Klavan On The Culture

February 27th, 2009 6:24 am

Conservatives, Create!

I thought we had an excellent panel on New Media at PJTV’s Conservative 2.0 conference at C-PAC. Bill Whittle, who moderated, is a treasure to the movement, a heart-and-brain guy with all manner of camera-ready skills.

But hey, this is my blog, so let me reiterate one point here that I made in the discussion—because I genuinely think it’s important to the resurgence of conservatism. If we’re going to counter the left’s power in new media, we can’t just be reactive and critical, we have to be pro-active and creative. We have to make things. This is as true in journalism as it is in the culture. It’s all well and good to storm and rage that the mainstream news media parachuted thousands of journalists into Bristol Palin’s uterus while completely ignoring the little matter of political corruption in Barack Obama’s home state. But ultimately, we have to accept that the MSM is now a corrupted and self-abased subsidiary of the left and move on to doing reportage of our own. We have to get the facts—and we have to get the facts out. We need commentators, sure, and idea men. But we also need reporters, guys and girls who do the legwork and find out what’s what. The truth is always on our side but it doesn’t help us if no one knows what the truth is.

The same applies to the arts. We can criticize their movies and Oscar speeches all we want. We should. But in the end, it’s just playing defense. Conservatives have to create—movies, novels—culture—if we’re going to bring America back to the traditions and structures that support individual liberty.

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4 Comments

1. Kathy Reinoehl:

A group of us who have worked in the movie and TV industry have been producing and creating several different series and are about to formally launch a web channel which will showcase those as well as material from up and coming producers. It is called channelblu.com. It is strictly a G rated channel because we wanted to create a space where everyone could go including children without being subjected to unwanted garbage. It can be viewed now but we may have a few minor issues still to resolve. This is our effort to create something that promotes positive messages and positive values.

Feb 27, 2009 - 8:58 am 2. Horace Wells:

Not going to hold my breathe on this one. “American Carol” was okay but didn’t rose above the level of “Scary Movie” or “Airplane”. Oh, can’t forget the “Left Behind” series of books, that is great literature, a real examination of the human soul and life.
Lets not forget great actors like Mel Gibson or Chuck Norris, they can make some more good life affirming movies about good guys killing off all bad guys and saving us from evil doers.
Face it, judging from what I see here or on other sites and hear on talk radio, the average con is so artless, unimaginative and knee-jerk they can do little better than live action cartoons like “300″!

Feb 27, 2009 - 7:55 pm 3. Kathy:

Not everything will be to everyone’s taste or liking, but at least some people are making an effort.

Feb 28, 2009 - 4:42 pm 4. Joef:

Andrew K’s clarion call is very important.

Conservatives, create culture! The backbone mythology of conservative artistic creation, more often than not, happily happens to be TRUE! Americans, and the world, have always responded to the best of it very positively. Think Gran Torino, and hundreds of other fabulous movies and novels.

I am grateful for Andrew Klavan!

Mar 11, 2009 - 10:12 am