Culturist Art Criticism and the Salvation of the West

Twenty-five years ago Camille Paglia cured me of veganism.  Her amazing art history book, ‘Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertitti to Emily Dickinson,’ argued that art criticism needs passion, violence and sex, not PC censorship.  In a side note, she said vegetarians are out-of-touch with nature because they work for a clean, sinless world; real nature worshippers feel its cruelty.  I love Camille Paglia. 

However, this article will harshly criticize Paglia’s newest art survey book, ‘Glittering Images.’  And you may be thinking, “Who cares? I’m into politics, not art.” But, appreciating art is central to Western survival.  Multiculturalists tell us that the West has no core traditional culture to protect and promote. Western art refutes that and can serve as a guide to our cultural revitalization. To make this point firmer, the article will contrast Paglia’s work to Kenneth Clark’s marvelous culturist 1969 BBC survey of Western art, ‘Civilisation.’

The very title of Paglia’s ‘Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars,’ gives away its weakness. Starting in Egypt makes her book explicitly globalist.  Globalism is the flipside of multiculturalism, it says Western culture is not particular to the West and so not really Western. Globalism undermines our enjoyment of the art.  When I see the Sistine Chapel or any other Western masterpiece, I am proud, because my civilization produced it.  And, as I am indelibly Western, Western masterpieces inspire me personally.  When presented as global, Western art is not mine, it alienates, rather than inspires, me. 

Paglia discusses the Acropolis and some Greek pieces.  And, she speculates as to what they might have meant to Greek culture. But, we’re not told what they mean to us, collectively, today.  Culturist art criticism, to have an impact, must speak to our present cultural crisis.  We can see the potential and her failure in her coverage of the icon of Saint John Crysostom.   Icons are, she tells us, “sacred images that functioned as protectors of people and cities. In portable wooden form, icons were carried by armies into battles.”[i]  We learn that, “The icon endorsees a fanatical devotion to God’s word, a renunciation of pleasure and mortification of the body.”[ii] That we see in John Crysostom’s “intensity of gaze.” Good stuff!

But, Paglia only incidentally mentions that the icon sits in the Haga Sophia – a church that was converted into a mosque when the Muslims sacked Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire.  From a culturist point of view, the West and Islam are still battling.  This means Crysostom’s icon should still fill us with intensity and encourage us to battle for the West.  She discusses the suppression of icons by the church, but never mentions that ’The Byzantine encounter with Islam likely played a role” in this.[iii]  She provides zero culturist context.  Thus the icon is just a relic of a long disappeared ancient world rather than an icon to our epic struggle for survival.

Paglia gives us some great insight into the pieces she has chosen.  For example, I love the idea that Titians’ Venus with a mirror “blurs the lines between the erotic and the maternal. Perhaps revealing the deepest truth about heterosexuality.”  But, then she doesn’t ask for a culturist interpretation.  I mean, if fading beauty is joined to fertility, then perhaps sex is not a toy; perhaps sex is more profound and pathos laden than our salacious, promiscuous advertising culture lets on.  Perhaps the West needs to take a more realistic look at life, death and fertility.  This would be a moral, culturist reading.  But for Paglia, art glitters, but it doesn’t speak to the management of our civilization.

Furthermore, Titian’s painting would mean more if occasionally contrasted with Islam’s ban of art and Asia’s boring, static art.  The West is the civilization that moves, creates and ponders tumultuous questions about beauty, maternity and mortality.  Asian art barely has people in it.  This is a very Western painting.  We need to see it’s philosophical query as a part of our glory!

Paglia’s globalism is in stark contrast to the Kenneth Clark’s aforementioned marvelous culturist BBC series, ‘Civilisation.’  His title is culturist. As it is an art history series, his title announces that art and civilization reinforce each other. The title of the first episode, “The Skin of our Teeth,” refers to the West’s precarious survival after the collapse of Rome.  Clark explores this theme in order to make us appreciate the West’s existence.  Fantastically, in a shining moment of culturist clarity, when discussing the Western invention of perspective, Clark suddenly stops, pauses and asks, “But, has it anything to do with civilization?”[iv] (Ep. 4)  This is a question, Paglia should ask of art. 

