The effect of Political Correctness on the art of our civilization

I have been thinking, it is the Stories and Art of cultures that describe civilization, and show the consciousness of the people at large.

What will happen to the evolution of civilization when this politically correct BS starts it’s insidious creep into the art of our country?

We see movies making changes to story, casting, hiring... how will this affect our art?
Musicians begin to temper their thoughts in order to stay within guidelines that are nothing but political.

When artists, musicians, and storytellers are made, either by political or societal pressure, to curb their artistic expression in favor of making sure nobody is offended, or that one ideology is the true path, this is when art ceases, and propaganda begins.

I ask for your thoughts, and subsequently, I hope this is not in the wrong forum, if it is, I apologize. This seems political and philosophical.

Art will be consumed by others that are moved by the art.
Artists in general are not lock step thinkers.

I see a lot of thoughts being paid to the cultural sensitivity of today, from artists, movie houses, and the like.
I also see a lot of individuals (who have the means to not worry about their words) speak out against these movements.

Just my own take as an "artist, musician, and storyteller," who does not have the financial freedom that some others do.
With that said, as I work on the backstage end of live performance, I have no issue helping others tell their world perspective even if I disagree with their perspective.

In some aspect I suspect you have not done huge research into less advertised artists from certain times.
There's always a contemporary counter point to every artist.

originally posted by: Timmerman421
I have been thinking, it is the Stories and Art of cultures that describe civilization, and show the consciousness of the people at large.

What will happen to the evolution of civilization when this politically correct BS starts it’s insidious creep into the art of our country?

I think you may not be thinking this through.

Stories and art have ALWAYS been under the "insidious creep of political correctness." You my not be old enough to remember McCarthyism (where anything they thought MIGHT be pro-communism was censored and people lost jobs and houses and their lives over it) -- but I sure remember it. You may not be aware of the many forms of political and social censorship that happened in America but if you look at a history of banned books or even a list of America's most banned books (which includes To Kill A Mockingbird and Animal Farm, among others) you'll see that you have been living under this restraint all along.

In fact, there's no society that does NOT regulate things in some ways. We punish pedophilia and until recently homosexuals could be imprisoned or sent to be 'cured" -- yet in Sparta (I am terribly amused by Sparta fans), homosexuality was state mandated - and in fact, older men were expected to take young teenage boys as their lovers and groom them to become "proper Spartan adults."

So complaints about "political correctness climate" that you've heard are really based in a very shallow understanding of the history of literature and society.

I understand what you’re saying, and in a sense you’re correct, im referring mostly to mainstream art, that reaches and affects the greatest amount of the population. I’m only suggesting that this censorship being applied to everyone, if it starts bleeding into our art, will greatly affect our civilization as a whole, negatively.

I do thank you for your thoughts, However, I am extremely interested to learn other views and ideas, in order to further my own understanding, and hopefully through discussions like this, the understanding of others. I’ll do more research into lesser advertised artists.

a reply to: randomtangentsrme

a reply to: Byrd

And you give an overview in "shallow understanding of the history of literature and society."
if you accept what is happening today.

I know about McCarthyism and people like Dalton Trumbo, and I understand what you’re saying about books like “to kill a mockingbird.”
But what about when artistic expression is curbed in favor of political correctness? Does that not suggest that the most creative people of our civilization are sacrificing some of the most important aspects of our societal identity? What about the road that follows?
Creative expression supersedes political sensibilities in every sense!
a reply to: Byrd

a reply to: Timmerman421

You are about 20 years to late, if not longer.
Start with cigarette use in cinema. As best as I can chase it Tobacco was the start of this restrictive culture.

It’s just this restriction on thought that really gets to me. This PC crap will negatively affect our growth as a culture, free thought and expression is the most important right we have, it’s our greatest freedom as human beings!

a reply to: randomtangentsrme

And I admit, maybe im wrong, maybe im not expressing my thoughts correctly, which is why I want to hear from all of you. But I just want to understand and to fight for free thought. Even if I’m 20 years late, it’s never too late to try for something like this, surely?

a reply to: Timmerman421

a reply to: Timmerman421

People will be compelled to view art, artists or entertainment that does not interest them or that they do not like.

This has already started with the Taliban-like statue toppling and campaigns against people like Gina Carano, or against the presence of Luke Skywalker, a fictional character, in the Mandalorian.

Politically-correct art and nothing else, as pushed by the Left.


