AHC: More combined political movements and artistic movements

[Walpurgisnacht]

As odd as it may seem to some, art and politics have been combined often. Many prominent Futurists advocated a sort of proto-fascism, the Surrealist movement had strong left-anarchist sympathies, and the Situationists regarded their art and their politics as inseparable. The trend of art-politics interaction continues today with collectives like the Gorilla Girls.

However, very few artistic movements have given rise to political movements regarded as inseparable, and none of said movements (with the possible exception of the Futurists depending on how much you think they influenced Mussolini) have ever really broken into the mainstream. Could things have been different?

 

[Yokai Man]

I once had the idea of Abstract Expressionists forming their own version of Anarchism-one that’s a fusion of Anarcho-Syndicalism and Anarcho-Libertarianism,as well as adding in their views that you should choice your own individual meaning for what something means or exists and that modern society at large is corrupt and nonsensical.

Unfortunately I don’t think guys like Barnett Newman were really political per se or wanted to be so it kinda made it hard for them to make a political current a reality and Jackson Pollock was apparently a Stalinist so yeah,that didn’t seem possible.

Maybe a more violent May ‘68 could result in Situationism being slightly more powerful,but it ain’t likely.

 

[Geordie]

Fascinating idea, although I'm not really very knowledgeable about art, so don't know what I can contribute.

My first thought is Laibach, in a world where the Iron Curtain takes longer to fall. They could maybe have inspired a much bigger wave of similar artists and performers across the Eastern Bloc. However, that feels too anti-Titoism/anti-Soviet: it needs to become pro-something particular. If, over the eighties and nineties, there's a specific alternative being pushed by these groups, it might develop into something more. Bonus points if it's an interesting new political style.

I wait for this idea to be thoroughly demolished by somebody who knows more.

 

[OHC]

This is tougher than it seems at first! I can think of a few artists or artist-led movements that could have won elections or gained more political influence, but not many where the art and the politics were one and the same. I mean, Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer were part of the same literary movement and ran for office around the same time, but it's not like it was a joint ticket motivated by the principles of New Journalism; Birgitta Jónsdóttir and the Icelandic Pirates had a shot at forming a government led by poets and filmmakers but as far as I know there wasn't a specific "pirate movement" in the art world.

A couple ideas from an American context:

- What about some kind of antimodernist, anticapitalist populism emerging from groups like the Southern Agrarians and the Regionalist painters during the 1920s and 1930s? Thomas Hart Benton follows his namesake into politics? WPA workerist aesthetics meet Old Right rural nostalgia and isolationism?

- Alternatively, an explicitly punk urbanism (think Jello Biafra's mayoral campaign or Tompkins Square Park) flourishing as an alternative to a conservative, suburbanite national consensus during the 1980s?

 

[OHC]

Maybe a more violent May ‘68 could result in Situationism being slightly more powerful,but it ain’t likely.

There should really be more AH about a successful Mai 68. @Hendryk introduced the forum to this comic a while back, which is worth a read if you know some French - there is definitely some interesting artistic experimentation going on, but iirc in this French Commune the power rests with the orthodox Communists and with opportunists like Jacques Chirac, while the countercultural types are being kind of led on and manipulated.

 

[Hendryk]

There should really be more AH about a successful Mai 68. @Hendryk introduced the forum to this comic a while back, which is worth a read if you know some French - there is definitely some interesting artistic experimentation going on, but iirc in this French Commune the power rests with the orthodox Communists and with opportunists like Jacques Chirac, while the countercultural types are being kind of led on and manipulated.

Ah yes, it's still even now my favorite of the series. I like the idea of a new regime that allows countercultural utopianism to go all in, with sometimes silly results. One small correction: it's explained in one of the infodumps that when the civil war started the Communists tried to request intervention by the USSR, which soured everyone on them, and so they are kept at arm's length by the Neo-Commune.

Spoiler: Infodump

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

What about some kind of antimodernist, anticapitalist populism emerging from groups like the Southern Agrarians and the Regionalist painters during the 1920s and 1930s?

This kind of happened with the Arts and Craft revival in the Thirties, which mixed with some Papal encyclicals to create Distributism as we know it.

 

[Time Enough]

I wonder what the effect would be of a Constructvist Soviet Union, since a number of them were former Futursits it would probably be Futurism with a Marxist-Leninist paint job on it, also it may be not as repressive.

 

[Oppo]

Maybe a more violent May ‘68 could result in Situationism being slightly more powerful,but it ain’t likely.

I did a list based on this premise. de Gaulle disappears, leading to the election of PMF and the dawn of a Sixth Republic. A far-right reaction happens, with the 1970s being dominated by Massu, Debré, and Papon. The “Alliance 1968” takes power with Cohn-Benedit as PM and Debord as President.