For a supreme treat, take a listen to Clark’s culturist discussion of Michelangelo’s iconic statue, David.  He tells us that, David’s defiant face, “involves a contempt for convenience and a sacrifice of all those pleasures that contribute to what we usually call civilized life. It’s the enemy of happiness.” And, he notes that though we may not think of these combative attitudes as civilized, in the end, “civilization depends on man extending his powers of mind and spirit to the utmost.” This, he continues, is what makes David a high point for “ Western man.”[v]  By way of contrast, Paglia tells us that Egypt’s stagnation resulted from its ‘harsh desert environment.’[vi] Economic determinism is always behind leftist thought. Ideas being paramount is a culturist conviction.  Their vantage point on art entertains, ours builds civilizations. 

All surveys of Western art must, at some point, discuss our dropping classical realism in favor of increasingly abstract modern art. In one of his relentless culturist gems, Clark tells us, "All the great civilizations have seen themselves as part of history. Both as heirs and heirs transmitters." (ep. 4)  Modernism, with its freeze on the past, rejects Clark’s fundamental insight.  This is likely why he only discusses modernism in the last episode of his series, and then only sparingly, despondently, behind the theme of, the ‘triumphant materialism.’  In contrast, Paglia transitions to modernism less than half way through her book.  There she writes, the “Salon juries in Paris expected important subjects from painting – ancient myths, Bible stories, glorious episodes of French history in polished neoclassical style.”[vii]  Thus, parroting modern art history orthodoxy, she rejects pre-modern art.

But, as orthodox as Paglia is, she is edgy and iconoclastic enough to have reservations about modernism.  She admits that, in comparison to what had come before, “Impressionist pictures . . . seemed pointless.” Quite. And, in her trademark quippy tone Paglia tells us that impressionism fits well in ‘hotels, offices, and doctors’ waiting rooms.”[viii] Yes, they fit in offices and hotels as they help convince ill-educated globalists that they belong to no particular civilization, thus easing their conscience as they sell out their civilization’s economic basis.  Modern art is needed in doctor’s offices, because in an increasingly diversified West, having overtly Western icons could offend the cultural outsiders in our land.

But, modern art is not only unworthy of the West, it is increasingly anti-Western.  We see this in Paglia’s unfortunate inclusion of the horrid, ‘Chillin’ with Liberty.’  This photoshopped complaint features a female black character sitting on top of the Statue of Liberty’s head.  In a fit of noxious virtue signaling, Paglia writes the black woman’s “masked face and penetrating eyes suggests she is contemplating and transcending centuries of atrocity and suffering.”  She says the black woman, “is welcoming the future, but forgetting nothing.”  Forgetting nothing, indeed.  Being a culturist art historian, I can say what the Puritans would say; liberty cannot be won by complaining or ‘chillin.’  The inclusion of this piece marks the saddest moment of Paglia’s book.

The final piece from Paglia’s book that I will consider is Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.  (Though, as she notes, he just called it, ‘My brothel.’) Insightfully, she says it recapitulates art history.  The figure on the left represents Egyptian art, then several western works are referenced, finally, on the right, we see a reference to “scarified tribal masks from Africa.”[ix] The West’s history is progressive.  We are better than stupid Old World cultures.  Connecting us to Egypt severs us from our roots.  And, saying our art history culminates in Africa, in any way shape or form, is revolting, multicultural, globalist blasphemy.   

Lastly, two points that Paglia does not discuss:

First, we have a history of culturist art criticism to revive.  Plato was a culturist art critic.  Separating moral art from immoral art corresponded to his main criticism of life.  Matthew Arnold, (1822 – 1888), the first person to be called a ‘culturist’ practicing ‘culturism,’ created a great body of work showing how culture could keep the West from anarchy.  And, of course, Kenneth Clark was a major culturist art critic. We have a long tradition of culturist art criticism to weave into our narrative. 

Secondly, whenever you discuss art with someone, you must bring up the Sistine chapel.  It destroys the multicultural myth that we have no core culture. It undermines the narrative wherein Western history consists of nothing but material exploitation and horror. It never fails to inspire.  Moreover, comparing modern works to the Chapel is a sure guide to estimating whether a work is a symptom of the West’s decline or rebirth.

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[i] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 35.

[ii] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 37.

[iii] Woods, Jr., Thomas, E., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2005), 116.