It's simple really:
- if you like something see it or listen to it
- if you don't, view or listen to something else

Problem is, in the present free market, crapp cancel-culture dictat "art" is not being viewed, is rejected by the population because it is, well, crapp !

a reply to: Timmerman421

It's a game. You can only lose if you play.
Smile and politely say, in a loud, clear voice "No Thank You".
And move along.

PC is the absence of art. The absence of humour etc.

It's a deficit to social interaction and should not be entertained at all.

Adding. The PC brigade always remind me of a bunch of grown ups crying for mummy to change their wet pants.
They just need to learn to use the toilet like everyone else.

a reply to: Timmerman421

What will happen to civilization when this insidious BS starts to creep into art ?

Apparently we're late to the party ...

originally posted by: Timmerman421
I have been thinking, it is the Stories and Art of cultures that describe civilization, and show the consciousness of the people at large.

What will happen to the evolution of civilization when this politically correct BS starts it’s insidious creep into the art of our country?

We see movies making changes to story, casting, hiring... how will this affect our art?
Musicians begin to temper their thoughts in order to stay within guidelines that are nothing but political.

When artists, musicians, and storytellers are made, either by political or societal pressure, to curb their artistic expression in favor of making sure nobody is offended, or that one ideology is the true path, this is when art ceases, and propaganda begins.

I ask for your thoughts, and subsequently, I hope this is not in the wrong forum, if it is, I apologize. This seems political and philosophical.

It's a valid point that carries its own solution if you set aside the phrase "political correctness". Constraints on culture have always been with us, from Plato's ideas about music and Aristotle's prescriptions on drama, through the English Lord Chancellor and the various prescriptions of the church, to the Hayes Code and Comics Code. If anything, we are living at a time where there are fewer institutional controls and the power of the market determines what goes.

Societies, cultures and civilisations move on. Always. For every Reformation there's a redundant buggy whip worker, for every Enlightenment there's an unemployed wool worker, for every US Constitution there's a book burning at the Vatican.

The way we read the past also moves on. If we look at history as seen through sixteenth century eyes, nineteenth century eyes, pre 1968 eyes, post 1990 eyes, male eyes, female eyes, gay eyes, Indian eyes, we get eight viewpoints on the same event with the same evidence.

An example is the teaching of history in Spain since 1939. The War of 1898 was a huge blow to Spain as a nation. It wasn't just the loss of Cuba and the Philippines, it was the end of Spain even pretending to be a world power. It spent the next thirty seven years struggling to come to terms with it's own reality when - boom - a military coup and a three year civil war. Franco and his right wing government came in on a wave of "España Una, España Grande, España Libre" - One Spain, Great Spain, Free Spain. Only one of those three was even arguably true so Franco, working closely with the Catholic Church, revived the myth of Spain as great Christian warrior nation, led by Great Men and Women. Everything that supported that was taught in schools and universities. Anything that didn't square with that was not only banned but could get a teacher imprisoned. El Cid Campeador was a great Christian hero but don't you dare look too deeply into his military record. The Civil War? Even for fifteen, twenty after the Transition to democracy, there were no books written by Spaniards in Spanish about the most important event in one hundred years. If you wanted to read about what happened in Madrid in 1936, you either read a foreign writer like Ian Gibson or Paul Preston or you read the official government lies. Now, an entire generation is not only rejecting the dictatorship but the Pact of Forgetting that followed, asking questions not just about their past but about how their past is retold.

The sources we use to read the past change. The Soviet Military Archive opens, the Soviet Military Archive closes, a dig reveals what the neolithic diet was like by the Rhine, eyewitness accounts are dismissed, they're taken seriously, a FOI response hides the truth, the same response redacted differently reveals the truth, a historian spends twenty years researching and writing a history, a blogger spends twenty minutes on a post on the same thing, a Twitter user spends twenty seconds on the same thing.

The past is unchanged, no matter what today's culture is. The cultural heritage we leave our great grandchildren is what it is. The sources and tools they use are likely to be different from the sources and the tools we use.

The problem a future historian will have - like many people now - is separating the signal from the noise. A good historian will look at all sources, will question where the guidelines you mention came from and how they acted. They might look at the gatekeepers of culture and ask if they were driven by ideology or profit. They might apply Foucault's ideas of power and ask whether the pressure came from the top or from all around.

