Hyperallergic has spent two weeks using the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust as an opportunity to lament the Palestinian plight. If only they were unique in the art world.
So This! I had to unsubscribe for their news letter when they openly voiced anti-Israel sentiment. My favorite was their statement that they are supported by "Queers for Palestine" - I'd love to see those Queers make their way to Palestine and spend some time there..
As for the fashionable pro-Palestine sentiment, the "art world" doesn't know and, by it's nature, can't know, which way is up. What the "art world" can do is follow fashion. So can school kids. This is one of those times when the left's green curtain is accidentally pushed aside and true intentions go on display.
"In" means being part of the supposedly correct and best crowd, which for the art world is evidently the "progressive" crowd. It's not just a cosmetic image issue but an operational issue, since being unfashionable or "out of it" can gum up the works and be career-adverse, if not career-ending. Thus, it's not just opportunism but also fear.
Yeah, if fear = herd mentality. The present wave of antisemitism, one of an array of manifestations, to be precise, of the (thus far) intellectual exercise of Marxist identity politics, peddled primarily in the political socialization outlets called "schools," followed by leftist media and pandered to by politicians, is, nevertheless, not endemic in the body politic. A Harvard/Harris poll just came out, in which 51% of college students, aged 18 - 24 years, agreed that Hamas' actions of Oct. 7 were justified. But people who live in the actual world, people who get up in the morning and go out and make the nation work, are overwhelmingly horrified by Hamas and Oct. 7, and support Israel in vastly overwhelming numbers. Thus far, "career-ending" has meant corporations and businesses demanding lists of names of students who participated in post-Oct. 7 pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian rallies, promising assertively never to hire any of them (That will likely end up in the courts as some perverse take or other on First Amendment rights, they're just a bunch of impressionable kids, etc.). I remember that it didn't take long for my college peers of the late 1960s/early 1970s to jettison the social/political manure they so readily swallowed, once they exited that insulated college bubble and their feet touched the ground. The result of all of those college professionals' efforts to peddle their manure back then was the Reagan era. I agree, though, that the present developments certainly bear watching and need to be met assertively with substantive replies.
In the art world, I think there is real fear of real reprisals for being (or appearing to be) politically "incorrect." That *has* happened to even well-established people, meaning the fear is not unfounded or theoretical.
You find that everywhere, for instance on just about every college campus. The art world is, in my experience, by its nature irredeemably corrupt through and through in every way. You have to be lucky enough to be on top of it (and then you'd spend an unacceptable amount of time just staying there) or forget it. I've never seen or heard anything like a workable way out of that reality, and there are other ways to go about things. What I've come to call The Grand Kvetch is becoming, frankly, as tiresome as the object of it. Ironically the attention it brings to the art world has become part of what keeps the art world alive. On the other hand, when bigotry such as antisemitism appears anywhere, it needs to be answered emphatically.
For what it may be worth, I found a beautiful example of solidarity with the Jewish people from the world of the arts, even though it is from 1842. It is the Hebrew Chorus from Verdi's opera Nabucco (his first major triumph), which has always been the biggest hit from that opera. In it, the exiled Jews long for their homeland and ask for divine help to bear their sorrows. Follow the link below:
The art world, of course, same as academia, was already primed to respond as it has, so its response shouldn't really be a surprise. But, the magnitude of the atrocity in question is such that it induces painfully unrealistic expectations. Alas, human perversity is rather worse than we'd like to believe.
Well I’m with you on this one Franklin. I certainly am against killing innocent civilians. And I’m not completely sure what percentage of the Palestinian Gaza Strip population supports Hamas,… and yes war is hell… I support Israel in defending itself. I support Israel and its attempt to eradicate Hamas and all radical fundamentalist elements and this would include some of its own. I would hope they could do this without committing war crimes. This might be a challenge.
