Why is the right losing so many of the key battles over values? The right-wing complains and speculates about how it can win over the language and the ideas – the famous hearts and minds – and that debate comes and goes; it has been like this for years. The merry-go-round of lamentation spins round without getting anywhere.
One explanation is that right-wing, bourgeois, conservative people do not take art and culture seriously. Marxist thinkers, on the other hand, understood as early as the beginning of the twentieth century that culture sets the limits of what one can think. Artists and philosophers shape the imagination of ordinary people, and thus also what is perceived as politically correct.
The complaint is justified, but it leads nowhere as long as the right does not itself foster an environment that takes art and culture seriously.
Fortunately, things are beginning to change. More right-wingers are speaking and writing wisely and passionately about art and culture. This includes thinkers such as Martin Lichtmesz and Jonathan Keeperman. Writers on Substack are also worth reading.
Inspired by some of them, I would like to put forward a suggestion here as to what the right should do if it is to create an environment, a culture of reception, in which art can be appropriated and utilised in the broader battle of values.
The meaning of a work depends on the culture of reception
A painting, a poem, a film or a piece of music cannot, in a decisive sense, mean anything, and if it tries to, the result is almost always poor – propaganda. Whether a work is regarded as right-wing or left-wing depends only partly on its content.
The rest is determined by reception – that is, how critics, editors, essayists, foundations, publishers, researchers, artists, the artist themselves and others interpret the works. This is the culture of reception, and it has the final say. It is the customs post of interpretation, and it determines what gets through to the public, and which narrative is conveyed.
The problem is that the right is largely absent from this cycle, from this customs post. This is due to an effective mechanism of exclusion within cultural institutions, but it is also due to the right-wing itself: it has never taken art seriously enough.
Consequently, works that might point in a conservative direction are, so to speak, silenced. For they do not have many gifted interpreters who can speak on their behalf. A conservative film that no one recognises as conservative is, in practice, not conservative.
An example might be Christian Tafdrup’s masterpiece *Speak No Evil* from 2022 or Lars von Trier’s *Manderlay* from 2005. Both films were acclaimed in their day, but their radical, conservative content went unnoticed, even though Tafdrup’s film is a scathing critique of the cowardice that hides behind the mask of decency, well-meaning humanism, Merkel’s wir schaffen das. And von Trier’s film is arguably the most politically incorrect film ever in Danish film history, with its portrayal, on the one hand, of the idealist’s descent into evil in his attempt to free the slaves, and, on the other, of the slaves’ desire to remain on the slave plantation with its clear order.
Right-wingers have hated Lars von Trier ever since he cut the Dannebrog flag to pieces in protest against being included in the national cultural canon in 2006. This merely demonstrates how poor the judgement of many right-wingers is, for one must naturally not allow oneself to be misled by the views of the artist. A work of art exists on its own terms and often contradicts the artist’s views. The work of art is wiser than the artist.
Art before politics
A strong and discerning culture of appreciation begins with a love of art, not with politics. It is therefore crucial to get to know an art form from the inside, to be familiar with the craftsmanship, the materials and art history, and to be able to spot details that others overlook. Without this knowledge, one has little to contribute to a serious conversation.
One should not start by asking whether a work is ‘right-wing’. Instead, one should ask whether it is good and true.
And just as one should not let the artist behind the work dictate one’s opinion and taste, neither should one let the art institution – that is to say, the left-wing arbiters of taste – have the final say. This applies in both a positive and a negative sense: the right’s reflex is sometimes to love what the left hates, and vice versa. That is wrong.
I have met right-wingers who cannot bring themselves to like Tafdrup’s film because a child has its tongue cut off. It is too gruesome, child abuse, and that is not something one wants to see. Similarly, many people refrain from watching von Trier’s film because it is too experimental. It has practically no sets, just lines drawn on the floor of a film studio. Or they do not want to engage with abstract, lyrical expressionism, which seems inhuman. That is often true, of course, but one can interpret it to great advantage from a right-wing perspective, precisely because the works speak the truth – and are well made.
One should not necessarily believe that left-wing interpreters have turned works of art into expressions of liberalism and liberation. The opposite may well be the case, if one looks more closely. We are told that the series ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is about Trump’s America. The truth is simply that it is a relentless portrayal of an Islamist theocracy.
There are plenty of good examples out there. We just need to get started on creating a right-wing culture of respect.
