and gentry class have been co-opted into being the enemies of liberty and order. They are all-too-willing accomplices for authoritarianism, as they have been indoctrinated into the Postmodern philosophy for generations now.  Conformity is mandatory for advancement in society; elitists don’t mind though, because in the looming tyranny, they assume they will get to be the tyrants.

We can plainly see the strategy of the Postmodern establishment. In areas under blue dominion, the governing class has ruthlessly oppressed normality, while at the same time stepping back from their duty to prevent chaos and crime, actively encouraging destruction. The goal of these domestic enemy combatants seems to be to collapse stability in the areas they control, and drag the entire country down with them.

Others talk about China’s Cultural Revolution. The dynamics are sure the same, with vicious mobs of no-nothings incited into targeting opponents of the Cause. The moral panics being whipped up let the current stealthy controllers remain discretely in control.

We have something though that the poor oppressed Chinese populace did not have: a choice. We have a clear alternative to the Leftist monolith which has been so carefully constructed for a century or more. An enduring American Nationalism exists, despite all the media, government, academic, and corporate efforts to deny or suppress it.

A new energy has been rising around the world, and the United States is a natural environment for it’s expression. Remodernism is taking the place of failing Postmodernism. Because Postmodernists are losing. They never intended to have to come out into the open like this, and make a stand for their lack of any principles apart from their own lust for power. It’s ugly right now, because they are like wounded beasts, dragged from their safe spaces, the plan for gradual covert conquest thwarted. Exposed, they know they can be smashed.

I knew there would be troubles ahead when I wrote my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization. Little did I know though what forms the transition would take. I wrote:

Instead of the Postmodern takeover of the institutions leading to the conversion of the population, we’ve wound up with an establishment fundamentally at odds with the greater populace.  In America the citizens are the real leaders. We are not willing to surrender our birthright of freedom. The current crop of elitist manager-types need to be reminded of this.

Us against them was not the traditional way in the USA. However, recognizing we are now at war with an infection that will kill the host if not extinguished, it’s going to have to be that way for a while.

It will not be easy. Our country’s domestic enemies implemented their schemes virtually unopposed. Now, after decades of absorbing slow but steady sabotage, the sleeping giant America is stirring.

Remodernism is the wake-up call.

Some call what we are experiencing a Cold Civil War. Let us pray it remains cool. Parasitic Postmodernism will be destroyed, but it will not go quietly. I look to President Abraham Lincoln as an example for the Remodern Reconstruction to come.

Our first Civil War took place in the 1860s, when Democrats resorted to rebellion and violence in an attempt to maintain their political power. It’s estimated over 600,000 died to resolve that conflict.

Once the Union was victorious, Lincoln planned to bring former adversaries back together into a unified national identity. Sadly, he was murdered before he could implement his vision, and the defeated Democrats kept their radical racial injustice in place for another 100 years. They are still playing that race card; it’s an easy tool to use to divide and conquer.

America does not need to waste another century like this. We must heed the better angels of our nature.

The course of a civilization follows where its art leads it. Before the Marxists started working their sorcery on society as a whole, they corrupted the arts first. The coming Remodern renewal first started in the arts as well, in England in 1999.

It may seem art is minor compared to the turmoil of current events. That is only because the true power of art has been stolen from our culture. Art is a mighty weapon that the Leftists made sure they took over before they launched their war. We can take it back, and we have already begun.

Renew the arts, and renew the civilization.

*************

I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts. 

 

This Plague Psychodrama is Peak Postmodernism. Its Retreat Will Lead to Remodern Renewal.

Surviving Beyond Our Time Inside the Beast

“In the Belly” Richard Bledsoe acrylic on canvas 30″ x 40″

art

A virus is ravaging the world. I don’t mean the one hyped in every headline, referred to by whichever accountability-dodging misnomer  we’re supposed to call it this week. That affliction is the ultimate in Chinese take out-as in take out global stability and prosperity.

This other virus is one that sickens the soul. It’s been a raging pandemic for at least 50 years. The institutions we once relied on for societal preservation and advancement were converted into hosts for this ailment long ago, and spread its maladies amongst us all. It also was created by Communists. The disease is Postmodernism, and the current assaults on civilization being done in the name of safety has exposed the festering disorder that is the Postmodern ethos.

A core Postmodern idea is that language shapes reality, and by controlling language the ruling establishment can reshape the universe. This hubris has brought us all to catastrophe.

