Culture11
Posted on March 24th, 2009
by Daniel Larison |
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Charles Homans recounts the too-brief history of Culture11. As a former contributor, I found it strange to be reading about the site’s demise in a magazine profile. The contrast Homans makes between C11 and Big Hollywood is instructive, and tends to confirm my rather jaundiced view of the inverse relationship between success and quality. Essentially, on one site you would find intelligent cultural criticism, and on the other you would find a lot of the cultural whining that seems especially concentrated among actors who have a political grudge with the rest of their own industry. In the former, there would be smart takes on new films by Suderman, for example, and in the latter you get Dirk Benedict complaining about how feminism corrupted the new BSG or Breitbart going off on another one of his insane rants. One site was challenging, the other flatters its audience’s prejudices. Naturally, the second one survives and thrives.
For the most part, the profile has elicited a number of sympathetic comments, but the comment I found most telling was Dan Riehl’s remark:
I never even heard of this Culture11 site until I read that it was gone. If someone wants to know why it failed, extrapolate that out to other bloggers and web surfers, that was it.
Of course, this has the ring of “no one I know voted for Nixon” as an example of how thoroughly isolated inside a cocoon some conservative bloggers seem to be. It might just be the case that, if someone has never heard of something, this is a function of his interests and the focus of his attention. Then again, if this is any indication of how cut off conservative bloggers tend to be from broader conversations I wouldn’t be surprised if this response is typical. However, it does make the embargo on linking to the site by RedState take on some additional importance. In the profile, David Kuo mentioned that moment as a point of pride, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the decision at RedState not to link to C11 had something to do with the site’s apparent obscurity to other bloggers on the right.
In any case, read Homans’ feature. You can check in on the current blogging of some of the old C11 editors at The American Scene.
Filed under: media
Vaguely on-topic – I’m interested in getting into Battlestar Galactica, but given my experience with other SF shows, I know that starting at the beginning may or may not be wise. Should I start with the first season, the pilot mini-series, or somewhere else?
I recommend starting from the very beginning with the miniseries. Pretty much everyone who has watched the show liked the miniseries and the first two seasons very much. Whether or not you like seasons 3 and 4 depends more on personal preferences.
Thanks. What tend to be the criticisms of Season 3 and 4? Does it run into the problems of serialization or just get lower-quality?
I’ve seen a few criticisms of its politics from writers I have no respect for, like Goldberg and Easterbrook.
I don’t want to give too much away if you haven’t seen any of it, but the main problem that a lot of people across the political spectrum have had with the last two seasons is that it has sometimes seemed aimless, ad hoc or otherwise less imaginative than it was earlier on. There is some merit to this criticism, especially as it relates to season 4. They had to tie up a lot of loose ends very quickly that made the final season less interesting in certain ways, which may be unavoidable in a final season. The objections to the start of season 3 were more political and much less persuasive, because they insisted on reading commentary on current events into the story that I don’t think was there.
Of course, this has the ring of “no one I know voted for Nixon†as an example of how thoroughly isolated inside a cocoon some conservative bloggers seem to be. It might just be the case that, if someone has never heard of something, this is a function of his interests and the focus of his attention.
Yeahhh, that’s pretty bogus. Who hasn’t heard of Slate or Salon?
I saw that happen with Babylon 5. They thought that it was going to be canceled in Season 4, so they crammed everything into it, then it got renewed. So Season 4 was way too fast, as 5 way too slow. Ah well. I’ll either be hooked, or not, by the time that comes up.
To go on-topic, if the profile is roughly correct, then it sounds like a “thinking conservative” take on popular culture got into some trouble in that popular culture is difficult to separate into ideological terms. (my words aren’t coming the way I want to say them here, so I hope it’s making sense).
That is, a good conservative analysis of a popular culture artifact would simply be a good critique that happens to come from a conservative. Likewise, a Marxist critique of a cultural artifact is useful it actually helps analyze the piece in question. And some pieces are going to be better analyzed with lenses that may not fit the local ideology.
On the other, the “social networking” aspect of such a site might be especially useful, as occasionally it’s difficult for anyone slightly outside the normal Republican/Democrat spectrum to break into such conversations.
“Who hasn’t heard of Slate or Salon?”
Well, very few people, since they have both been around for years, have ample funding and conservative bloggers don’t make a point of not linking them.
Seriously, if someone never *heard* of Culture11 in all of the last year, he was paying attention to a pretty narrow and uniform range of blogs. That’s his prerogative, and I don’t care that much, but it isn’t a commentary on the quality of the site that Dan Riehl never heard of it.