[iv] Clark, Kenneth, writer / narrator, Civilisation, Man: The Measure of All Things, Episode 4. BBC, 1969,

[v] Clark, Kenneth, writer / narrator, Civilisation, The Artist as Hero, Episode 5. BBC, 1969,

[vi] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 8.

[vii] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 97.

[viii] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 97.

[ix] Paglia, Camille, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Arts from Egypt to Star Wars, (New York: Pantheon, 2012), 105.

CULTURIST REPROGRAMMING

This is not just an article. I am asking questions, trying to start discussions, and – grandiosely – launch a policy field. Here is my question: How do we re-program our nation?

Of course, we can use the Left’s technique of taking sound bites out of context, and calling individuals “Hitler.” This works for tarnishing individuals and those associated with them. But, culturists are concerned with defining, guiding and promoting traditional majority culture more broadly. As such, rather than tarnish one man, we culturists must work towards a wider reprogramming of western culture.
I teach in a Christian university in South Korea, yes South! In my university, students are required to go to chapel twice a week. If they don't they cannot get a space in the dormitories and their scholarships are put in jeopardy. In their majors, students perform coordinated Christian dance routines in awesome assemblies. I mention this for entertainment’s sake. But, I also mention it to broaden our imaginations.

Speaking of imagination, the first thing we need to do is realize that rationality is not enough. We know that if you really think Black Lives Matter (BLM), statistically you should confront inner-city black-on-black violence. But, pointing that out has had zero deterrence effect. As with my uni’s dance routines, we must look past rationality. 

DARWINIAN CULTURIST PSYCHOLOGY

Herein a Darwinian perspective helps. Fish mark territory with bright colors. Howler monkeys defend territory via howls. Colors and sounds matter. We need to wave flags, have red, white and blue clothes, and use patriotic songs – the national anthem among them – to create loyalty. Anthropologists, ethnologists and sociobiologists of all stripes will tell you ‘us versus them’ is the primal program. Even naming the enemy helps. No them, no us. 

Void of ideas, content, and morality, BLM
is all about signalling and spectacle.

Evolutionary psychology tells us that emotion is the Darwinian way of controlling our behaviors. When BLM and today’s anti-Trump demonstrators get away with destruction, it feels good. This is key. Jumping up and down, breaking things without consequences and the thrill of not having police stop you is like winning in a video game. It literally pumps you with adrenaline and makes your posture erect.  If violent behavior doesn’t lead to humiliation, it will not stop. 

Prisons are ineffective because they do not take cultural psychology into account. People are ‘punished’ and come out proud of the experience. The only real punishment is humiliation.  Even killing is culturally relative. Jihadi’s are proud to die. To make prison effective, those whose behavior we are trying to deter must suffer humiliation in their culture’s eyes. Pride, as in rooting for a winning team, is the positive pole of the emotional controls of man. Causing our culture to see communist, BLM, anti-social folks as losers is the negative pole.

In sum, to push this effort we must have emotional goals. Disgust and anger should result when someone defiles our flag. Pride at hearing our anthem is important.  Indignant rejection should follow cynicism about our narrative. Laughter must, again, come from mocking our enemy’s ways. Sadness must come from defeat. The reasons for said feelings are significant. As Darwinian culturists we must be specific about the emotional reactions at which we’re aiming. 

INSTITUTIONAL CULTURISM

Our story is compelling. The Puritans created a mighty nation with morals. John Smith told the starving pilgrims, “he who does not work does not eat.” The Founding Fathers were both brave and ingenious. We fought a war to stop slavery. We must get a generation to take the prosocial side on such stories. To safeguard this reversal we must have a long march through the institutions. But we need more instantaneous results too. 

Many national governments have a ‘Ministry of Culture.’ While now perverted, these could be reclaimed. The US could also have one – a Department of Culture. It would coordinate large and small public celebrations of America. Beyond the events, the Feds doling out grants specifically for patriotic artists, would cultivate patriotism in artists.  Publishing conservative art history books would encourage scholarship and embed learned professors for 50 years. 

I’m going to go out on a controversial edge here – but we’re brainstorming – and suggest we reconsider reinstituting a form of the loyalty oaths our universities had professors sign upon hiring. Nearly all universities voluntarily receive Federal funds. From a culturist perspective, beyond skills, inculcating culturist patriotism is the big function of schools.  Promoting hatred of the West should again become a cause for dismissal in employment contracts. 