Postmodernism is the operational system of global elitists. Following the precepts of Postmodernism acts as a surrogate for competence and accomplishment for the New Aristocracy of the Well Connected.  It’s a structure designed not for efficiency, but to filter out any threats to the entitlements of the current governing class.

The establishment status quo had been under assault like never before. I will even go so far to say they were losing. Populist uprisings around the world were gaining traction. We were questioning why such incompetent, selfish hypocrites were in charge, demanding respect they never earned, producing terrible results over and over again.

The Postmodern elites had no valid answer. It was all starting to slip away from them. So they went kamikaze. They determined it was better for them to crash civilization rather than lose the power and prestige they’d seized in the corrupt Postmodern hierarchy. They took advantage of a virus which was potentially a little more dangerous than the usual flu (unleashed on purpose or on accident, who can say?), and created the mother of all false flag operations, the Woo Hoo Floo Hysteria.

In my 2018 book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, I identified 5 factors of how Postmodernism enslaves humans, in their physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and essential capacities. The list I have there is easily adopted to the PSYOP we are living through.

Understanding the Corona Virus Response Through the 5 Factors of Postmodernism 

1. The Physical: The Embezzled Object

Postmodernism doesn’t create, it steals. It doesn’t encourage growth, it stifles and limits. The Hysteria stole the idea of quarantine (physically isolating the sick) and perverted it to mean locking up everyone. We are all expected to cower in our safe spaces, and let the world rot.

2. The Intellectual: Revolting Relativism

Postmodernists understand objective standards are an obstacle to their desire for unaccountable power. They believe there is no such thing as truth, just whatever it takes at that moment to get their way. So through the Hysteria we’ve been constantly lied to, by the government, the media, academia. A disease that is only a real threat to the elderly or already ill has been recast as an extinction level event.

We are supposed to overlook that the casualty numbers are being inflated by those who may have the virus, but died from other grave preexisting conditions. We are not supposed to understand the sadly high death counts were boosted by Democrat governors ordering sick people into the vulnerable populations of nursing homes, and banning potentially helpful drugs. Still, as facts disprove the wild claims, the Postmodern managerial class just change the subject and move the goalposts, never acknowledging how incredibly wrong they’ve been every step of the way.

3. The Emotional: Unscrupulous Affectation

We are all supposed to act like we are living through a combination of The Stand and the zombie apocalypse. And yet, even though your local businesses are shut down, churches are shuttered in violation of our constitutional rights, and restaurant closures are wrecking the food supply chains, it’s just dandy to go to Walmart and Home Depot. The cognitive dissonance, it burns.

4. The Spiritual: Craven Conformity

It’s become easy to see who’s eager to signal their virtue of following the destructive, fraudulent Postmodern World Order; it’s those useless face masks. There’s some extra cringe on both ends of the spectrum: those who wear them, but crumpled up under their noses or chins, or the dumb asses I see driving by, alone in their cars, face masks in place. The face mask is the 2020 version of the pussy hat, and makes just about as much sense.

5. The Essence: Power

This is what it’s all about, in the end. The power of the establishment to be arbitrary. Vindictive. Asinine. They will force you to submit, and they will punish you for daring to live your life apart from their micromanaging dominance.

ART

Ironically, the Postmodern shutdown could to lead to a great reopening-a new way of life freed from the clutches of the controlling technocrats who’ve ruled us. It’s been my prediction for a long time, although I never would have guessed it would have taken this form.

I’m just a guy who likes to make art. I wanted to share my ideas about art and and how it relates to life, so I started a blog, and wrote a book. The vital human experience of art is beyond anything as tainted as politics. But because of the Postmodern corruption that holds sway over us all, I must communicate on that ideological level, as a citizen. These days, my art could be considered political by not being political.

But art showed me what was coming. It’s like Andrew Breitbart said: “”Politics is downstream from culture.” He was reiterating the wisdom of the 18th century visionary artist William Blake: “Empire follows art, and not vice versa…”

Remodernism is a governing philosophy rising to take the place of the dying dinosaur Postmodernism. These vicious death throes of Postmodernism happening now are only delaying its inevitable collapse.

Remodernism was first codified in 2000 by two English artists, Billy Childish and Charles Thomson. Even though it addresses art, it applies to the cultural zeitgeist as a whole, worldwide. Its time has come. As I state in my book, Remodern America:

 

Billy Childish and Charles Thomson called Remodernism a mandate for a spiritual renaissance in the arts. The manifestation of this renewal is connectivity: using art as a means of connecting with ourselves, each other, and the divine, in a meaningful way. Far from the fragmentation of the Modernists, and the divisiveness of the Postmodernists, Remodernism is the pursuit of unity.

