Gotta Love Conservatives

[Humphrey]

AESTHETICS OF HATE: R.I.P. DIMEBAG ABBOTT, & GOOD RIDDANCE
-- Time For Conservative Imagination!

by William Grim, Iconoclast Contributing Editor

You've undoubtedly heard by now that a demented fan last week killed heavy metal guitarist Dimebag Abbott at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. While I am extremely happy to hear that the assassin was shot to death by a brave Columbus policeman and I in no way want to engage in a blaming the victim scenario, I cannot deny that there much in Mr. Abbott's demise of one being hoisted on one's petard. The squalor, inhumanity, filth (both in the metaphorical and hygienic senses), depravity, ugliness and ignorance of everything that heavy metal represents (Like rap, I cannot use the noble term music in a description of heavy metal) creates a mindset among its devotees in which Mr. Abbott's assassination was an event that was all but waiting to happen.

It was highly amusing, and also terribly sad, to watch on television fans conducting a "vigil" for the slain Mr. Abbott outside of the Alrosa Villa. It was an assemblage of ignorant, semi-human barbarians who were filthy in attire and manner, intellectually incoherent and above all else, hideously ugly to the point of physical deformity. Here is a definite case in which the outer appearance of these "fans" accurately represented the hideousness of their souls. That the physical deformity of their ugliness was self-inflicted makes the spiritual tragedy of their misspent lives all the more tragic.

But one can see why the heavy metal fans so closely identified with Mr. Abbott. He was an ignorant, barbaric, untalented possessor of a guitar and large amplifier system. Freakish in appearance, more simian than human, he was the performer of a type of "entertainment" that can be likened only to a gorilla on PCP. Lacking subtlety, wit, style, emotional range and anything approaching even the smallest iota of intellectual or musical interest, Mr. Abbott was part of a generation that has confused sputum with art and involuntary reflex actions with emotion.

De gustibus non disputandem est. Matters of taste are not subject to argument. That has been a general principle of aesthetics for some time, and when we are talking about the visceral preference for Mozart or Haydn or Beethoven among civilized human beings we are on pretty safe ground. I do not understand exactly why I prefer Haydn to my good friend who prefers Beethoven. But we both agree (as do all civilized human beings) that both Messrs. Haydn and Beethoven are numerous steps further along the evolutionary trail than Dimebag Abbott.

Here is one area in which conservatives have failed and failed miserably. Whether it is out of a lack of interest or despair, conservatives for too long have ceded the entire field of aesthetics to the trust fund red babies of the blue states. And look at what this has brought us. So-called heavy metal music, so-called rap music, operas and stage plays in which modern "stagings" reduce Verdi and Shakespeare to the condition of a schizophrenic's finger paintings. Leftist domination in the visual arts has made a mockery of the aesthetic greatness of modernism and replaced it with the turd encased in Lucite. And the grammatically-challenged racist rantings of Amiri Baraka now pass for poetry.

However, we conservatives should not confuse family values with aesthetics. In the realm of art, our evangelical brethren have many crimes to answer for. When a church replaces Bach with Bacharach it has engaged in the aesthetic rape of the liturgy. Just because one has good intentions and approaches the numinous with "sincerity" and "authenticity" (the latter term ironically being a buzzword among the Marxist aestheticians of the Frankfurt School), that does not absolve one from aesthetic responsibility.

As far as I am concerned, those who advocate a dumbed-down liturgy and schlocky pop music substitutes for Bach, Handel and the masses of the Renaissance, are as offensive as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and his perverse sexual politics.

Part of the hard work of civilization is teaching young to be able to distinguish between the good and the bad in all aspects of life. If we teach our young children to obey the 10 Commandments and to obey the laws of the land, but don't teach them to realize that Johann Sebastian Bach is superior to Dimebag Abbott, we have failed as parents and mentors. If a person has gone through 12 or 13 years of education and has not developed an appreciation for the greatest artistic achievements of mankind, that education has been an utter failure.

While laissez-faire is the correct approach to economics it has no place in the realm of aesthetics or morality. A confidant civilization imposes its morality and aesthetics on it young people. Yes, you heard it right. We impose. The Rousseauian noble savage is a myth. Left unchecked and untutored the savage will never attain nobility.

