Thread by @im_1776

🧵 IM ISSUE °1 | ART & LITERATURE FOR DISSIDENTS

A summary of its contents:

In the opening essay, "Silicon Meridian", @jamespoulos calls for "religious art that takes as its subject the return of the Father":

"There is no longer any pretending we have not ushered out of the rock something new to worship, an idol and what is streaming out from it, which all of our human instincts have in a sense frozen in wait for the tremendous verdict as to its possible divinity." — @jamespoulos

Next, @SalemLola explores and calls for a renewal of Right-Wing patronage networks:

"If we agree that private patronage can serve political dissidents and give birth to a fresh artistic flow, what needs to be done is to delineate a new contract between patrons and artists...

... a contract that isn’t afraid to lay down in plain and honest terms the shapes and contours of what returns on investments in the world of art means, and that understands that funding the arts is a long-term game, one which aims at creating a sound, sustainable ecosystem."

Part I of our issue ends with Anton's tribute to Tom Wolfe, also available on our site: "While the effort to reclaim and revitalize the Right’s institutions ought to go on, there’s no reason why all the conservative eggs need to be placed in this basket." im1776.com/the-tom-wolfe-…

"The Right ought to be spreading its bets. One way to do that would be to patronize emerging artists: specifically, storytellers. It is hardly an original insight to say that stories move the world to an infinitely greater extent than policy papers." — Michael Anton

After a quote by @L0m3z from his IM—1776's "Our Generation's War", part II of our issue begins with @default_friend's article on "Five Realms of Right-Wing Art", in which she argues the creative potential for Dissident Art today mainly lies within 5 distinct domains.

She identifies these domains as follows:

• Cultural preservation and alternative historical curation;
• Literature;
• Visual Arts & Film;
• Personalities, Lifestyles, Subcultures, and the Body;
• Memes

"There's a self-defined, amorphous right-wing art movement now taking shape. This movement is mostly online and led by pseudonymous personalities who largely identify as ‘Dissident Right’. But what's the meaning of this movement and what's its creative potential?" @default_friend

Part II also contains a short version of ATM's "Art & Literature for Dissidents" series. "Like it or not, what we’re good at is satire, ridicule, and comedy. That’s what the Right literary scene should aim to cultivate primarily over the next few years..." im1776.com/2021/12/07/art…

Next is @AmandaMilius. In her article called "Slaying Hollywood's Red Dragon", Amanda calls for Conservatives to quit kowtowing to the Left (& China), and encourages any future artistic endeavor to start owning, enjoying, and thriving in the dissident label.

"When I was just twelve years old and feeling out of place at school, my dad told me something very important: Be comfortable with being the most hated person in the room - if you can master the feeling and start to enjoy it, there’s nothing you can’t do." — @AmandaMilius

"You either get it, or you don't. But for those of us who get it, it’s powerful." Section II of our issue closes with @GraduatedBen's beautifully-written paean to Lana Del Rey, where he identifies her as a central figure in the iconography of the online dissident subculture.

"Where this connection I feel comes from I can’t say. I guess it exists on a level of feeling which thoughts are a mere shadow of. Perhaps this is the essence and mystical power of true art; the breaking through to glory by the artist who surrenders to the muse." — @GraduatedBen

The last section starts with DC Miller's critique of the Dissident Right, and more broadly the idea that political art in the service of ideological causes can exist in the first place, arguing that the latter is a contradiction in terms, since art escapes ideological categories.

"The Dissident Right is correct in intuiting an absence of real values, but it misperceives and in fact mystifies the explanation and accordingly fails to provide them itself. In this respect it represents the mirror of the Left and terminates in the same place." — Daniel Miller

Next is @perez_writes on dissident lit, also available online. Following up on his IM—1776's "The New Literary Bad Boys", Alex encourages young, dissident writers to get away from blackpilled themes, arguing such is essential to start a literary movement: im1776.com/overdosing-on-…

"Therein lies the paradox of a literary movement: it must be aggressive enough to shock the ascendant traditions it's seeking to depose, while being attractive enough, either on aesthetic or thematic grounds, so that it connects with readers outside the in-group." — @perez_writes

The last section ends with @aIIegoricaI's essay on "Non-Euclidean Literature". Adam goes through the writing of HP Lovecraft, Daumal, Danielewski, Hermes Trismegistus, and others, to remind us of how it is important to change your perspective on things.

"Literature is the medium which generates the most imaginative response. With painting and architecture, viewers are supplied with impressions based on what they see. With writing on the other hand, visualisation is conjured from the mind of the reader, directly." — @aIIegoricaI

IM°1 also contains a special. At the very end, Sam Finlay takes us through Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty". Sam tells us how it is different from most movies we're accustomed to, and argues that it can be held up as an example of what dissident art should strive to achieve.

"We're reminded that life is more than random molecules moving through space. There is more than what is seen & meaning behind matter that we cannot begin to fathom. However, if we're willing to look for it, we occasionally find a portal to it through great beauty." — Sam Finlay

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