Kinship usually means family connections. Remodernism knows what real religions know: all people are family, and every individual is equally worthy of caring and respect. Like a family, we each have our own interests and talents. Remodernist artists see creative expression as their way to know themselves, to bond with others, and to learn more about life…

The spirit of kinship inspires concern for the well-being of others. Being drawn outside the limitations of our own self-interest allows us to operate in the most effective state anyone can achieve: love…

It’s a mistake to think of love as an emotion. Even though it stirs our deepest feelings, love is more than those feelings. Love is the principle that guides existence. It’s behaving with wisdom. Love instructs that life is a gift and we are all one, so we need to act accordingly.

Modernists were so fixated on what was changing they forgot about what endures. The Postmodernists were too selfish to respond to the promptings of love. This willful lack of love undermined Western civilization, but the lack of love is also what doomed those efforts to redefine humanity. Without the foundation of love, all other factors collapse.

Remodernism invests love back into the culture. Not the phony leftist hippie sloganeering about love that the Baby Boom generation indulged in, but the genuine article. Remodernism sees art as a conduit for shareable moments of beauty, enjoyment, comprehension, and truth. Assembling these elements together approaches a state of grace, which is the ultimate expression of the love bestowed on us by our Creator. We are called to follow His example.

The grace of love is that timeless, indescribable element found in all great artworks, from across all times and all cultures. That element still is accessible today, despite the failure of the establishment art world to provide it.

Graceful love, so long neglected by our arts institutions, is what gives Remodern art the power to bring everyone together. The engagement, curiosity, enthusiasm and kinship Remodernism delivers all originate in love. With this love, Remodernism makes art into an integrated, holistic experience again.

Remodernism is accessible to anyone who aspires to use art to inspire. It even extends to the deluded Postmodernist fools who sought to control us. They need to rejoin with humanity, and to learn their rightful place: standing along with the rest of us, side by side. Love is forgiving.

Remodernism resolves the confusions and heals the breaches imposed on society during Modernism and Postmodernism. It is the triumphant renewal of Western values. After years of destruction, the reconstruction will take extensive efforts, but it will be spectacular.

 

*************

I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

UPDATE:  Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts. 

Viral Hysteria Exposes how Postmodernism has Trained Us to Tolerate Tyranny

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What Exactly Are We Being Collected Into?

Richard Bledsoe “The Collective” acrylic on canvas 30″ x 30″ 

I’m grateful to Jordan Peterson. He’s raised awareness of the real viral infection which is destroying civilization: Postmodernism.

In a way I was fortunate to be in art school in the early 1990s. Enduring changes start in the arts, and college art programs of the time were among the academic breeding grounds for this toxic ethos. I was exposed to Postmodernism by name, and experienced firsthand all its contradictions, absurdities, and abuses, played out in the form of art. Little did I understand at the time what made for some really bad and ridiculous art would come to be the organizing ideology for the globalist New World Order.

Not Sensational: Postmodern Art from the 1990s

art

I’ve written before on how elitists push this ideology because it makes an effective tool of oppression. To be Postmodern is to be relativistic, cynical, narcissistic, and conformist. We see the results of decades of Postmodern indoctrination in a sizable part of the population, who are swallowing without question the wildly inflated and inaccurate models and expectations pushed by the Postmodern apparatchiks embedded in our government, media, corporate and academic institutions,

As I watch some of my fellow citizens wandering about, the latest designer masks bunched up under their noses, valiantly trying to virtue signal they are down with the latest versions of the continually shifting diktats being hurled at us, I worry about another disease: a sickness of the soul. There’s a lot of that going around these days, thanks to the effective elitist  PSYOPs that saturate our society.

In my book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization, I analyze how Postmodernism corrupts:

The Spiritual: Craven Conformity

 “So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”

—Kurt Vonnegut, American Writer (1922-2007)

 Postmodernists are parasitic. They are so other-directed, they can’t lead an independent existence.

Postmodernists rely on a mob mentality to support and reinforce their irrational ideas and behaviors. As their intellects cling to group identification instead of independent thought, and their stunted emotions merely mirror groupthink expectations, Postmodernists are primed to sell their souls to fit in. They deny there is any such thing as a soul anyway, so it’s easy to give it up.

