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The Agenda in our Art

formerly titled
We are Cultural Beings, First and Foremost

An essay on the agendas being pushed in Australian & Western Art Culture
 
 

'Without vision, the people perish', a much quoted maxim. But where is that vision to come from?

    From:-

Politicians with a three year term horizon or less and beholden, inevitably to those providing the enormous sums needed to finance their campaigns	?
Businessmen and women obliged to get immediate financial results by catering to the created and ever changing whims and fancies of the consumer marketplace	?
Scientists wedded to a search, at least by affirmation for the facts           that explain physical phenomena	?
Religious Leaders advocating a dogma concerning our fate after death	?

What of our artists, our writers, poets, painters, composers and filmmakers sitting alone with the creative moment, looking into their souls and out onto the World, making observations through their various art forms on how we are living and thinking and impacting on others and our civilization and suggesting possibilities for life in the future? -- could they be the source of that vision? -- this writing will suggest that they should be.

What happens when our artists are not performing this function and, further when the art that is produced serves only as propaganda for politically correct materiel ends? -- the answer could be, a sense of desolation leading to high youth suicide, drug and alcohol dependency, family breakdown, collapse in public and commercial ethics and being obsessed with that which divides us rather than the values we have in common. If this is so, how did this state of affairs come about in Australia?
    In the 1960's , Australians were given to believe that Australia was a cultural wasteland, scorned and looked down upon by the so-called advanced and sophisticated Nations of the World. We were told that the only remedy for this was to put in place Government organisations such as the Australia Council and the Australian Film Commission to fund art and culture that otherwise would not be produced or made available to the Australian people for them, in time to come to appreciate. It was, in affect a missionary exercise to the poor benighted descendants of the humble classes of Europe from which we are said to have sprung to attempt to wean enough of us away from beer, footy and meat pies so that, with the veneer of a sophisticated culture we could feel that 'we were as good as anybody else in the World'. The outcome was to give those Government organisations as much control over the arts as that exercised by comparable organisations in the Soviet Union. What was the state of affairs in the so-called 'cultural wasteland' that was Australia before 1972?. So much is made of Australian Actors and Directors now working internationally to justify the Arts Funding practices of the last 30 years. Three Australian Actors being nominated for Academy Awards in 1999, an American event, for being in British Productions and with storylines sourced from British Culture was hailed as a vindication of Australian Arts Funding and the 'leadership' of the Australian Government Organisations. Those making this claim are also staunch republicans. Can anyone imagine the Germans justifying themselves
for having some German Singers appear in Verdi in Milan? The worst of it is that
this international involvement of Australian Performers is represented as something
new and only as a result of Arts Funding and the 'leadership' of the Government
Organisations.
    This cold bloodedly ignores the historical fact that Australian Actors such as Errol Flynn, Cecil Kellaway, Michael Pate, Leo McKern, Rod Taylor, Victoria Shaw, Ron
Randell, Dame Judith Anderson, John Bluthall, Bill Kerr, Diane Cilento, Ed Devereaux, Peter Finch, George Lazenby, Keith Michell, John McCallum, Robert Helpman and Charles Tingwell, to name only some, were working internationally in the decades before 1972, during the so-called 'cultural wasteland' years. Directors such as Leon Thau and John Farrow (father of Mia Farrow ), Orchestra Conductors such as Charles Mackerras, Singers such as Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland are just more names from an era that took Australian accomplishment for granted because it was 'real' and not the politically correct propaganda financed by taxpayers that now passes for culture in Australia where the mere mention of an Australian cultural product overseas is hailed as a great Australian success story, such is the need to clutch at any straw to buttress an 'unreal' edifice. Has anyone noticed that once the Soviet Ministry of Culture stopped financing 'Socialist Realism' there was nothing left to show for 70 years of prolific productions ?
What has been the outcome of the 'leadership' by these Government Organisations
since 1972? --- :-
 