Again, rather than taking a rationalist approach, these institutional programs will aim at the subconscious mechanisms that motivate humans. People follow rewards such as money. And, they don’t like to tell themselves that they do. So, they reconcile their thoughts with their actions. We must reward patriotism and pro-social behavior and, subtly – allowing for freedom, as is appropriate in the West – punish anti-social attitudes and behavior.

Darwinian psychology says that public avowals that involve physically synched behavior bond people. This gives Islam an advantage. We need to emulate Korea’s school assemblies and rallies. This might seem anti-intellectual to many. You may recoil at the word ‘programming.’ Yes, publicly the term must be dropped. But, as Darwinian culturists we cannot forget that all tribes have initiation rites and religions. We are born designed to absorb cultures. The opposite of programming is not liberation, it is ceding programming to others. 

Prosocial control mechanisms put to a bad use.

One more note on institutions, the western Church is currently moribund and leftist. Yet, Christianity is a major pillar of the West’s identity. And, I know we live in a secular age. But, the Church's story glues our history together and glorifies us. Going to church, publicly singing together, and doing rituals creates bonding. This will create bonding with the Western story. It also promotes good values. We need to increase church attendance. 

THE MEDIUM, MESSAGE AND MAN

I have not been trying to suggest that words and story content do not matter. Quite the opposite. Teaching matters. Ideas have consequences. But, as scientific culturists, we must understand the goal is an emotional response to ideas, not ideas in the abstract – ideas in men, masses of men, in cultures. To this end, we must be familiar with recent findings in sociobiology and literary Darwinism; we must adopt a Darwinian perspective.

Roles also impact thought. Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford University prison studies randomly assigned students to either serve as guards or prisoners. The mock prison experiment had to be called off due to the cruelty of the mock guards and the deteriorating condition of the mock inmates. Interestingly, South Korea uses arrested protesters as crowd control police. You might be wondering what the point of going to churches and rallies and singing the anthem is if we don’t believe. Roles often create loyalty, roles often precede belief.

A final example: You can tell a high status chimp by how much animals look at him.  We’re rigged to accept messages from high status folks; cultures thrive by following the winners. But, in our upside down culture, that means youth are biased to take high-status left wing thugs’ and actors’ pronouncements as gospel. Trump and other high status folks, (actors and entertainers), must be at the ceremonies that the Department of culture sponsors.  I would recommend that Trump have long discussions with the nation about our winning history. But, we can’t just go rational. As with the importance of status, culturists must consider the totality of man’s mechanism.

Is Trump Alt-RIght or Alt-Light?

Culturism, Science and the Alt-Right

Trump Destroys Feminist Leftists at the Town Hall

The video title says it all, except how he did it!  Watch the video and find out!!

Here is my introduction of Culturism to the Alt-Right Crowd

If you want to read comments, click here!

Culturism (cǔl-chər-ǐz-əm) n. 1. The philosophy, art, and science that values, promotes and protects majority cultures. 2. The opposite of multiculturalism.

Culturist (cǔl-chər-ǐst) n. 1. An advocate of culturism. 2. One who engages in the arts or sciences of managing and protecting majority cultures. 3. One who judges cultures. 4. Adj. Of or pertaining to culturism, culturists or culturist policy.

In introducing the philosophy of ‘culturism’ to the Alt-Right community, I need to make a confession: the section on race, in the first chapter of the book, ‘Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future,’ is disingenuous.  I knew it was at the time.  In the introduction, I briefly argue that race is not a biological category.  In denouncing the book, ‘The Bell-Curve,’ I wrote, “there is no reliable evidence that there are any mental differences between groups of humans.” I was trying to distance ‘culturism’ from ‘racism’ as much as possible, (fearing that any association with racism could blunt the spread of the memes ‘culturist’ and ‘culturism’).

In fairness to myself, I gave the savvy reader two clues that I was being disingenuous.  One is that my very dismissal of ‘The Bell-Curve” meant that I had read, “The Bell-Curve.”  Anyone familiar with this book knows there are mounds of reliable evidence showing different mental differences between races.  Moreover, I purposely backed up the statement saying there is no reliable evidence with an insubstantial footnote.  While the cited authors (Boyd and Richerson) are giants in their field, the actual reference is to a throw away line. At the time I thought, discerning readers would pick up on such clues. 