There are those who will accuse me of elitism. And I admit it. I am a conservative elitist. I want the very best. The very best form of government, the very best of civilizations, the very best educational system, the very best literature and art, the very best music, the very best way of life. If I need open heart surgery I want to go to an elite heart surgeon.

Mediocrity is the goal of socialism. Americans should aspire to greatness.

In the past forty years, conservatives have won great victories in the political, economic and moral realms, but we stand to throw all our gains away if we do not reclaim ascendancy in the aesthetic realm as well.

And while the murder of even a semi-human barbarian like Mr. Abbott is tragic and to be lamented, it would be wrong to ignore Mr. Abbott's complicity in contributing to the soul-deadening culture of death, ugliness, depravity and inhumanity that spawned his killer.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal once remarked that "all powerful imaginations are conservative." It is time for conservatives to utilize their imaginations and reclaim the field of aesthetics from the left-that is, while there is still something left in the aesthetic realm worth reclaiming.

(Iconoclast contributing editor William E. Grim is a writer who lives in Germany and is a native of Columbus, Ohio. He may be reached at wgrim@myrealbox.com.)


[hr]http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[Smith]

oh dear...

[Haunted]

cunt

[steerpike]

Hugo von Hofmannsthal once remarked that "all powerful imaginations are conservative."


*******

...surely a contradiction?

for conservatives to have any depth of imagination and *shock* new ideas and creativity, that requires taking art forward beyond convention, which requires guts, courage and a lack of concern for what is considered the staus quo.

Wouldnt this not defeat the purpose of being a conservative?

[Marco Biagi]

for conservatives to have any depth of imagination and *shock* new ideas and creativity, that requires taking art forward beyond convention, which requires guts, courage and a lack of concern for what is considered the staus quo.

It depends. Some conservatives are so in favour of old things they want to go back to them. Like Hitler. For him the Enlightenment and scientific rationality was something that happened to somebody else. Anywhere other than St Andrews it takes a bit of courage to advocate going back to the era of caves, religious theocracy or the Raj.


[hr]
Lib Dem Watch - http://www.libdemwatch.co.uk/
"They've Got A Point" - http://re-focus.blogspot.com/
[s]The author makes no apologies for the fact that some of the sentences above contain more than nine words - the recommended maximum for LibDem Focus leaflets.[/s]

[Campbell]

"If we teach our young children to obey the 10 Commandments and to obey the laws of the land, but don't teach them to realize that Johann Sebastian Bach is superior to Dimebag Abbott, we have failed as parents and mentors."

stupid cunt

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Not going for the heavy metal vote then?

[Wong]

The trouble is that the popular idea of "heavy metal" is now the horrific assault on the ears that MTV and the like brainwash people with, and a lot of his comments on that genre are pretty valid. (Come to think of it, the same goes for rap, even though I'm not a fan of it.) But it's rather ignorant to apply those comments to the entire genres.

Summary: Idiot.

[hr]No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves

[iab2]

I dont believe "cunt" to be a constructive criticism. Also your responses are "Lacking subtlety, wit, style, emotional range and anything approaching even the smallest iota of intellectual" interest.

A poor display from the country's most "intelligent" people. Perhaps society should have imposed some manners on you. However, as no-one has it just shows our society as non-caring and selfish, as children do not learn courtesy nor even appear willing to consider an alternative (ie unfashionable) morality. Remember our country was once great and the envy of the world, now sadly ruined by weak morality.

Conservatives are not the same as Hitler, as much as the chattering classes would have the world believe. Simply calling a person Hitler shows inability to construct proper cohesive arguments, further illustration of the poor state of education in this country.

This country has (occasionally) freedom of speech, and a persons viewpoint should be debated, accepted or ignored, not simply shouted down by a poorly educated rabble until the opinion is lost. If an idea has such an effect on certain people, then perhaps the people who are uncomfortable with the idea are not as free thinking and forward looking as they think. Such a response could only be deemed "conservative" as there is an unwillingness to change present. Differences of peoples opinions are perhaps just different conservative viewpoints. There are few true visionaries in the world, the rest just stick to their routines, grumbling about change.