My theory is as follows: "Deep down, every person possesses their own bundle of seething ethnic/racial/sexual/status/professional/fill-in-the-blank resentments and would at least be tempted to, or feel the urge to, slit the throat of their fellow man" is inarguably true, based on history. But saying that it is true makes you a reactionary, like that rascal Solzhenitsyn ("the line between good and evil runs through every human heart").
The woke/commie heresy is that "people are basically good" (i.e. flatter the human ego) and that "it's society/systems/oppression that's responsible for misery" (i.e. all we have to do is fix society), thus they believe that by electing to side with the Victims and the Oppressed, i.e. to Join the Right Side of History, they are ipso facto the Good Guys, and that any level of atrocity suffered their Bourgeois/Kulak/White/Male/Zionist/Phallogocentric opponents is obviously justified, since said opponents are all that stands between the People and the broad sunlit uplands of an Oppression-Free society.
So that's why Palestinian/Nonbinary/Black/Generic Victim Group feel entitled to be openly hateful/genocidal against their class enemies. They have the feeling that if they could just get rid of the oppressors, that everything would be better. Sad!
I wish I could offer you an excuse less weak or dubious than arts people being flighty, fashion-driven and less-than-profound thinkers, but that's the best that occurs to me. Yes, you are also an art person, but hardly a typical one. The problem is certainly not peculiar to the art world; it's at least as bad in academia, for instance, not that that helps any. Well, once again, I'm glad I'm not in the arts.
What was put out by the likes of the New York Times immediately after the Gaza hospital bomb blast was essentially the Hamas version, which has now been debunked to something VERY different. But, regardless of intent, the initially published misinformation amounted to blood libel, which could have gotten Jews all over the world killed in retaliation. The NYT has issued a soft "mistakes were made" sort of statement, but there's no real apology. I suppose this is par for the course, but the course reeks. And by the way, for those who (like me till recently) think the NYT's head honcho, A.G. Sulzberger, is a Jew, his paternal grandfather was, but he's not, and neither was his father and predecessor.
Needs to be said, needs to be read.
So This! I had to unsubscribe for their news letter when they openly voiced anti-Israel sentiment. My favorite was their statement that they are supported by "Queers for Palestine" - I'd love to see those Queers make their way to Palestine and spend some time there..
I am learning that you are in estimable company, for having unsubscribed from Hyperallergic for their anti-Israel stance. Brava.
As for the fashionable pro-Palestine sentiment, the "art world" doesn't know and, by it's nature, can't know, which way is up. What the "art world" can do is follow fashion. So can school kids. This is one of those times when the left's green curtain is accidentally pushed aside and true intentions go on display.
Well, it does know which way is "in," meaning "progressive," which is all it really cares to know.
Hmm.. I thought "in" means fashion and "progressive" means agenda.
A gist of Einspruch's post appears to be that, at present and not unusually, fashion is being used to promote an agenda.
"In" means being part of the supposedly correct and best crowd, which for the art world is evidently the "progressive" crowd. It's not just a cosmetic image issue but an operational issue, since being unfashionable or "out of it" can gum up the works and be career-adverse, if not career-ending. Thus, it's not just opportunism but also fear.
Yeah, if fear = herd mentality. The present wave of antisemitism, one of an array of manifestations, to be precise, of the (thus far) intellectual exercise of Marxist identity politics, peddled primarily in the political socialization outlets called "schools," followed by leftist media and pandered to by politicians, is, nevertheless, not endemic in the body politic. A Harvard/Harris poll just came out, in which 51% of college students, aged 18 - 24 years, agreed that Hamas' actions of Oct. 7 were justified. But people who live in the actual world, people who get up in the morning and go out and make the nation work, are overwhelmingly horrified by Hamas and Oct. 7, and support Israel in vastly overwhelming numbers. Thus far, "career-ending" has meant corporations and businesses demanding lists of names of students who participated in post-Oct. 7 pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian rallies, promising assertively never to hire any of them (That will likely end up in the courts as some perverse take or other on First Amendment rights, they're just a bunch of impressionable kids, etc.). I remember that it didn't take long for my college peers of the late 1960s/early 1970s to jettison the social/political manure they so readily swallowed, once they exited that insulated college bubble and their feet touched the ground. The result of all of those college professionals' efforts to peddle their manure back then was the Reagan era. I agree, though, that the present developments certainly bear watching and need to be met assertively with substantive replies.