But, more importantly, I still stand by my larger point: whereas racism gives you no useful policies, culturism provides a multitude of practical policies.  As I wrote in the book’s introduction, people cannot change their race.  And, if you think my nation, the United States of America, is going to become white again, you’re dreaming.  That can only happen through the horror of a race war.  It’s a bad idea. On the other hand, culturism gives you ample workable policies, such as stopping Muslim immigration and promoting a positive view of American history inside and outside of schools.  We can identify and protect our culture.

 One further salvo from the book’s introduction on this front: a problem with racism (as well as nativism) is that can easily lead to the simplistic fallacy: black is bad, white is good.  First of all, white culture is in big trouble (check our divorce rate). White race pride demands no refinement. In this vein, white racial pride actually retards needed cultural self-scrutiny. Secondly, the racist point of view ignores the fact that there are many great non-white American patriots and western citizens. Any movement that fails to acknowledge them can only lead to a partial reclamation of America.

While I invite you to peruse the many policy implications of culturism available at www.culturism.us and in the final chapter of the book, herein, I will highlight just a few policy categories and concepts:

 First, we must spread the words ‘culturist’ and ‘culturism.’  Culturism is easily understood as the opposite of multiculturalism: it values unity not diversity.  And culturists believe in culturism and judge cultures.  Due to its simplicity, use by a single media figure, could spread these memes and undermine PC clamps on Western political discourse.  Rhetorically, saying, “I’m not racist,” and groveling is not a winning strategy.  Saying, “No, I am culturist.  I believe in culturism, not multiculturalism.  Isn’t cultural diversity real?  Can we talk about cultural diversity?” allows us to go on the offensive.  We need to be able to honestly discuss both the West having a culture and the negative aspects of cultures and cultural diversity; As a rhetorical strategy, being a ‘culturist’ for ‘culturism’ can help.

In countering multiculturalism, culturism implicitly acknowledges that the Western nations have traditional majority cultures. Germany has a culture.  England has a culture.  And, yes, the United States has a culture.  Moreover, the wider west shares a culture.  We are not Asia.  We are not Islamic.  Our culture, as the seminal culturist Matthew Arnold phrased it, has its roots in Athens and Jerusalem. This does not mean that there can be no Hindu temples in the West. But, our school curriculum, holidays and laws should acknowledge and promote our traditional majority cultures.  Plato is a Western hero; Vishnu is not.  In this manner, culturism also rebukes globalism.

In this vein, culturism recommends an ‘America First’ style foreign policy.  The idea that we can turn Iraq, Afghanistan and other Islamic nations into progressive, freedom-loving, rights-based democracies comes from total ignorance of cultural diversity.  With its ‘Clash of Civilizations’ model, culturism denounces the concept of ‘human rights.’ If the West falls, neither China nor the Middle East will promote the concept. Human rights are, in fact, western rights.  So, to protect ‘human rights,’ we need to start labeling them properly as ‘Western rights,’ and protect the West.  Thus saving ‘human rights’ means rejecting ‘humanitarian’ asylum laws.  We’re not the world.  Our laws and funds should help us, not prop up our enemies’ regimes.

Thus culturism suggests we focus our energies domestically. And, domestically, culturism differs from libertarian individualism. Western culture needs to get out of the gutter.  Culturists can argue this point based on biohistory and r/K theory, but common sense also bolsters the directive: stoned children from single-mother families do not often have the job skills that first – world economies require. And, yes, stripping down the welfare state will help enormously in this regard. But, in other realms laws can help bolster morality.  For example, zoning strip clubs out of city centers and censoring lewdness on public airwaves conveys morality.  Keeping drugs illegal does the same.  Our welfare laws are disastrous because they ignore morals. Our government policies should not be either culturally or morally neutral.

This gets us back to the first point in this section: using the words ‘culturism’ and ‘culturist’ can help clean up and direct our culture.  For example, we must say ‘culturist profiling, not ‘racial profiling.’  Far from arbitrary racism, statistics back up the need for culturist profiling of Muslims in airport security screening.  Using the term ‘culturist profiling’ clarifies the cultural rationality. ‘Culturist profiling’ also explains blacks in jail as it acknowledges black cultural dysfunction. Rather than fuel Black Lives Matter resentment, culturist profiling can lead black communities to self-scrutiny. In general, culturists judge cultures based on Western values. This reflexive cultural scrutiny, asking ‘What would Jesus, George Washington or Winston Churchill do?”, can help guide western culture.  As this applies to all of us, it is culturist, not racist.

