[lbo-talk] Great Conservative Films

[Carrol Cox]

No films, no novels, no poems are either "conservative" or liberal in
and of themselves. The political thrust of _any_ "work of art" is
determined not by the work itsef but by the audience and the context in
which the audience takes in the work.

Consider. The Pound list has been quiescent for several years, but at
the time when it was active, the political center of gravity of the list
(now note: all lovers of the fascist epic, The cAntos) -- the political
center of gravity of that list was rather to the left of this list! I'm
sure that a audience properly prepared could view The Salt of the Earth
as a vigorious defense of bourgeois individualsim and hence as a defense
of the promise of capitalism.

Another problem. "Conservative" is a pretty meaningless term. In its
origins Conservatism was the dfefense of rule by a landed elite, through
which the threat of capitalist commercialism could be controlled. Swift,
Pope, Bolingbroke, & John Adams were the last great Conservative
thinkers. (Adams was a great admirer of Bolingbroke.) Conservatism was
already dead or adulterated in the hands of Edmund Burke, the patron
saint of modern self-labelled conservatives, who are in fact merely one
inflection of liberalism.

Carrol