The Australian Film Industry, financed by the Government Organisations currently has about 40% of Australian Box Office. Before 1972, during the ' cultural, wasteland ' decades Australian Filmmakers, such as Raymond Longford, Ken Hall, Charles Chauvel, Cecil Holmes, Franklyn Barrett, Frank Hurley, Paulette McDonagh, Harry Southwell, F.W. Thring, Harry Watt, John McCallum and Lee Robinson produced films that made a profit BECAUSE THEY ATTRACTED AN AUDIENCE. Their audiences responded to films that resonated with who they were, the lives they were living and their possibilities and not politically correct sermonising that seeks to demonize who they are, their parents and their history and to suggest that they can only redeem themselves by unconditional abasement if they happen to be of Anglo-Saxon or Celtic Heritage and male

Every major Performing Arts Company in Australia has needed a special grant to begin operations in the next year in the last three years because they have not been able to attract enough of an audience to accumulate a sufficient reserve. The exception? --- The Ensemble Theatre, founded in 1958 and very much outside the 'system', which means they do not get a Government Grant. They survive from their Box Office and seem to be able to begin every year from their own resources. Only one of the Ensemble Theatre's accomplishments was to stage 'Fortune in Men's Eyes', which led to prison reform throughout Australia. What was the situation during the 'cultural wasteland' decades?---

J.C.Williamsons, the Taits, Edgelys, the Carrolls and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust were producing the very best theatre from Australia and around the World. There were also companies like the Australian Theatre Society in Melbourne and the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Company mounting a full season of productions. The Government Cultural Organisation 'apologists' claim that Australian Theatre began at La Mamas in Melbourne in the late 1960's, which is another way of saying that 'Socialist Realism' Theatre began in Australia at that time. Before La Mamas had been thought of, however the Union Theatre Company, the Ensemble, the Old Tote and the Independent were long-standing production companies. "The playwright, I think, creates the myths by which the people live: the heroic, the gigantic, legendary figures, fathers of the race, ancestors, spiritual or actual, to which the living man can point and say, " This is what I am made of; that is what makes us different from other people; those are my gods and my devils."

How many Nations can boast of a single era when there were poets such as Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, Adam Lindsay Gordon, C.J. Denis and Henry Kendall, painters such as Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Charles Condor, Norman Lindsay, Elioth Gruner, G.W, Lambert and Rupert Bunny (by 1911, Bunny's paintings were hung in nine European public collections.) and Dramatists such as Vance Palmer and Louis Esson , all seeking to develop Australia's spirit not to destroy it in the name of some alien, materialistic, rootless and so-called 'Universal' ethos?

Television Commercials, Films and Television Series consistently portray the male
as a weak minded incompetent, obsessed with immediate physical gratification,
irresponsible and not all that smart. At a time when all forms of discriminations are
ritually denounced, any denunciation of the male is not only allowed but
encouraged, Could this be to support an agenda whereby the role of the Father,
the Elder with a sense of history, community and national values needs to be
destroyed so that there is no check to the propagandizing of materialistic, rootless
values and the so-called ' Universal ' ethos?
The same entertainment formats are used to promote women as more effective and
honest providers of business, professional and academic services in a ritual sense
but without attempting to suggest what values are to be promoted in so doing other
than the materialistic, rootless values and the so-called ' Universal ' ethos that in
this context are always construed to be' humanitarian ' values. In promoting
women thus, the nurturing, home, family and community bonding role of the female
is constrained or abandoned so that, in this exercise, the role of the Male Elder and
the Female Nurturer is discredited .
The same entertainment formats are used to promote the 'hip' or 'cool' teenager
that has nothing in common with their 'old fogey' parents. The concept of the
'teenager' is a relatively new, post-war Madison Avenue advertising creation and
much has gone into creating an international, rootless, materialistic mindset that
can be manipulated to accept that agenda without hindrance from parents , i.e., the
Male Elder and the Female Nurturer. These entertainment formats even go so far as
to suggest that 'good ', 'cool 'parents are those that unconditionally accept their
teenager's agendas which are the rootless, materialistic, hedonistic, 'Universal'
ethos's that usually involves the teenager spending a lot of money on unnecessary
products to support their involvement with this created, artificial and divisive
concept. Other divisive concepts created by Madison Avenue advertising
techniques, using these entertainment concepts include the 'Under 30' age group,
the single, young, professional female, the, young, professional, childless couple
all disengaged from parents or extended family and responding only to the
international 'pavlov dog ' prompters coming from the use of Madison Avenue
advertising techniques through these entertainment formats.
How easy is it to have these techniques work? -- consider the format of the T.V.
Series ' M.A.S.H.'. This Series set out to attempt to discredit certain attitudes and to
promote others. It had contempt for free enterprise, Western Civilisation, traditional
morality and European Heritage leadership. It supported communism, sexual
promiscuity and any and all non-European Heritage leadership. The Series never
explicitly said any of this, only that the Characters that advocate the values the
Series rejected are idiots and those that advocate the values the Series supports are
portrayed as wonderful people. The viewer is left to make the association via an
entertainment format designed to have that message seep into their consciousness
while they are relaxing and expecting to be entertained.