Finally, as it is a primary concern of the Alt-Right generally, I wish to discuss the Islamic threat to the West. There is a range of culturists: ‘Absolute Culturists,’ believe we need to repatriate all Muslims now.  ‘Pragmatic Culturists,’ only want to deport those affiliated with radical mosques. Both sides wish to halt all Islamic immigration immediately. Both sides, recognize the necessity of culturist school curricula that says, ‘the West is the best and Islam is retarded.’ Both wish to prosecute Sharia courts. Similar culturist policy debates and agreements are had concerning the Latino threat to the United States. While not lock step on all methods, saving the West from Islam is a main priority of all culturists. 

While reasonable culturists will disagree about specific policies aimed at saving the West, none advocates the insane racist policy of removing all non-white people from the West.  Any such attempt, would not work in the United States.  And, so we come full circle to my opening paragraph. We culturists can acknowledge race as a potential cause of national division.  We can note races’ propensities. But, the solutions to our ailments do not lie there. Multiculturalists and globalists deny that the West has a core culture. We must not only acknowledge and celebrate our Western culture, but use it as a basis to protect and judge our specific nations and cultures.  We must have culturist immigration laws that question compatibility with western values. Herein lays a path to safeguarding and guiding our (like it or not) multi-racial nations.

Using culturist rhetoric, (rather than just sadly denying we’re racist), can once again make it safe for the West to have the rational discussions about culture that it so desperately needs. Take action! Spread the words ‘culturist’ and ‘culturism’ today!  It costs us nothing.  And, the words could quickly go viral and, thereby, aid us in saving the West.

Culturism and Modernism: An academic odyssey

Let’s take a journey together, towards my explosion, shall we?  I recently spoke at the annual English Language Literature Association of Korea (ELLAK) conference in Busan, Korea.  On my panel, a young Chinese woman explained a book under the title ‘race, modernism, and modernity.’   The book’s 1930s protagonist, she told us, was racist because she believed that London was more modern than her Caribbean Island home.  The young Chinese woman argued that book’s presumption that London was modern and that the Caribbean was not justified imperialism.

Not wanting to embarrass her in front of the thirty or so audience members, after our talk, I asked her, “Don’t you believe in progress?”  If she said ‘No’ I would ask her if our replacing fire with light bulbs or if the West’s doubling our life span was a good thing.  To my surprise, she said she believed in progress.  She confessed that she was actually very right-wing!  “But, your speech said the Caribbean was just as modern as London!  Do you admit that it isn’t just racism, the West is more advanced?”  “Yeah,” she blushed, “I’ve been struggling with that.”  

This was the most hopeful confession I heard all day.  Because almost every other panel I went to focused on the West being racist.  “Why don’t black people write and Korean’s enjoy Science Fiction?” the keynote speaker, Shelley Streeby (UCSD), asked. Because Sci-Fi is written from the perspective male western racists conquering other planets and seeing their inhabitants as aliens.  “I’m sorry,” I muttered to myself, barely able to keep from screaming in the back of the room, “I don’t know much about Sci-Fi, but the Matrix was about fighting the imperial powers and so was Star Wars.  Star Trek’s main directive was to not interfere with other civilizations.”

I am in exile in Korea.  Conservatives do not get hired in western academia.  In my last Korean conference, I spoke for culturism and against multiculturalism.  I was allowed to speak.  In this conference I claimed that we need to use literary Darwinism to argue for conservative policies, just like Matthew Arnold did. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkP_0ZP0wXI)  In Korea, dissent is allowed.  But, still, the conferences featured many visiting American Marxists.  And, having been so brow beaten in American academia, I reflexively bite my tongue as they spewed their Marxist bile.  At the last session of the three-day conference, I finally exploded.

In a large crowded hall, Curtis Marez (UCSD) spoke of ‘Agribusiness and Farm Workers Futurisms.’  He argued that ‘White male heteronormative patriarchy’ was kept in place by agribusinesses fantasies of replacing Mexicans with robots.  A handrail rope around a robot at a1950s agricultural conference showed Whites’ desire to control Mexican sexuality.  A film from the same 1950s conference depicted white males as scientists and Mexicans as mere implementers.  Racist!  This, Marez said, with no sense of irony, even thought Mexicans had been ‘early adapters’ of video cameras in an attempt to ‘return the gaze.’  