In short, don't worry about the effect of political correctness, John Bircherism, or Daltonism. Culture will abide and, more importantly, there are far far bigger issues to worry about.

a reply to: AttitudeProblem

I'm afraid I haven't got the time to check your videos out but I assume they are about the CIA payrolling the abstract expressionists and Encounter magazine as a counterpoint to Soviet funding of the arts in western Europe. There's no difference between that and the Voice of America or King James I's patronage of Shakespeare.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Artists are gonna art the way they want to no matter what people say to them, we don't give a f$ck.

Communist goals numbers 22 and 23 from the list of 45 goals document submitted into the Congressional Records in 1963

22. 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."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

OP has a very relevant question that is central to who we are and who we become. One need only look at modern art to see the destruction of beauty and the upholding of ugliness as an aesthetic of it's own. All are designed to make people feel meaningless, uninspired and hopeless whether it's art, a movie, a novel or even fads - all make the human being less able to function on their own and determine their own fate. It's called programming for good reason. To the rulers of this world we are nothing but 0's and 1's to be manipulated to their benefit.

a reply to: Timmerman421

I think that is why you have the avant-garde, the contemporary, modern, hidden, and socially taboo.

There have always been the multiple realms of art. Tastes and desires vary from person to person and time to time.

Except for maybe in the time of Caligula, there have always been art that was not accepted as suitable, and sometimes it was required to be destroyed.

There has always been a time that art was not always art but the expression of a depraved and ill mind. It is often said that "art is in the eye of the beholder " it is even more often in the mind of the beholder.

What you may view as a negative affect on our growth and culture, may actually be protection, since we have seen in present times that free thought and expression, with little regard to affect on children, future, or community, has been destructive at times.

Sometimes selfishness, a false sense of entitlement, and feelings of superiority, poisons judgement. Everything you think, or desire does not have to spew forth from your mouth, or be spread across a canvas. Somethings "should" remain unspoken, or shared only in consensual, adult company, or not shared at all.

There is no greatness or nobility in allowing the contents of an immature, undisciplined mind to be released, unchecked, uncontrolled, and with no regard for its impact on others. Even if it is thinly veiled under the pretense as art.

Strictly my opinion.

originally posted by: Timmerman421
I know about McCarthyism and people like Dalton Trumbo, and I understand what you’re saying about books like “to kill a mockingbird.”
But what about when artistic expression is curbed in favor of political correctness?

Those ARE cases where artistic expression is curbed in favor of what you're calling "political correctness" - which is actually society's basic way of control over what it finds acceptable. As another "for instance", it was "politically INcorrect" (to use your term... it didn't exist back then) to show married couples in the same bed on television in the 1950's and 1960's.

The whole culture of the 60's and 70's was about overcoming that "political correctness" back then. Folks got arrested for stuff that we find acceptable today (Lenny Bruce and his "politically incorrect" (again, to use your term) cursing - words that you hear many times in PG-13 films today)

Yes, society has ALWAYS curtailed what it wanted.

Artists used "anamorphic art" (look it up) to hide political statements in the 16th-18th century that could get them executed. Gallileo was excommunicated for his science (which was correct but went against the teachings of the Church.)

Does that not suggest that the most creative people of our civilization are sacrificing some of the most important aspects of our societal identity? What about the road that follows?
Creative expression supersedes political sensibilities in every sense!
a reply to: Byrd

I think that since you didn't live through events like the 1960's and 1970's when we fought for freedom of expression, you might feel more alarmed about cultural restrictions. But it really does happen and it's been going on all along.

What's set up the current howl about "political correctness" (a term designed to scare people) is a conservative movement against a liberal backlash (of the 60's and 70's) which was a movement against the original conservative values (1940's and 1950's) that were constraining art. (the 1920's were also another liberal backlash against the conservative victorian values and again there was "political correctness" involved in constraining art whether it was in 1910 or in the more liberal time of 1925.)

I will give you another extreme example of "political correctness that curtailed art" that you haven't thought about -- ancient Egypt. The art style remained the same for 3,000 years (though as the Fayum portraits and Nefertiti's bust show, they were capable of doing realistic art) because other styles of art were deemed "not acceptable."

It's been here all along.

originally posted by: Whodathunkdatcheese

In short, don't worry about the effect of political correctness, John Bircherism, or Daltonism. Culture will abide and, more importantly, there are far far bigger issues to worry about.

Brief note: that was an excellent post.