Atlantic and Corner bloggers frequently linked to their posts, and as I recall the initial report about what was then called LibertyWire set off a fairly involved discussion among several high-profile bloggers about whether Slate was actually center-left or not. Not to be too harsh about it, but a blogger who missed all of this wasn’t looking at a wide variety of sites on anything like a regular basis.
For that matter, I know for certain that Culture11 posts were picked up by Memeorandum frequently as respondents to articles and other posts. Unless someone never uses Memeorandum, I don’t see how he could have missed at least seeing the name.
Heck even I heard of Culture11, and enjoyed dropping in from time to time, as I do here, and I’m certainly not a conservative.
I came to Culture 11via The Atlantic bloggers, the same way I found my way here and to Dreher’s site.
Actually, given the vapidity of most of Riehl’s “observations”, as well as what I find to be the degraded state of his spirit, Culture 11 can be rather proud that they didn’t offer much comfort to that particular ward..With the exception of the unfortunate Ladyblog flap, Culture 11 demonstrated the very traits that don’t appeal to folks like Riehl….traits like calm temperament, inquisitiveness and a genuine sense of humor.
A conservative commentary on our declining culture is bound to be an exercise in masochism. It would be more accurate to say that Culture 11 and similar ventures are (were) devoted to pop-culture ephemera. I suppose things in the popular domain need to be commented upon, but I’ve never been up to the challenge. It’s like Rock Criticism, a juvenile pursuit.
Hmph. The other day I got to hear a 1700 Arthur Richard piece perfomed on a 1706 Guardinius violin…nice to hear a violin that is as old as my entire known family history. My taste in literature is pretty much stuck at Gibbon and Tolstoy.
All of those pieces were pop hit material. Tolstoy disavowed War And Peace and Anna Karenina as being, in effect, soap opera (true but, my God, on what a high level). True, most of pop culture is ephemera but some of it is not. Where do you draw the line? Louis Armstrong, Mozart, G.W. Pabst? I think it was Raymond Chandler who said, in defending the Pulp magazines of his day, that had Shakespeare written for them they would have been great because he would have made them great. “Soap Opera Plus”, as Eric Bentley said.
The distinctions between high art and low art, pop culture and academic culture are not, in themselves, very helpful. In the end we are left again with our own judgment. Given that we have a limited time to explore the pop culture – which is for most of us the only culture – of our times, I find it helpful to have people who I trust tell me what deserves my attention (Coraline! Good!) and what does not (Hard Candy! Bad!).
It is easy to focus on what has deteriorated in our culture, but in so doing I fear we miss the flowers in the dustbin.. For instance, our appreciation for the finer points of film is extraordinary….even a child could describe….perhaps in imperfect English….very sophisticated points regarding how a cheesy Batman movie was photographed. His sophistication in that medium probably rivals that of the most enlightened listener in Scarlatti’s day.
Good pop culture writing has a place, Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his daughter – about his unfinished novel – that she would be surprised someday how well he understood her time.
I was really disappointed to see Culture 11 close it’s doors. I was always impressed by the thoughtfulness of the writing there. When conservatism starts to become successful again, it’s my hope that it’s due to the thoughtful sort of people who wrote there.
Big Hollywood is almost a self-parody. It may temporarily get some followers, but it’s hollowness will ultimately mean it fails. I hope.
Riehl showed himself to be beneath contempt when he suggested that Obama would smother his own grandmother to win the election.
Jetan, a reasoned retort. But I just cannot take critiques of comic books and rock music seriously. Arguably, classical music collapses with the end of the Impressionists. After Abstract Expressionism, what is there to see in visual art? Where are the great novelists of today?
But you have a point. Film is in my view an inferior form to the novel but it is the premier form of our time. And there are very fine films. Jazz is arguably a kind of American classical music. I love jazz but I must admit that it is a marginal and perhaps a dieing form.
Perhaps what will follow will be a kind of new classicism where old forms are refined and continued outside the context of new schools and movements.
I wasn’t slagging you, Gordianus .
In fact, I often have the same impulse myself. My comments were part of an ongoing dialogue I have in my own heart.. Like you, I love novels almost to the exclusion of other forms and even a blind man can see how far we have fallen since the glory days of our medium. But, as Joni Mitchell said, “something’s lost but something’s gained/ I’ve looked at life that way”. Other forms will arise, like the buried ship at Sutton Hoo.
I don’t particularly like comic books, but I love the form….Herriman’s Krazy Kat was kinda, sorta deep. And it didthings I’m not sure a novel could do. Plus if you like represenational art, you may have answered yor own question. Comic artists are practically the only folks who still wonder what they can still accomplish in that arena. Occasionally one comes up, like an Art Spiegelman or an R. Crumb, who has less puerile interests and then you get a glimpse of the true potential.