In the same closing panel Miseong Woo (Yonsei University) wondered about what a new big futuristic building in Seoul, Korea (the Dongdaemun Design Plaza) said about Korea’s please in modernity.  She noted that it replaced a historic Korean baseball stadium.  And, that it featured western fashion shows and Andy Warhol exhibits.  She used this to wonder about Korea’s capitulation to the dominant Western vision of modernism.  Though subtle, she still portrayed the West as the oppressor, via standards of modernity, progress and development.

I could no longer bite my lip.  When they called for question my hand went up first.  Seeing my jut up, the moderator called on me. “I am a culturist and so opposed to multiculturalism in that I take culture seriously.  This whole conference has been premised on the idea that if the West is ahead, it is due to our racism and oppression.  But, perhaps the film shows more white male scientists because our Protestant culture’s love of education has led to more inventions!”  Then in a statement that brought audible gasps, I challenged the panelists, “Can you name one thing that a Mexican has invented?” There was a gasp and a silence.

Seizing the void I continued my exasperated rant, “As to modernism. It isn’t western any more!  You started your speech saying this was the decade of migration.  It is the decade of migration to the West!  Korea has only three percent foreigners and half of them are of Korean descent.  Modernity belongs to culturist countries that keep their culture in tact and united.  The Western cities, like LA and New York are museums of demise.  And why? Because they are third world.  You should take pride in your modern buildings.”

“Is there a question?” a butch-dyke ‘woman’ on the panel, who had spoken on Karaoke being a place of queer resistance to patriarchy, butted in to stop me.  And, she was right.  I was spewing frustration from days of biting my tongue.  “Well,” I scrambled, “could you comment on the possibility that the West was modern because its culture made it an inventor, not racism or oppression?”  I asked with a veneer of being collected.

“Well,” she said, “First of all, I have no idea what your talking about, LA is building a new building (I didn’t catch the building’s name) that is costing millions of dollars.  It is very modern. And, migration is everywhere.  Pilipino are going all over Asia. So, you’re just wrong.  And, it’s like you’re trying to rewrite history into some sort of Reagan-esque vision.” And then, completely unable to believe that anyone would say this, she gave me the ultimate sneer putdown. “It’s like your trying to say that we should be proud of America or something, that America is good.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!  That is exactly it!”  I said with wild jabbing gestures.  At that the moderator stopped the horror, “We have no more time for questions.  Let’s thank the panelists.”  At the end, I tried to approach and speak with the panelists, but they refused to acknowledge my greetings!  And, I skipped the conference banquet as I sadly concluded that I had now also ruined my reputation in Korea and would be barred from speaking to this literature conference again.  Better to slink away and be anonymous. 

And, now for my take home lessons about modernity:  

Yes. The Sci-Fi looking modernist buildings the panelist discussed, pretend to be from outer space and look like they don’t come from any particular culture.  But, Sci-Fi buildings are not global. As my co-presenter would only secretly admit, the Caribbean does not have their own modernism and neither does Africa.  They only have dreams of developing.  Mexican modernism is an oxymoron.   Poor countries are poor.  Now here is the real shocker: modernism is no longer western, it is Asian.

Professor Woo was wrong.  I don’t care if LA is building a new building – it likely has a grand total of 10 sky scrapers and most of those are old.  Busan, the Korean city where the conference was held, has dozens of amazing skyscrapers.  And don’t even get me started on New York. It houses the most famous modernist building ever: Le Corbusier’s United Nation’s headquarters in New York City.  And, I note this because it is when the US became the UN it lost the first world character. But New York is largely just a museum of just such old modernist buildings. 

Woo’s was partially wrong. The modernist building was Korean.  Having a futuristic first-world economy depends on an educated population.  Asia has a long history of revering education and remembers it.  The US had the Protestant work ethic: the Puritans created Harvard 16 years after arriving on American shores.  But, having forgotten our cultural roots, we have fallen into multiculturalism, hedonism and relativism and so can no longer sustain modernist pretentions.  Korea is now modern in a way that the US is not.  It should take pride in its many amazing modern buildings.