The price doesn’t even need to be high. Postmodernism is a poverty-stricken ideology, so its practitioners have meager expectations. Most will never live the jet-setting lifestyle of their globalist masters. These influencers don’t have to operate within the perimeters they inflict on others. Postmodernists strive for the opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of their controllers.

As Postmodernists are in thrall to the limiting collectivist fantasies of Marxism, it makes them anxious followers. They want to be in with the in-crowd, part of what they are assured is the inevitable winning side of history. It is the dream of every progressive to join the most favored status clique, where their ilk gets to call the shots. This conceit plays into the leftist assumption that in the utopia to come, some animals will be more equal than others, as Orwell predicted. They acknowledge no God that created all men equal.

Leftwing rhetoric of fairness for all is just hype designed to deceive. Once triumphant, the radicals will punish their enemies and reward their friends, just like Postmodernist President Barack Obama urged them to do. Postmodern minions want to make sure they are in good with these brutal inquisitors. Postmodernists will commit acts of senselessness and violence when top-down social pressure is applied.

The Postmodernists have stolen the forms of religion to serve their aims. Original sin is now race, or carbon footprints. Indulgences can be purchased by reciting the catechisms of social justice. To prove loyalty to the cause, the SJWs eagerly throw blasphemers into the fire. Since they don’t know history, Postmodernists don’t see the predictable Marxist pattern that today’s obedient flock will be tomorrow’s barbeque.

The spiritual life of Postmodernism has been misdirected from transcendental and enduring values to ponderous politics. Nothing is sacred. There is no sense of continuity; only the needs of the moment matter. Where there should be a human spirit engaged with the eternal choice between good and evil, Postmodernists substitute slavish devotion to those who reduce morality to dominance.

Some new sins have been added to Progressive dogma. Apparently not wanting to destroy our prosperity based on calculated lies is a bad thing. Also, not cooperating with the new totalitarian overlords that are popping up all around us is very bad manners. But what I see here isn’t a final consolidation of their power. What I see is a desperate kamikaze style assault on a culture which is rejecting them.

There won’t be a “new normal,” at least not on the terms demanded by our New Aristocracy of the Well Connected. There will be “normal,” enhanced by the knowledge that all those who claimed to be our betters, aren’t. They’ve tried to camouflage their greed and incompetence with a deceptive mentality dedicated to destruction rather than creation.

Postmodernism is beyond dead. The woo hoo floo exposes Postmodern rigor mortis; all it can do is restrict and decay. But we who live will grow beyond the reach of this expired ethos. The Remodern Era has already begun.

 

***********

I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!

 

Update: Welcome Instapundit readers! Please visit other articles for more commentary on the state of the arts. 

After the Hysteria Dies, What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Bethlehem To Be Born? The Answer Might Surprise You.

Its Hour Come Round at Last:

Richard Bledsoe “The Calendar” acrylic on canvas 30” x 40”

They say great minds think alike.

When I saw the Ace of Spades HQ recently referenced a certain poem by William Butler Yeats as a pithy headline, I recognized we were surfing the same wave of zeitgeist. “The Second Coming” has haunted me for decades, and it’s hard not to recognize its relevance as we navigate the uncharted waters of the Woo Han Hoopla Hysteria.  (FYI I know that place name is misspelled. It’s an attempt to circumvent the censorious Silicon Curtain filters. You know they’re doing it).

The Second Coming by WB Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

.

WB Yeats was a Modernist not afraid of mysticism. He wrote this poem 100 years ago, but like all profound works of art, it’s always timely. Ever since Yeats penned those ominous lines, world events have continued to suggest new identities for his monstrous harbinger.

We’ve been under the crushing dominion of one particular evil riddling sphinx for a long time now: the PSYOP tyranny of Postmodernism. For decades, global elitists have gone all in on a society-wide Cultural Marxist system of deceit and manipulation as a means to gather unaccountable power.

These indoctrinated idiots either really believe reality must conform to their word games and enforced opinions, or they know it’s a scam, but expect us to submit to it. We are supposed to not believe our lying eyes, and follow the thought leaders.

Going along with them is what has brought us to this catastrophe.

I believe what we are going through now-a wildly overblown reaction to a suspiciously timed outbreak- is because, after an uninterrupted winning streak for decades, the establishment is losing. This mother of all false flag operations is their desperate means of self-defense.

