Chuck, I think this is a true statement about a lot of contemporary Leftists...but it is not at all true of all Leftists and at all times. Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Andre Breton, Picasso, etc were all leftists, yet they created works of great beauty. Of course, those are only a few names. I dont think it is correct to make a blanket statment about this, though I agree that there is a lot of drabness on the "Left". I especially dont think it is true of Leftists who come from countries where there is a stronger sense of aesthetics, like France or Italy.
Of course, rather than just make the statement, it might be interesting to think about why the Left is so drab. Here are a couple of ideas:
1) social engineering. Basically, the Left has upheld the doctrine that art is just a part of the superstructure that reinforced the dominant ideology. If that is true, then a new aesthetic could be introduced whose main purpose was to propagate the ideology of the communist "new man", free of any "bourgeois" aesthetics. Of course this creation of a "new aesthetic" was a blight.
2) Romanticisation of (a highly stereotyped) working class and work. A strange thing happened...instead of trying to help liberate the workers from work, the Left glorified work, created a stereotypical worker (that looked a lot like Archie Bunker) and tried to promote that as a culture.
3) I do think that Christianity somehow got mixed into the Leftist world view. I believe that Erich Fromm even commented that Marx was sort of in the Christian lineage of things. This is somehow understandable...helping the poor is part of the Christian heritage (and some Christians do actually try to do this...OTHERS do the contrary of course), but so is dying to the world. The world is a vale of tears took a new twist and somehow St. John of the Cross rode into town on the backs of Marx and Lenin!
Anyway, I think this is an important topic and look forward to more opinions.
Thomas
===== <<You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals So let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel>>
Bloodhound Gang, "The Bad Touch"
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com