Multiculturalism has caused our decline by undermining striving for progress.  It teaches us that all cultures are already equal. It denies our Protestant cultural history - the roots of our greatness. Worse yet - as this conference and my fight epitomized – multiculturalism says we should feel guilty for having taken pride in our culture.  As culture means nothing to western academics, they say our modernism only reflected western racism and imperialism.  And, this guilt, I would hazard, feeds the nihilistic hedonism in our culture.  

For us to be modern again, the West must once again become culturist!  It must acknowledge its traditional majority culture rooted in Protestantism and the Enlightenment.  Both parts gave us respect for education and a sense of having a calling concerning the future and the individual.  We must remember why we were called ‘the New World.’  We must reclaim the noble experiment that asks if individual men can rationally guide their individual and collective lives towards a brighter future.  Pride and a basis for being moral will follow.

OK.  Before ending my rant on modernism, I want to point out what isn’t modern: academics repeating 1960s clichés about western dominance and racism. Memo to Asia: please note how old western cities look; to stay modern, Asian conferences must not invite these sad western Marxist 1960s relics.  Be Asian, be culturist, be futurist, be modern, mock the West’s Marxist ‘academics.’   If you continue to invite and revere them, their PC, cultural marxists BS will cause you to go into exile and at that time, there may be no other modern nation into which to flee.

And so this academic journey to Asia comes to an end.  But, if you ever wish to see modernism, come to Seoul; go to Shanghai.  Along with ruminating about what could have been in the West, it will give you some optimism about mankind’s continuing journey towards the future.

This article was also published at the New English Review

Be Culturist! Judge Cultures! Islam is Retarded!

Islam is retarded!  Retard means, ‘to slow down the development or progress of (something); to hinder advance or accomplishment.’[i]   It also indicates subnormal mental abilities. Islam is retarded in several ways.  It seeks to bring us back to the 7^th century.  In the 21^st century, if that isn’t retarded, I don’t know what is.

We need to be able to say such things – to judge cultures!  It is not racist; it is culturist.   I don’t oppose mosques in the West because dark skinned people meet there.  I oppose mosques because they are temples to retardation!  What self-respecting progressive nation would encourage building temples to retardation?

Multiculturalism promotes retardation by asserting that old world cultures such as African tribes and Hinduism are equal to western culture.  Voodoo dolls and the caste system?  No thanks.  The same goes for Black ghetto culture.  It’s retarded. I am western.  I am into the first world.  I am a progressive, I believe in the future.  I am not a multiculturalist.  I am a culturist.  I judge cultures.

Christianity is not retarded.  Protestantism’s emphasis individual conscience paved the way for scientific inquiry.   A glance at history shows that the West’s combination of Jerusalem and Athens created modernity.  Social studies conclusively link Protestant culture and good government.[ii]  Churches support the culture that made democracy and science possible.  Churches are temples to man’s individual and collective improvement.

As one cannot separate culture and biology, I will go one step further in establishing that Islam is retarded.  Both Athens and Jerusalem emphasize conscious frontal lobe activity; It is because our frontal lobes are so big that we have human abilities.  Islam’s ritual and appeal to anger trigger activity in the cerebellum and amygdala (centers of movement and fear).  As such, Islam seeks to focus on parts of the brain we share with reptiles.  That is beyond mongoloid Down Syndrome retarded!

On the theme of biology, having pride increases serotonin levels and posture. [iii]   Western culturism - by taking pride in our futurist western culture and denigrating backwards cultures - physically increases western fitness.  Multiculturalism and Islam work to lower our standing; to make us equal to and lower than other cultures.  We will never progress as long as we think we’re equal to or below retarded cultures.  When we stand tall we give a sense of direction to ourselves and to the world. 

So spread these culturist thoughts: I judge cultures.  The West is the best.  Our culture increases life spans. Our culture invented the internet and water heaters.  Islam has invented nothing of any use.  Islamic culture is not equal to ours. Stoning women is retarded.  Islam is retarded!

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[i] Merriam – Webster dictionary, retard, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard

[ii] Putnam, Robert, D., “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century; The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture;” Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30, Issue 2, pages 137–174, June 2007.

[iii] David M. Buss, “Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of Mind,” (Boston: Pearson Education Inc., 2012) p. 387.