[Humphrey]

[s]iab2 wrote on 17:36, 15th Dec 2004:
I dont believe "cunt" to be a constructive criticism. Also your responses are "Lacking subtlety, wit, style, emotional range and anything approaching even the smallest iota of intellectual" interest.

A poor display from the country's most "intelligent" people. Perhaps society should have imposed some manners on you. However, as no-one has it just shows our society as non-caring and selfish, as children do not learn courtesy nor even appear willing to consider an alternative (ie unfashionable) morality. Remember our country was once great and the envy of the world, now sadly ruined by weak morality.

Conservatives are not the same as Hitler, as much as the chattering classes would have the world believe. Simply calling a person Hitler shows inability to construct proper cohesive arguments, further illustration of the poor state of education in this country.

This country has (occasionally) freedom of speech, and a persons viewpoint should be debated, accepted or ignored, not simply shouted down by a poorly educated rabble until the opinion is lost. If an idea has such an effect on certain people, then perhaps the people who are uncomfortable with the idea are not as free thinking and forward looking as they think. Such a response could only be deemed "conservative" as there is an unwillingness to change present. Perhaps one persons ideal is just a different version of conservatism to anothers. There are few true visionaries in the world, the rest just stick to their routines.


Cunt!

[hr]
http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[iab2]

[s]Humphrey wrote on 17:39, 15th Dec 2004:
[s]iab2 wrote on 17:36, 15th Dec 2004:[i]
I dont believe "cunt" to be a constructive criticism. Also your responses are "Lacking subtlety, wit, style, emotional range and anything approaching even the smallest iota of intellectual" interest.

A poor display from the country's most "intelligent" people. Perhaps society should have imposed some manners on you. However, as no-one has it just shows our society as non-caring and selfish, as children do not learn courtesy nor even appear willing to consider an alternative (ie unfashionable) morality. Remember our country was once great and the envy of the world, now sadly ruined by weak morality.

Conservatives are not the same as Hitler, as much as the chattering classes would have the world believe. Simply calling a person Hitler shows inability to construct proper cohesive arguments, further illustration of the poor state of education in this country.

This country has (occasionally) freedom of speech, and a persons viewpoint should be debated, accepted or ignored, not simply shouted down by a poorly educated rabble until the opinion is lost. If an idea has such an effect on certain people, then perhaps the people who are uncomfortable with the idea are not as free thinking and forward looking as they think. Such a response could only be deemed "conservative" as there is an unwillingness to change present. Perhaps one persons ideal is just a different version of conservatism to anothers. There are few true visionaries in the world, the rest just stick to their routines.


Cunt!

[hr]
http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/
[/i]



Ah, touché!

(I still stand by my opinion)

[Humphrey]

As far as I can see there is no point being made here that could possibly justify a debate, an expletive seems to be most appropriate response. Lets leave aside the fact that it is in extremely poor taste to call someone a ‘semi-human barbarian’ shortly after he has been shot. If Mr Grim was writing this about Idi Amin then I suspect he would have a point, but to condemn someone for contributing to a certain genre of music you happen not to like is ridiculous. What constitutes the ‘best’ art and the ‘best’ music is an objective test and to say that all metal must be part of a ‘soul-deadening culture of death, ugliness, depravity and inhumanity’ is cultural fascism. Surely you can still have an appreciation for the ‘greatest artistic achievements of mankind’ and still think that Pantera kick butt.

[hr]http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[Humphrey]

[s]iab2 wrote on 17:44, 15th Dec 2004:
[s]Humphrey wrote on 17:39, 15th Dec 2004:
[s]iab2 wrote on 17:36, 15th Dec 2004:[i]
Remember our country was once great and the envy of the world, now sadly ruined by weak morality.


I thought it was because of two world wars, our decline as an industrial nation and the erosion of our position as a world power. It wasn't because we started listening to Black Sabbath, smoking pot and indulging in promiscuous sex.

[hr]http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/[/hr]

[iab2]

I thought it was because of two world wars, our decline as an industrial nation and the erosion of our position as a world power. It wasn't because we started listening to Black Sabbath, smoking pot and indulging in promiscuous sex.