False flag does not mean this is a hoax. There is a potentially deadly virus out there. Where the false flag comes in is the highly coordinated Deep State over-reaction from governments, the media, academia, and global corporations. Instead of practical measures appropriate to a risky form of the flu, the lockdown freakout inflicted on us seems designed to quash another pandemic which has been growing for years: the populist uprisings against the corrupt and incompetent Postmodern New World Order.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this sudden-and yet-strangely-choreographed meltdown was pre-planned, and was scheduled to occur during a Hillary Clinton presidency. What an opportunity it would have been for that hag and her Chinese partners-in-crime to oversee the permanent dismantling of our constitutional republic! It’s bad enough, even with President Trump doing his best to work around, through, and over all the traitors embedded in our institutions. When Trump talks about an invisible enemy, he’s not just talking about a virus.

But here’s a twist. What if the rough beast slouching our way this time is not the latest oppressor, but is the terrifying prospect of actual freedom?

I foresaw what was coming in my book, Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

What is the spirit of this age?

History will recognize this as the era the general population of the United States realized the governing class and its connections, far from acting as responsible public servants, had mutated into an elitist ruling class. These elitists decided amongst themselves, due to their superior intellects, credentials, and social status, they deserved to control how everybody else lived their lives. This mission of conquest was camouflaged with egalitarian rhetoric.

In exchange for the burden of managing their inferiors, this New Class exempted themselves from the expectations they imposed on others. Those underlings who supported the ascendancy of these would-be rulers received some special considerations as well, a semiprivileged status—but their greatest reward was to bask in the reflected glory of their masters.

The elitists had a plan, and it almost worked. Over decades, the institutions that sustained American culture have been infiltrated, their missions transformed.

Government, media, education, the arts—the occupying elitists within dedicated all resources towards undermining sustaining Western values, all to better serve the consolidation of unaccountable power. They used their influence over the various means of cultural communication and expression to exert pressure at all levels of society to embrace collectivist goals, distorting the concept of equality.

As part of these maneuvers, art was pushed into a crisis of relevance. Elitist malfeasance has marginalized the visual arts in popular culture. In doing so, the New Aristocracy of the Well-Connected block access to powerful resources. They deny our society the inspiration to live up to ideals, the encouragement to think and feel deeply, the yearning to harmonize with truth and beauty. As a result, the mass audience has turned away.

People instinctually reject the superficial and nihilistic contemporary art championed by an imperious would-be ruling class. We currently call this covert corrosion inflicted on the foundations of Western civilization the Postmodern era.

A small sect usurped disproportionate power over the course of the entire nation. Now the terrible results of the corrupted establishment’s agenda are clear. Under their reign we are less prosperous, less safe, less free.

The elitists ran out of credibility and resources before their work was complete. Now, we, the people, must make sure they run out of time as well. The dominion of these deceitful despots must be demolished throughout the culture, on all fronts. Around the globe challenges are rising against the longstanding world order. The story of the 21st century will be the dismantling of centralized power.

As always, this course of history was prophesied by artists—those who are intuitively aware of the path unfolding ahead. Their works become maps so that others may find the way. The new directives emerging in our culture must be acknowledged. Enduring changes start in the arts.

The entrenched interests are desperate to deny this uprising, but denial won’t stop us. The parasitic Postmodern era is finished, but it won’t go quietly. The vast project of reconstruction will commence as we dislodge the failed status quo.

What is the spirit of this age?

This is an era of joyous insurgency and new beginnings.

Welcome to Remodern America.

Postmodernism started off by redefining art into anti-art. It’s now spread. Like a virus, Postmodernism converted every institution it infested into a factory for producing more of the Postmodern disease. Postmodernism makes every worthy cause betray its rightful mission. Remodernism is the correction of this treachery.

Remodernism as a movement was first codified in 1999 by two English artists, Charles Thomson and Billy Childish. Remodernism is the return of wisdom as a governing philosophy. It respects the general audience, and their capacities to have profound experiences.

Remodernists understand art is for everyone. We can all be stirred by beauty, moved by emotional expressions, and gratified by the experience of truth. Western civilization used to understand how art provided those uplifting states, and with Remodernism, it will do it again.

When we come out of this manufactured crisis, there will be a mighty reckoning to do. It’s been very clarifying.

Remodernism is the cure for the Postmodern disease which practically ended us all.

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. Please send any inquiries to info@remodernamerica.com. Thank you!