Rock music, and jazz and probably hip-hop are all your grandmother’s music….they are headed for the Museum of Natural History. But, God bless us, latin music is very inventive at the moment….harmonically, melodically, rhythmically and lyrically. The one thing that gives me hope for mankind is that the arts are not a zero-sum game.
Of course we are in an era of new classicism! We usually are! Be of good cheer. If we are not comfortable well, that wasn’t part of the deal.
We’ll get there soon. Where ever it is. Or, as the folksong goes, “Freight Train, freight train/ Move so fast…..”
Even if you disagree that comic books or rock and roll are worth studying on their own, popular culture in and of itself is worth studying because of its popularity. It is a reflection of the culture which created it.
It’s somewhat amusing to see someone hold up the lowbrow art forms of yesteryear as high art while looking down on present-day lowbrow art forms.
“Where are the great novelists of today?”
Writing books that you’re not reading, most likely. Or working in different mediums, such as the dreaded “graphic novel.”
Jetan, I didn’t feel Slagged upon (!) . Your reasoned comment in response to my dyspeptic outburst deserved a response. I’m old enough to remember when Jazz WAS popular music and Rock and Roll did not yet exist. The last serious classical composers were still alive.
I hope you’re wrong about Jazz. Unlike other popular forms, it always sounds fresh to me, perhaps because of it’s reliance on spontaneity and improvisation.
I remember R. Crum when his work was new. I actually liked it, but you must admit that he is the high priest of puerility. The outrageousness of his demented vision was a kind of dark fun.
Rowan, You’re right, popular culture should be studied, preferably by sociologists and marketing people. We should understand it. I just can’t love it.
Now I Laugh! Ha -ha! (Bela Lugosi accent).
Really? You didn’t think it was deep when the meatball hit Kim Novak and Bertrand Russel in the head, demonstrating that all they had believed was wrong? You thought Whiteman and Angelfood McSpade were shallow?
Hell, Crumb is more conservative than all of us put together You should hear his NPR interview where he takes on the “hippie” movement, cakes without sugar, the cult for native americanism, and the Rolling Stones all in one sentence (though he isn’t that big on sentences).
I love jazz also . Do you like Art Tatum? I always liked what Rubnstein said about him:
“He’s the greatest pianist in the world.”
“You mean the greatest jazz pianist.”
“No, I mean the greatest pianist.”
“For that matter, I know for certain that Culture11 posts were picked up by Memeorandum frequently as respondents to articles and other posts. Unless someone never uses Memeorandum, I don’t see how he could have missed at least seeing the name.”
Well, I read way too much crap on the interwebs as it is. But I have just barely heard of Memeorandum. I gather from context that it’s on the “unreformed” Right, politically speaking?
[...] Echo Chamber Rules, Again Beliefnet’s Aziz Poonwalla, in a very smart response to Daniel’s take on RedState and Culture11: Reading the piece on C11’s founding to which [Larison] refers, I can’t help but think [...]
Jetan. Crum was beyond the counter-culture when the counter-culture was new! I remember buying his comics in the sixties precisely because he was so subversive of “The Movement,” while being celebrated by it. He was subversive of pretty much everything and that kind of anarchic impulse has it’s place. His cartoon panels were artistically fare more interesting and complex than the other offerings in the same comic (ZAP Comix). He is a guilty pleasure.
BTW I did catch that interview with the androgynous Terry Gross. I think I caught one with his bizarre brother who later committed suicide.
Art Tatum very fine. I like Toots Thielman, Bird, Russ Malone, Wes Montgomery, etc. I really like the late Tal Farlow, who I got to know after he came out of retirement.
To stay off topic, I’m in the middle of season 2.5 and already I feel like it’s becoming too ad hoc. I’m very disappointed as the miniseries, season 1 and season 2 were all fantastic. C’est la vie. I will keep watching. I’m just tired of all these good shows starting off with quality and ending up in tatters…
“I gather from context that it’s on the “unreformed†Right, politically speaking?”
Not at all. Memeorandum is an aggregator of news stories and blog entries. It is a collection of memes–hence the name. As far as I can tell, it has no particular political slant and draws from across the spectrum of blogs depending on what is being discussed most frequently. It is something that many bloggers use to find what other people are saying about the news of the day.
“It is a collection of memes–hence the name. As far as I can tell, it has no particular political slant and draws from across the spectrum of blogs depending on what is being discussed most frequently. ”
Just as well then, because I think it’s as good an example for the flaw in your “cocoon” thesis as anything. Clearly people who didn’t know anybody who voted for Nixon were separated from personal contact with very large parts of America. Whoever misses out on C11 or Memeorandum just as clearly isn’t.