Spoiler: the list

de Gaulle goes missing during May 1968, leaving to a political split between Pompidou, Monnerville, and the Parisian police. The left is able to unite around PMF, who defeats the scandalous Pompidou and announces a leftist Sixth Republic. The man who was once called French in name only finally gets his revenge on de Gaulle. PMF’s Plural Left Coalition immediately faces conflict between the various political factions. The government is able to expand the French welfare state and introduces a system of workers’ self-management. At the end of the two year coalition agreement, Marchias withdraws the PCF from government, triggering new elections.

Massu, giving new life to Gaullism with his Parti Pour la Défense de France, wins a landslide majority. The ultra-Gaullist Michel Debré retook his position as PM, and appointed the general president, restoring the president’s former powers. Massu’s government was aimed at reversing the cultural change in post-May 1968 France and restoring Catholic values. Both Spain and Britain entered the EEC, and French ties to NATO were restored. A policy of Francafrique led to French-led military interventions in Africa, often installing anti-communist dictators.

While he was highly controversial, General Massu was adored by many for strengthening the reputation of France on the global stage and installing morals into society. In 1977, his allies defeated Mitterrand with a slightly reduced majority; but for the right in France, things promptly went downhill. After seven years as PM, Debré fell victim to a scandal involving the forced relocation of children from Réunion. Massu felt that the scandal was casus beli for Debré’s removal, and replaced him with the tough on crime Maurice Papon. While the tag team of Papon and Massu was personally popular, the French economy had fallen into a recession by the end of the decade. Of course, the collapse of the French right did not occur just because of a recession.

Two years into his term, Papon faced a scandal of astronomical proportions. Newspapers revealed the Prime Minister’s involvement in the Holocaust. As a senior official in Vichy France, Papon signed off on the deportation of 1,690 Jews to Drancy. As a cherry on top, information about Papon’s use of torture in Algeria entered the public spotlight. Jean Royer, the former Mayor of Tors, took over as Prime Minister. Already, the government was on shaky ground.

The president soon met a scandal of his own when Algerian author Louisette Ighilahriz accused Massu of rape in 1957. Information about the role of torture in Algeria also resurfaced, including Massu’s responsibility. This was the nail in the coffin for the PPDF government, which lost a vote of confidence.

Royer could not salvage his party, which soon polled below 5%. Right of center voters went to Jean Lecanuet’s Christian Democrats or the infamous Jacques Médecin’s “Radical Party of the Right.” Many decided not to vote, or cast their ballots for the Alliance 1968 as a protest of “the system” and Mitterrand. Polls showed a three-way battle between the FGDS, Alliance, and PCF. While one would expect the established FGDS to win, Mitterrand had been diagnosed with an incurable type of cancer and was unable to campaign. The party struggled to explain his absence from the campaign trail, revealing divisions between the different parties in the FGDS. Pierre Mauroy and Michel Richard each tried to line up for the job of Prime Minister, leading to countless petty infighting.

Shockingly, the ginger German bourgeoisie anarchist ended up with the most seats in the Assembly. The kingmakers would be Marchias, who had a long feud with both Mitterrand and especially Cohn-Bendit. While the PCF initially reached out to Mitterrand, they faced disagreements over the various liberal parties within his coalition. As the socialist parties and the PCF alone could form a government, Marchias demanded that the Radicals and UDSR not be included in government. Mitterrand refused, not wanting to divide the FGDS.

Marchias eventually agreed on two years of confidence and supply for Cohn-Bendit. The new libertarian socialist government reversed the ban on abortion, adopted pro-immigration policies, allowed for same-sex civil unions, and promoted greater European integration. Greater powers were returned to the Prime Minister, with the heads of government and state each taking an active role in governing. Economically, the Marxist Debord and more free market Cohn-Bendit frequently disagreed,

The political opposition began to form new factions in response the fall of the Gaullist parties. After the death of Mitterrand in 1981, the FGDS and the PMD merged together to form the Social & Christian Democratic Party. This new grouping achieve what had long been advocated by Gaston Defferre, an alliance of the non-communist left and the non-Gaullist right.

The Communists, meanwhile, abandoned their prior paths of Stalinism and Eurocommunism. Without the role of Gaullism, the PCF decided to crank up the nationalist aspect of their party. While new party leader Roger Garaudy has been previously seen as a reformist, he dismissed social progressivism as a bourgeoisie plot, opposed European integration, and wanted strong checks on North African immigration. Cultural traditionalists weren’t even as fearful of the PCF when their leader had converted to Catholicism.

At the end of the two-year confidence agreement, the Communists predictably agreed to drop their support and push for new elections. Cohn-Bendit also wanted to be free from the PCF’s influence, starting the campaign off between the three major parties. But despite the strong campaigns from the opposition, it seemed the divided anti-May vote led to a majority for the Alliance 1968. With an impressive second place showing, Garaudy’s new communist dogma began to take over the PCF.

