STATUES are living ghosts. They exist among us, frozen bronze and stone, silent and alive. This is the natural medium for heroes, the glorification of the individual and the sealing in stone of a spiritual narrative. No other art form depicts the important figures of the past in the same concrete, larger-than-life way. It is no wonder that the heroic statue is offensive to the contemporary sensibility, particularly the sensibility of the artist trained to be perpetually aggrieved and professionally stunned by the imperfections of warriors, political leaders, explorers and kings. Liberalism’s distrust of Western heritage and its suspicion of heroes is not conducive to affection for the bronze horseman or the marble saint. There must be some way to remove them from their pedestals, figuratively if not actually. The Metropolitan Museum put its paintings in storage during World War II to protect them. It would be too much to do the same here. But it would be nice if we could do something for these expressive artifacts in our parks and public squares. Perhaps the best  we could do is collect them all in some safe warehouse until we are permitted to love our ancestors again. 

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 SEBASTIEN WRITES:

For three years years now the Chateau de Versailles has been disfigured by temporary exhibitions of state-promoted contemporary art. This year the culprit is the Japanese manga ‘artist’ Takashi Murakami whose plastic sculptures have ruined the Versailles experience for hundreds of thousands of tourists from all the over the world. Some of the most angry tourists are the Japanese. The French Embasssy in Paris has been inundatedby phone calls from Japanese citizens apologising for the trouble caused by the artworks. Over 12,000 people have signed two petitions protesting the Murakami exhibit and demonstrations have been held at the gates of the 17th century chateau. As a result, the director of the Palace of Versailles has agreed to hold no more art exhibits in the chateau’s royal apartments,  a decision that has angered the contemporary art community. 

Murakami said in a press statement, “I am the Cheshire Cat who greets Alice in Wonderland with his devilish grin, and chatters on as she wanders around the chateau.” The leader of a group formed in protest has called him “a parasite that feeds on an existing work of art.” 

The financial interest at stake in these public arts displays is not insignificant. (more…)

THIS IS the Queen Victoria statue near Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia. The Queen’s get-up is part of a public art project that “celebrates the power of creativity in unexpected spaces.” Public art is another term for public desecration. Is that a dish brush (or toilet bowl brush) in Victoria’s hand?

The children who see this statue will probably never forget it. They will forever regard the Queen as a buffoon.

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COLLEGES, which are always seeking new marketing schemes now that they aggressively pursue a business model, almost universally advertise their study abroad programs. For $50,000, or whatever the going rate for tuition, parents send their college students to a foreign country for a year. Why should a young person party in his native country when he can live hard on an international scale?  (more…)

TRADITIONALISTS working for a turnabout in Western culture are often asked this question. What guarantee is there that civilization will be restored? Doesn’t it appear we are fighting a losing battle and, if so, why not hunker down and prepare for the worst?

Lawrence Auster gives an excellent answer here: (more…)

THE NUMBER of married adults has fallen to its lowest level since the government began keeping records more than 100 years ago. According to Census Bureau data in today’s New York Times, 52 percent of the population over 18 years is now married, as opposed to 57 percent ten years ago. That’s a drop of five percent in just a decade. For the first time in recorded history, the number of never-married young adults, between 25 and 34, exceeds those married.

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IMAGINE if instead of lame “Family Day” proclamations, a single prominent politician stood up and said words similar to those of Theodore Roosevelt when he spoke before the National Congress of Mothers in 1905:

In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small land owners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent danger of falling. (more…)

YOU KNOW family has become a marginal institution when we have national “Family Day.” Stouffers, the maker of frozen dinners, is one of the sponsors of the event, which encourages families to do something radical – sit down and eat dinner. Columbia University, also a sponsor, says that families that eat dinner together are less likely to have teens who use drugs. Above is one of the photographs on the Family Day website. Two moms and their child. [Or, perhaps as noted below, it is a mother with two daughters?] Wouldn’t it be nice if eating dinner together were all it took to rescue families? 

Do any of the corporate, government or academic sponsors of this event say anything important? Family Day sounds, at best, trite and meaningless and, at worst, outright dangerous. Do these sponsors have any idea why families don’t eat dinner together? (more…)

REPUBLICANS continue to do a fine job of normalizing family breakdown and sexual freedom. This breezy New York Times profile of Carl P. Paladino includes information about his dog, his favorite vodka and his favorite nighttime ritual. He “travels to the home of Sarah, his daughter from an extramarital relationship, and puts her to bed.”  (more…)

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GAIL AGGEN writes:

When I read the reasons Theodore Dalrymple gives for the increase in domestic violence in the U.K., I felt that more needs to be said about specific causative behaviors, and the dehumanizing influences that spawn and maintain them. For example, if you visit Britain, you cannot help but notice that excessive alcohol consumption is rampant, as is here illustrated. When I was there, I saw this myself. (more…)

IN HIS 2007 book In Praise of Prejudice, Theodore Dalrymple, who formerly worked as a clinical psychiatrist in Britain, offers a compelling theory for an increase in domestic violence. He attributes the rise to two factors: sexual freedom and the cult of non-judgmentalism. The first makes men insecure about the fidelity of their companions: 

How does a man who lives in a sexual free-for-all, in which any casual encounter between a man and a woman may lead to a sexual liaison, bind a woman to him with hoops of steel, to ensure her fidelity?  This is his problem, because he knows that his intrinsic charms, merits, and attractions are minimal, or at any rate, no greater than those of a thousand other men around him. 

In these circumstances, it is best to fill his beloved’s waking hours with thoughts of himself and with nothing but thoughts of himself. 

The second prevents women from judging the obvious and discriminating accordingly:

They have accepted, perhaps without knowing it, the modern prejudice against prejudice, a prejudice that in their case might have preserved them from beatings and sometimes from death itself.  The argument they have accepted goes something like this: the observation that men who dress and present themselves in a certain fashion and tattoo themselves heavily are bad men is at best a rough generalization, which is itself probably the result of class or ethical bias in the observer.

Dalrymple’s insights, based on encounters with “thousands” of men and women, are excellent and plausible. I highly recommend the book. Here are extensive quotes from Chapter 26, The Dire Social Effects of Abandoning Certain Prejudices. (more…)

FRED WRITES:

I really appreciate your work at The Thinking Housewife. It has made a difference in my life. As a life-long liberal I have had the gravest doubts about things, and I find that you have opened new doors of thought for me. It may have been that I was wrong about many things.

Wrong, but I don’t feel guilty and I don’t count it as a sin, to be wrong about things and to make great efforts in service of those wrongs.

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JOSH F. writes:

I’ve come to reject the “homeschooling” label. When people ask where my kids go to school, I simply tell them that they don’t go to “school.” They are educated, I say in a matter of fact manner, by myself and their mother. The idea behind rejecting this label is self-evident.  First, it’s entirely normal to be miffed by those that believe they are making a great sacrifice by “schooling” their kids with teacher experts. The time/money benefit alone provided by “school” is enough to put the “sacrifice” of “schooling” one’s children into serious perspective. I also have no desire to bring the isolated nature of  “school” into the home nor am I seeking to be part of a collective of  “homeschoolers.” (more…)

THE PIZZA industrial complex is spreading its tentacles day by day. Notice the fine print on this coupon.

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