I have no particular beef with C11, and it AFAIK it published interesting stuff. But it wasn’t “can’t miss reading” for anything, and it wasn’t around long enough to have any institutional strength. Stacy McCain argues that this is largely a function of David Kuo’s personal incompetence, and from what I’ve seen I have no reason to believe he’s wrong.
There is a very odd post at City Of Brass about Dr. Larison’s post. it says in part:
“….it’s supposed to be the conservative who focuses on the pragmatic business of improving our society and the liberal who is the slacker layabout focused more on his immediate happiness than any broader social responsibility.”
Wow. Is that true? I thought it was us libruls who sought to superimpose our better world on everyone else’s reality whereas the hardbitten conservative cowboys just wanted to be left alone with their kinfolks and their corn liquor. Maybe I’m thinking of the libertarians.
Gordianus, I clearly have some remedial jazz listening to do. I will seek out Tal Farlow right away.
Jetan:
These stereotypes are of limited value, but I agree that Aziz’s description of what conservatives and liberals are “supposed” to be like is a bit strange. I understand what Aziz is getting at in his critique of Limbaugh’s happy-clappy individualism, but he would have done better to describe it in terms of obligation vs. emancipation. I think it is fair to say that liberals are generally interested in being emancipated from the constraints of authority, and liberal activists pursue meliorist goals to remove as many of those constraints in society at large as possible. Conservatives, if they know what they’re about (and Limbaugh does not), are not interested in personal or social emancipation, but want to be left to their own devices in the web of personal and social obligations that they have inherited. On one level, this makes them natural allies for libertarians, who also want to be left to their own devices, but also puts them at odds with libertarians more often than not when the libertarians attack and ridicule these obligations and the social institutions that require them.
Conservatives do largely want to be left alone insofar as they, we, don’t want to be subjected to meliorist social policy, but the virtually anti-social self-indulgence Limbaugh endorses is something entirely different.
The liberal as “slacker layabout” may be the way that some Boomers on the right imagine their counterparts on the left because of their experience in the ’60s and ’70s, but if liberals were, in fact, layabouts rather than politically engaged conservatives wouldn’t have many policies to oppose.
Daniel, you speak of “obligations” – and of meliorism. From Webster online – : “the belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment”. OMG!!! LIBERALS want to improve the world!!!!
Yeah, you’re right. We do.
So did Jesus. And creating a better world is the point of MOST of the “obligations” to which you refer. Or at least that’s what I guess as you don’t actually identify any obligations from which liberals want to free you.
What obligations do you have of which I might work to relieve you?
The more I think about it, the more I think it the case that us liberals want to free US from the obligations YOU choose to have. That’s a whole different kettle of fish, isn’t it?
Well, as a roll yer own smoker who just saw his tobacco tax skyrocket a whopping 25 bucks a pound (schip), I am in a decidedly un-meliorist mood today. Further, as a Catholic, I join with my Orthodox brothers and sisters in a certain reflexive predisposition toward skepticism as to the whole notion of “progress”.
In terms of my social and personal obligations I do, however, confess that I regard the input of others as, at best, advisory opinions. So to that extent I find I fit the bill of the slacker lib or the irresponsible libertarian.
I do have a guilty fondness for observing the Constitution and, apart from a praiseworthy commitment to the Second Amendment and a rather selective gesture toward strict constructionism, the Republican has not exactly covered itself with glory of late.
That is most of my apologia for my Democrat credentials.
For the record:
Culture11 – heard of it. (I never liked or even understood the name, though – now I find it means “the eleven areas of culture?” Sheesh. Also, I don’t think I ever agreed with any of the “Ladyblog” posters (except Eve Tushnet) about anything, and I could take or leave most of the other writers.)
Memeorandum – never heard of it.
Big Hollywood – never heard of it.
Dan Riehl – never heard of him.
So Culture11 wins by default, I guess. Not that I am in any way representative, but what blogs a person has or hasn’t heard of can be very much a product of happenstance.
“what blogs a person has or hasn’t heard of can be very much a product of happenstance”
Well, yes, which is what I wanted my original point to be.
Oh but, damn, I’d somehow missed the devastatingly vicious takedown of culture11 at Takimag..
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/culture_snores/
I was a regular reader and poster at Culture11, which I thought was a terrific site, free of the usual snarling rage found at most.
I had tried to post at Redstate, making the case for moderate conservatism, and was promptly banned, for even the most mild criticism of the current conservative commentariat.
Ironically, I found Culture11 only by the sneering mention of it by Moe Lane, and a short Google search afterward.