Presidents of the Fifth Republic

1958-1968: Charles de Gaulle (UDR)
1958 def. Georges Marrane (PCF), Albert Châtelet (UFD)
1965 def. François Mitterrand (FGDS), Jean Lecanuet (MRP), Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour (DVED)
1968-1968: Gaston Monnerville (PRRRS) (acting)
1968-1969: Pierre Mendès France (PSU)
1968 def. Georges Pompidou (UDR), Marie-Pierre Kœnig (DC)

Presidents of the Sixth Republic

1969-1971: Jean-Paul Sartre (NI)
[ceremonial]
1971-1980: Jacques Massu (PPDF) [strong presidential]
1980-0000: Guy Debord (SI) [mixed system]

Prime Ministers of the Sixth Republic

1969-1971: Pierre Mendès France (PSU)
1969 (Alliance with PCF, FGDS, SL & SI) def. Maurice Couve de Murville (UDR), Jean Lecanuet (PDM)
1971-1978: Michel Debré (PPDF)
1971 (Majority) def. Georges Marchias (PCF), Pierre Mendès France (FGDS), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Alliance 1968), Jean Lecanuet (PDM)
1976 (Majority) def. François Mitterrand (FGDS), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Alliance 1978), Georges Marchais (PCF), Jean Lecanuet (PDM)
1978-1980: Maurice Papon (PPDF majority)
1980-1980: Jean Royer (PPDF majority)
1980-0000: Daniel Cohn-Bendit (SL)
1980 (Alliance 1968 minority with PCF confidence) def. François Mitterand (FGDS), Georges Marchais (PCF), Jean Lecanuet (PDM), Jacques Médecin (PRD), Jean Royer (PPDF)
1982 (Alliance 1968 Majority) def. Roger Garaudy (PCF), Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (PDSC)

- Alternatively, an explicitly punk urbanism (think Jello Biafra's mayoral campaign or Tompkins Square Park) flourishing as an alternative to a conservative, suburbanite national consensus during the 1980s?

I explored Jello getting the Green Party nomination for mayor in 2003 and winning the election in my Tupac’s Road to Socialism timeline. The more radically right-wing Republicans draw more support to the Greens. After Tupac wins a Trump-like race for the Democratic nomination in 2008, Jello and the Greens support his democratic socialist platform in the general election. The new party system of the 2010s establishes the Greens as the kingmakers between libertarian socialist and Marxist parties.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

May as well bump this with the observation that it might be a good idea to look to architecture--especially more modernist forms--as an incubator for political movements. After all, the architect's job is to lay out the best buildings and infrastructure to live in, and the politician's is to create the best society to live in...

For example, how about Paolo Solieri's Arcosanti project taking off a little more (maybe he gets invited to build it in a post-colonial state searching for a new direction instead of Arizona), and he ends up codifying his philosophy of communitarian high-density ecological vague left-libertarianism into a specific direction? Arcologism could certainly have a future.

 

[Yokai Man]

I remember wanting an implausible dystopian timeline/vignette based in a world where Sămănătorism is more successful,Romania sided with Central Powers during WW1 (possibly an earlier one),lost and resulted in Iorga and the members of the Sămănătorism movement taking by force and trying to implement their vision of a rural,traditionalist,isolationist and xenophobic Romania that rejects fast urbanization and any form of foreign “impurities”, forcing people to publish only Romanian books and speak only Romanian and also discriminate minorities because hoy boy, they were racist as hell.

The story was gonna be related by a foreign journalist,who’s one of the few foreigners to enter the country in a long time since the “National Revolution”,with cars being banned and only used by the military,carriages being everywhere and the industrial advancement is only put in agriculture,given the movement’s praising of the Romanian peasant to fetishization, also present in propaganda with statues of peasants (along with Eminescu and other national figures) and odes to them being omnipresent at times.

Maybe I should revisit this silly scenario someday.

 

[OHC]

May as well bump this with the observation that it might be a good idea to look to architecture--especially more modernist forms--as an incubator for political movements. After all, the architect's job is to lay out the best buildings and infrastructure to live in, and the politician's is to create the best society to live in...

For example, how about Paolo Solieri's Arcosanti project taking off a little more (maybe he gets invited to build it in a post-colonial state searching for a new direction instead of Arizona), and he ends up codifying his philosophy of communitarian high-density ecological vague left-libertarianism into a specific direction? Arcologism could certainly have a future.

This would be interesting. Buckminster Fuller was actually the first person who came to mind in this thread, although his work fits in a bit more easily with OTL ideologies.

It may not surprise you that I have some friends who have stayed at Arcosanti - it is a pretty cool project and I'd like to see it some day, but some of the countercultural aura is dimmed when you realize it is basically a company town!