The two world wars were severly crippling for our nation, leaving us short of men and money and having to rebuild our shattered infrastructure. This was quickly followed by a rise in unions, which helped bring about a higher wage for workers and bancruptcy for their workplaces. No new buissnesses were (and are) willing to establish themselves in the country and so our industry disapeared, along with all the jobs they once supplied. This left most towns and cities without work for their populations who in turn became apathetic to work.

The winter of discontent brought an end to most major manufacturing firms and the workers never recovered from this. Their children turn to crime and drugs (including your harmless pot) and now do very little for their communities (broken up after collapse of industry), their parents, to apathetic to work never mind bring up children, do not impose right and wrong into the kids and as a result their generation do not enforce the rights of our society as they have never known any reason to do so. Education is available to them (they do not go as parents do not care) and with a greater education these people may realise that we could have a great country again.

Britain is not a country to be ashamed of, it was great and could be great again. The only obstacle to that is morally bancrupt people. Metal music is not a cause of decline but a lot of music helps propogate the problem. Music glorifying crime, guns, murder etc do nothing but inspire the youth to a life crime. Nothing good arises from a nation of criminals*.

*(except Australia (bolstered by ligitimate immigration and old British influence))

[iab2]

I forgot to mention promiscuous sex. This lead to many underage and single mothers having children that they could not possibly know how to bring up being children themselves (and ones without much moral guidance). These children as a result of poor mothering grew up with poor morals and expect nothing more than their mothers gave them, nothing. These children as I already mentioned do not understand right and wrong, so there is little wonder that classroom violence is rising and school standards are falling. If children do not have an incentive to learn they will not, and so will contribute nothing later in life other than a signiture for their benifits. Perhaps stricter benefit laws need introducing as an incentive to work, and with work an ambition to do better for yourself.

However there are always exceptions to the rule and some people will attempt to acheive better in life, but in the main the above is an accurate assessment of our society today.



By the way, prison is meant as a deterrent to crime, but European Human Rights laws have made many prisons better furnished than our halls of residence (uni halls table-tennis table broke recently, there is no replacement, but many prisons have Playstations, pool tables and even large aquariums! FFS why do they get treated like royalty when the people who will contribute to (rather destroy) society get outdated decor, facilities and crumbling buildings, which are never repaired until well to late when a prison riot will trash their facilities and yet will still get everything replaced straight afterwards. The prisoners will be living in better conditions than the warders who guard them. Its no wonder people habitually commit crime, would you want to live in small flat struggling to buy food never mind playstations, when you could be back in a private cell with free tv and playstations, no bills to pay and meals provided.

Somethings wrong with the country and it shows no sign of getting better.

[Greebo]

If we teach our young children to obey the 10 Commandments and to obey the laws of the land, but don't teach them to realize that Johann Sebastian Bach is superior to Dimebag Abbott, we have failed as parents and mentors.

If we fail to teach our children critical thinking and the importance of forming one's own opinion rather than conforming to (for example) this idiot's, THEN we have failed as parents.

What an utterly pointless, rude and closed minded article that was.

[hr]http://www.greebo.org.uk - Loadsa drunken photos and suchlikes.

[Bread Roll]

[s]Greebo wrote on 19:47, 15th Dec 2004:


If we fail to teach our children critical thinking ....

It is possible to take an A-Level in Critical Thinking. How bizarre.

[hr]
Rap is a continuation of the Sex Pistols, it's quite obvious - Johnny Rotten

[David]

i ddnt read the whole thing as my attention span is very small

but I don't see how he can think dimebag wasn't talented, I've never been a big fan of pantera or damageplan but I know dime was an amazingly talented guitarist anc could play extremely fast and great solos

[Humphrey]

Both left and right seem to harp on a lot around the tiresome subject of decline. The left go on about the penetrative influence of capitalism and Americanisation, and the right bemoan the welfare state, a collapse in moral standards and the dissolution of Victorian values. There are parallels in the equation of apparent decline with moral decline in the beliefs of the Romans who bemoaned the loss of their fine rustic character, tight-knit families, and old-time religion, which they thought, had been corrupted by inferior foreign values and moral decrepitude. This was due to a lack of understanding of the complex political, social, and economic reasons for the ‘fall’ of the empire, a simplistic explanation was favoured. Rome did not decline; it changed, as all cultures must and the more prosperous eastern half survived as the Roman empire for another 1000 years.