THE MARXISTS HAVE ALWAYS INSISTED THAT ECONOMIC DETERMINISM IS THE ULTIMATE FACTOR IN HUMAN AFFAIRS, THAT NOT ONLY CAN MAN LIVE BY BREAD ALONE BUT 'BREAD' IS ALL THERE IS. WHENEVER THE MARXISTS ARE ACTIVELY PLOTTING TO TAKE POWER THEY ATTEMPT TO SEIZE CONTROL OF THE CULTURAL AGENDA. WHENEVER THEY DO SEIZE POWER THE VERY FIRST THING THEY DO IS TO TAKE COMPLETE CONTROL OF THE CULTURAL AGENDA --- THEY KNOW THAT WE ARE CULTURAL BEINGS, FIRST AND FOREMOST BUT THEY WANT US TO BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE CONTESTING WITH US ABOUT ECONOMIC DETERMINISM SO THAT WE TAKE OUR EYE AWAY FROM THE CULTURAL FRONT WHERE THE REAL BATTLE, ABOUT OUR BELIEF AND VALUE SYSTEMS IS TAKING PLACE.

In Australia, it is an absolute priority for them to have us all believe that everything about the Australia of before 1972 was truly terrible, in particular on the cultural front and that every bit of international recognition of Australia's efforts with any endeavour since then is due to the funding policies of the 'Corporate State' Cultural Organisations. The Australia of before 1972 could and did take international achievement for granted but the 'Marxists' now need to trumpet any every scrap of international recognition to provide the illusion of success for their unnatural edifice --- every sporting encounter is deemed to be ' historic ', every award won is due 'unique' Australian qualities fostered by the Corporate State Cultural Organisations, etc., etc.

If there has not been much of an audience for the output of these Organisations, why then do their activities matter ? --- their output goes into schools, colleges and universities ( $2 screenings for students, etc. ), they create the impression that their
agenda is the Australian Cultural Agenda, regardless of the levels of participation and, most important, by using public funds to employ available cultural resources ( Performers, Writers, Directors, Venues, etc., ) THEY DENY OPPORTUNITY TO
TRUE ARTISTS TO 'CREATE THE MYTHS BY WHICH THE PEOPLE LIVE', TO EXPRESS THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE AND NOT TO SEEK TO IMPOSE AN AGENDA ON THEM. That, in itself is more than enough for the ' Marxists '.

Is there a role for public funding of the arts in Australia? --- Yes, in Arts Education and Arts Industry Training and IN PROVIDING SUITABLE VENUES but Government Cultural Organisations should NEVER be involved with choosing what is performed, written, composed or painted, not even indirectly.

Is this writing saying that it should all be left to market forces? --- Yes, for the most part but NOT entirely. Nothing should be left entirely to market forces. Australia established a very suitable structure with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust , established in 1954 ---- the Federal Government allowed a tax deduction for contributions to the Trust who then had to attract members and Box Office support for their Annual programs. They and their artists had to relate to their audiences and take responsibility for the outcomes.

The' Marxists' had no time at all for the Elizabethan Theatre Trust and even less
now for its place in Australia's history.
 
 
 

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