"I just want to tell fun stories" is a trap, because even the fun stories of yore had more to them than "This happened, and then that happened, and the good guys win THE END."
Your broader point about the gleeful anti-intellectualism of many reactionary movements is spot-on. It's frustrating to see a movement with a lot of energy and valid criticisms of the mainstream devolve into schlocky pastiche while willfully cutting itself off from the rich vein of culture it has inherited, save for a cartoonish version of Christianity (usually Catholicism). I am painting with a broad brush, and there is much good writing out there. These criticisms are levied not at the writers themselves actually putting stuff out there, but a lot of the commentary I see on said movements.
"We need to go back to the 1990s" is, I think, something people who weren't alive in the 1990s, or were too young to remember the 1990s, say.
Say what you will about the 90s, there was at least a certain amount of creativity in the literature of the time. It wasn't all just rehashed pastiche of what came before. At that time I could spend hours in a bookshop agonizing over which book I wanted to buy, there were so many. Now it takes hours to find one that might be worth my time. We're living in a great creative drought, an exhaustion of new ideas, and not only in literature. I suspect this is related to the self-referrential simulacrum we inhabit - we've lost touch with the Real, which is the ultimate spring of creation. Then there's the authoritarian turn, the pervasive systems of social control, the bureaucratization, the endless rules, the walking on eggshells around the fickle sensibilities of sensitivity readers. All of which is fertile grounds for satire, which is why the only creatively energetic part of the culture is the dissident right.
But I agree with this. The answer is absolutely not to bury ourselves in nostalgia for the corporate schlock of a slightly less decadent era. Fun stories are necessary but very far from sufficient.
We're currently living in the world that Ayn Rand so artfully depicted in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. New ideas are demonized, people are told that what they should like and why they should enjoy it, and those of us who see the demise of human potential are being slowly ground under the heel of "progressiveness, or love for those in need". This is why all the movies that come out now are nothing but recycled garbage, originality is no longer a virtue and is looked down upon by those looters who are living off the crumbs of the original Hollywood players while contributing absolutely nothing to modern discourse.
I agree with you but I will elaborate on a point I don’t think I articulated clearly: the issue I have with 90s nostalgia is that it’s almost always centered on corporate pop-cultural products. It’s not “We had mostly intact families” (which we didn’t) and “The economy was booming and my dad supported us in a nice house on one salary” (mostly true) and “crime was low” (depending on where you lived, sure). It’s “We need to go back to the 90s because the music and video games were great.”
Have you looked at the work of John C Wright, or his wife L. Jagi Lamplighter?
There's also Mary Catelli, who mostly does pastiches of fairy tales. However, she knows many of the original fairy tales, not just the couple that are well know due to Disney.
I've read Wright extensively, and I agree - he's actually fairly original, and an excellent stylist capable of stunning heights of poetic description. Guy's got a remarkably vivid imagination.
John boosted one of my essays on his blog a couple months back. Was a cool feeling getting noticed by someone of his stature, and he was an absolute gentleman in my comments on top of it.
"I just want to tell fun stories" is a trap, because even the fun stories of yore had more to them than "This happened, and then that happened, and the good guys win THE END."
Your broader point about the gleeful anti-intellectualism of many reactionary movements is spot-on. It's frustrating to see a movement with a lot of energy and valid criticisms of the mainstream devolve into schlocky pastiche while willfully cutting itself off from the rich vein of culture it has inherited, save for a cartoonish version of Christianity (usually Catholicism). I am painting with a broad brush, and there is much good writing out there. These criticisms are levied not at the writers themselves actually putting stuff out there, but a lot of the commentary I see on said movements.
"We need to go back to the 1990s" is, I think, something people who weren't alive in the 1990s, or were too young to remember the 1990s, say.
Say what you will about the 90s, there was at least a certain amount of creativity in the literature of the time. It wasn't all just rehashed pastiche of what came before. At that time I could spend hours in a bookshop agonizing over which book I wanted to buy, there were so many. Now it takes hours to find one that might be worth my time. We're living in a great creative drought, an exhaustion of new ideas, and not only in literature. I suspect this is related to the self-referrential simulacrum we inhabit - we've lost touch with the Real, which is the ultimate spring of creation. Then there's the authoritarian turn, the pervasive systems of social control, the bureaucratization, the endless rules, the walking on eggshells around the fickle sensibilities of sensitivity readers. All of which is fertile grounds for satire, which is why the only creatively energetic part of the culture is the dissident right.
But I agree with this. The answer is absolutely not to bury ourselves in nostalgia for the corporate schlock of a slightly less decadent era. Fun stories are necessary but very far from sufficient.
We're currently living in the world that Ayn Rand so artfully depicted in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. New ideas are demonized, people are told that what they should like and why they should enjoy it, and those of us who see the demise of human potential are being slowly ground under the heel of "progressiveness, or love for those in need". This is why all the movies that come out now are nothing but recycled garbage, originality is no longer a virtue and is looked down upon by those looters who are living off the crumbs of the original Hollywood players while contributing absolutely nothing to modern discourse.
I agree with you but I will elaborate on a point I don’t think I articulated clearly: the issue I have with 90s nostalgia is that it’s almost always centered on corporate pop-cultural products. It’s not “We had mostly intact families” (which we didn’t) and “The economy was booming and my dad supported us in a nice house on one salary” (mostly true) and “crime was low” (depending on where you lived, sure). It’s “We need to go back to the 90s because the music and video games were great.”
Yeah it's the pop cult, and it's absolutely toxic and empty.
Have you looked at the work of John C Wright, or his wife L. Jagi Lamplighter?
There's also Mary Catelli, who mostly does pastiches of fairy tales. However, she knows many of the original fairy tales, not just the couple that are well know due to Disney.
I've read Wright extensively, and I agree - he's actually fairly original, and an excellent stylist capable of stunning heights of poetic description. Guy's got a remarkably vivid imagination.
More generally it seems like conservatives would rather complain about how bad modern literature is than promoting the authors who aren't.
Sadly true, with notable exceptions.
John and Jagi are great writers and lovely people.
John boosted one of my essays on his blog a couple months back. Was a cool feeling getting noticed by someone of his stature, and he was an absolute gentleman in my comments on top of it.
That’s John for you.
I’ve only read Somewhither, but I dig his blog.
And his wife is awesome too. She edited my first book and helped me out a lot. Really sweet person.
The Count to a Trillion series is well worth your time.