Britain, its true has lost its empire, but it was a problematic asset, a drain on the British exchequer and virtually independent by the 1920s (with the exception of India). Britain has lost its power on the world stage but can still make an impact on world affairs as a junior partner of the U.S and as part of the E.C.

The British manufacturing sector has had its major problems certainly (Parts of the country are backward and shoddy considering we are meant to be a part of a Industrialised economy), but these have been counterbalanced by an unparalleled prosperity. The performance of the UK economy has been viewed with pessimism for the past century with complaints of low growth, insufficient investment, poor industrial relations and inept management. Actually if you look at the last 100 years, the U.K’s living standards have more than quadrupled, on average the economy has expanded by 2% every year. All that happened was our organisational and technological lead over our competitors was eroded as they went through the same process of industrialisation we did. Its unreasonable to except a country this small to remain the largest economy in the world as it was in 1850. There was a sharp decline in the early 80s but since then productivity has risen despite recession and the economy has made significant strides for the better.

The social and cultural movements of the 1960s and after have resulted in a more exciting and dynamic society and American influences have been incorporated into a far less stodgy culture. Elitism and the stratified society that it engendered in 1945 has been challenged, largely successfully; class, gender or race hierarchies still exist but have been weakened, and the changes are what make Britain the open society that it is today. Class is less a source of identity than it was 50 years ago. Immigrants have enriched British society and significant parts of the country are truly multi-cultural. Britain has become less repressive in its social norms, creating a more open and tolerant society. In fact Britain has seen progress on all fronts, really all this talk about decline is a load of pessimistic nonsense.

‘Reports of my death have been very much exaggerated’ – Mark Twain


[hr]http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[iab2]

Immigrants have enriched British society and significant parts of the country are truly multi-cultural.

I would not agree on this front as most british cities have ghettos of ethnic minorities who partially reject our way of life but continue to live in our country like us. Throughout British history people from foreign lands have settled and integrated into our society individually and without too much trouble, but recently the illegal imigrants arriving en masse have caused racial trouble and new social devides to open up. An illegal immagrant (not a true assylum seeker) can expect a free house, television and large benifit cheques, whereas the average British person needing a council house cannot get accommodation, and certainly cannot expect to recieve a tv and computer.

Individual legal immigrants are fine as are genuine asylum seekers (in certain circumstances) but why does an Afghan family need to come here for asylum when they could move to Pakistan (a Muslim country with similar culture). They come here for the free ride on the tax payer. Once here they are isolated in ghettos, refuse to integrate with our society and expect US to conform to their way of life.

The "multi-cultural" ideal is a joke as these illegals do not wish to have anything to do with our country on the whole. Working in a supermarket I see illegal immigrants in the store and none will speak to any locals and if they want something they can barely ask for it. Ethnic minority employees of the store (mainly the muslims) refuse to speak or even aknowledge your presence. There are even those who alienate the entire community by preaching that our way of life is wrong and that female employees are "temptresses" for demonstrating food during Ramadan.

All the above cause rifts with the local people. It is no wonder that racial tensions have exploded into violence (all sides as bad as each other).

The only way to true "multi-culturalism" is allow legal immigration as these people accept our way of life, and reduce significantly illegal immigration.

I myself am part Polish and my family comes from the settling of Poles after WW2 in the towns they were based in for five years. In that time these men had integrated into communities and even married locals. They could not return home as the USSR had annexed Poland and would not allow people to return. It was only fair these people were allowed to stay, after helping save the country from Fascism.

In short LEGAL immigration enriches the country as it is small scale and a gradual process, illegal immigration is rapid changing of society by one group of people, in the manner of being conquered, and the benifits recieved by these people currently grates on the average person. If there is any aggreivment then multi-culturalism does not work.

Society can be enriched by immigration but currently there is too much controversy for it to be accepted.

" like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood" "
Enoch Powell

It is a truly sad situation when the people of Britain start fighting each other. All thats needed is a small change in government policy to make immigrants accept our culture and the British people will be found to more tollerant. I trully believe that immigration can keep the country vibrant as long as new social devides do not form, and those which exist are removed, as all people have equal rights to life.