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

This would be interesting. Buckminster Fuller was actually the first person who came to mind in this thread, although his work fits in a bit more easily with OTL ideologies.

Fuller is pretty interesting--he fits in well with the counterculture, but a lot of his ideas (Spaceship Earth, interconnected systems, domed cities) would work well for a technocratic Raygun Gothic styled scenario.

 

[Charles EP M.]

- Alternatively, an explicitly punk urbanism (think Jello Biafra's mayoral campaign or Tompkins Square Park) flourishing as an alternative to a conservative, suburbanite national consensus during the 1980s?

Punk seems a really good bet here - it's a very political genre and has a tradition of community work, so you could get at least a local political movement in major cities. Though I'd expect to see some really bitter feuds breaking out sooner than later.

 

[Yokai Man]

Punk seems a really good bet here - it's a very political genre and has a tradition of community work, so you could get at least a local political movement in major cities. Though I'd expect to see some really bitter feuds breaking out sooner than later.

“Greater London Independent Councilor Joe Strummer had a heated argument with Labour Councilor John Lydon,resulting in a fist fight that interrupted the meeting.Both Ken Livingston and the Prime Minister condemned this act of pointless violence”.

 

[Magniac]

Frank Zappa is interesting, in that while he was technnically brilliant in the composition of music, he basically had no scholastic foundation for his high functioning abilities, certainly no formal musicology, reading in humanities, etc.

Ok, so the writers of his wikipedia page might think cool, cool, here's him being feted by Vaclav Havel, that's a totally equivalent meeting of the minds, as someone who tried to read his manifesto/memoir, I'm afraid that if you strip away his verbal fluency in defending artistic expression in public debate, he's just not a man usefully engaged in the world of formulating or communicating ideas as they pertain to getting an education or a knowledge-based career. Maybe he was just too busy in his life to jump through those hoops of attainment & discipline, and it's not like he needed them for the singular occupation of Being Frank Zappa.

Yet, despite having died in 1990, there is now something of an artistic, intellectual cult of personality around him online, of True Knowledge Delivered From The Master.

There are definite Ayn Rand vibes in the way the art of Zappa serves his fans as a didactic replacement for learning anything that disagrees with his/their worldview.

For an interesting scenario, a living and not-very-pluralistic Zappa deciding that his hardcore fans need supervision in learning his True Knowledge, furthermore that their minds are at risk from the pollution of False Knowledge, that has potential.

 

[Walpurgisnacht]

For an interesting scenario, a living and not-very-pluralistic Zappa deciding that his hardcore fans need supervision in learning his True Knowledge, furthermore that their minds are at risk from the pollution of False Knowledge, that has potential.

Zappa as Rand For Hippies has a lot of potential in a more mainstream manner as well, given the surprising number of people who went from Yippie to Yuppie (see Jerry Rubin or a lot of early Silicon Valley). Perhaps some devotees could take Zappaist Thought with them, which leads to this TL's Apple or Google giving its staff psychedelics?

 

[SenatorChickpea]

There'd be some good potential here in a scenario where Parnell manages to pull off Home Rule for (crucially) a United Ireland.

If you could find an excuse for this new Ireland not to be so conservative as to drive off its emerging modernists, you could have an uneasy Dominion which is simultaneously one of the artistic hubs of the Empire and also sharply culturally divided. Political parties sponsoring and being sponsored by their preferred movements.

So the historic association between the Young Ireland celtic-romanticist movement and the radical nationalists continues, but you also have 'moderate' nationalists and unionists trying to use the tradition themselves. There'd be lots of competing portrayals of historic figures.

So a radical school sponsored by Constance Markievicz might teach its students about Gráinne O'Malley, anti-English heroine; more respectable institutions might make every schoolgirl learn about the meeting of Elizabeth I and Grace O'Malley, the friendship of two great women.

Meanwhile, James Joyce remains in Dublin and sparks one hell of a row about censorship as his novels become more and more daring- a row which is just a proxy battle for competing ideas of what Ireland will be in the new century.

Hell, look at the folk-music revival/preservation efforts going on at the time- imagine the potential cultural skirmishes about whether a song is 'authentically' Irish or whether it shows that Ireland's always been part of a community with Scotland and England. (Sorry Wales.)

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

May as well bump this with the observation that it might be a good idea to look to architecture--especially more modernist forms--as an incubator for political movements.

Philip Johnson of Seagram Building fame was a big Nazi sympathiser, and supporter of modernism.

 

[Oppo]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/that...ng-for-president-with-h-ross-perot-story.html

Zappa considered running for president in 1992, though his stomach cancer stopped him from jumping in. His running mate would be Ross Perot, his attorney general would be Alan Dershowitz, and his campaign would prioritize eliminating the federal income tax. Several political strategists expressed interest in joining Zappa and one poll said 86% would be open to supporting his bid for the White House.