In the art world, I think there is real fear of real reprisals for being (or appearing to be) politically "incorrect." That *has* happened to even well-established people, meaning the fear is not unfounded or theoretical.
You find that everywhere, for instance on just about every college campus. The art world is, in my experience, by its nature irredeemably corrupt through and through in every way. You have to be lucky enough to be on top of it (and then you'd spend an unacceptable amount of time just staying there) or forget it. I've never seen or heard anything like a workable way out of that reality, and there are other ways to go about things. What I've come to call The Grand Kvetch is becoming, frankly, as tiresome as the object of it. Ironically the attention it brings to the art world has become part of what keeps the art world alive. On the other hand, when bigotry such as antisemitism appears anywhere, it needs to be answered emphatically.
For what it may be worth, I found a beautiful example of solidarity with the Jewish people from the world of the arts, even though it is from 1842. It is the Hebrew Chorus from Verdi's opera Nabucco (his first major triumph), which has always been the biggest hit from that opera. In it, the exiled Jews long for their homeland and ask for divine help to bear their sorrows. Follow the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VejTwFjwVI
The art world, of course, same as academia, was already primed to respond as it has, so its response shouldn't really be a surprise. But, the magnitude of the atrocity in question is such that it induces painfully unrealistic expectations. Alas, human perversity is rather worse than we'd like to believe.
Well I’m with you on this one Franklin. I certainly am against killing innocent civilians. And I’m not completely sure what percentage of the Palestinian Gaza Strip population supports Hamas,… and yes war is hell… I support Israel in defending itself. I support Israel and its attempt to eradicate Hamas and all radical fundamentalist elements and this would include some of its own. I would hope they could do this without committing war crimes. This might be a challenge.
My theory is as follows: "Deep down, every person possesses their own bundle of seething ethnic/racial/sexual/status/professional/fill-in-the-blank resentments and would at least be tempted to, or feel the urge to, slit the throat of their fellow man" is inarguably true, based on history. But saying that it is true makes you a reactionary, like that rascal Solzhenitsyn ("the line between good and evil runs through every human heart").
The woke/commie heresy is that "people are basically good" (i.e. flatter the human ego) and that "it's society/systems/oppression that's responsible for misery" (i.e. all we have to do is fix society), thus they believe that by electing to side with the Victims and the Oppressed, i.e. to Join the Right Side of History, they are ipso facto the Good Guys, and that any level of atrocity suffered their Bourgeois/Kulak/White/Male/Zionist/Phallogocentric opponents is obviously justified, since said opponents are all that stands between the People and the broad sunlit uplands of an Oppression-Free society.
So that's why Palestinian/Nonbinary/Black/Generic Victim Group feel entitled to be openly hateful/genocidal against their class enemies. They have the feeling that if they could just get rid of the oppressors, that everything would be better. Sad!
I wish I could offer you an excuse less weak or dubious than arts people being flighty, fashion-driven and less-than-profound thinkers, but that's the best that occurs to me. Yes, you are also an art person, but hardly a typical one. The problem is certainly not peculiar to the art world; it's at least as bad in academia, for instance, not that that helps any. Well, once again, I'm glad I'm not in the arts.
What was put out by the likes of the New York Times immediately after the Gaza hospital bomb blast was essentially the Hamas version, which has now been debunked to something VERY different. But, regardless of intent, the initially published misinformation amounted to blood libel, which could have gotten Jews all over the world killed in retaliation. The NYT has issued a soft "mistakes were made" sort of statement, but there's no real apology. I suppose this is par for the course, but the course reeks. And by the way, for those who (like me till recently) think the NYT's head honcho, A.G. Sulzberger, is a Jew, his paternal grandfather was, but he's not, and neither was his father and predecessor.