The arts are one area in which I think libertarians need to engage in more. Firstly we need to appreciate there importance, especially narrative art (stories in any form) which I will be focusing on.
When we look at book sales it is clear that fiction far out sells non-fiction, but why? My contention is that stories are far more akin to real life human experience than non-fiction: they have a real sequential element. All humans exist and act in time and thus a story being a condensed version of human life is far more appealing than non-fiction which in essence is timeless: empirical science, economics, philosophy et al; history would be an exception but a lot of that is done rather impersonally and you really need a pre-existing interest in the period itself to read it. One of the great strengths of narrative is that you can create emotions and realistic characters which you can’t do timelessly. Herein lies the appeal and the power of narrative.
With stories you can create ideals to aspire for and systems to denigrate. This can be powerfully demonstrated by human cost or achievement to a character you already have an emotionally investment. We therefore need a libertarian saga, or meta-narrative, which libertarian novelists and filmmakers can feed from. A saga which shows the world before the state to the descent to it and finally its obliteration, whilst demonstrating the dignity of the individual person and the virtue of liberty. So essentially we need our own version of the Marxist theory of history. Now one of the main obstacles to this raises its ugly head which is due to libertarianism being such a broad church (here a libertarian is defined as one who adheres to the NAP): we all disagree on the pre and post statist world, how the state came into being and how it will collapse. For example I see the state as the ultimate rejection of God since becoming a state is the closest thing to God you can get. Thus it fits in well with my Christian meta-narrative of creation, fall and redemption. Others would see it as the outworking of an authority based life view and that a non-statist world would be rather egalitarian. I do not intend to discuss the validity of these competing views here but to illustrate their existence.
Consequently more work needs to be done on the origin and rise of the state. Even though some sides are unlikely to come to agreement this it will help to articulate more precisely different libertarians sagas. From this framework the evils of statism can be exposed and the virtue of freedom lauded. However it needs to be understood however that stories do not convince people of certain ideologies: they merely sensitise people towards them. To use stories as propaganda is hokey and makes for bad stories. At present statist films sensitise people to the idea that business is sleazy and evil so they want to here logical arguments as to why it is and the state is better (having said that a lot of films essentially are propaganda but we shouldn’t stoop that low).This is why we always get the question: what should the government do? One of the main tasks for the libertarian story teller is to sensitise people to the goodness of liberty. Today most people want a cushy life without responsibility. We need to change that.
So the task for the libertarian story teller is to create stories with real characters, we should not do the opposite of the socialists and make every government official a bogeyman, and compelling plots within a libertarian meta-narrative.
As an addendum can any body recommend any decent libertarian films or literature? I obviously know of but I get the impression her work tends towards propaganda. I’ve read the first of the Sword of Truth series, the Wizard’s First Rule, by the Objectivist Terry Goodkind which was actually very good but I here the rest of the books get worse. As for my own recommendations I can go no further than recommend the TV series the Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan. I’m not sure the show is a show case for libertarianism as Chris Tame argued but for a show championing the individual it’s brilliant.
Have you read the latest daily article by Jeff Riggenbach? It pertains to this topic quite nicely, I think history can be fascinating, especially when well done, you’re quite correct that people need some interest in that area of history before they’re likely to find the book interesting, but fortunately, most people do tend to be interested in history. I find the idea of libertarian literature to be interesting, and if done correctly it may work. The problem is though is that libertarians tend not be very creative, more often than not they’re logical thinkers who like to think problems though, which is why they’re interested in fields like economics and philosophy. I don’t see much point in libertarian authors producing a second rate novel with the attempt of “getting the message” out, chances are, few outside the libertarian circle will read it and fewer still will appreciate it. On the other hand, if somebody could produce a well written piece of literature with a libertarian theme it could be useful, but it should be aimed at being a novel first and a libertarian book second. I quite like Paul Cantor’s project, and I think one useful tool is to use literature to help illustrate one’s point, for example The Great Gatsby brilliantly shows the futility of prohibition and the moral decay that occurs during the “boom” period of the business cycle.
What I think may be a better idea is documentaries, they’re very effective at getting the message across (look at Loose Change) and they don’t require huge amounts of skill, and the skill they do require (computer skills) are quite often those that libertarians tend to be good at. I think Star Wars shows a lot of the problems with empire and also a lot of insights about morality, the book All Quiet on the Western Front is a superb antiwar novel (there’s also a good piece in there in which they talk about the state). I thought the LOTR films were quite anti states in part, and illustrates Acton’s dictum.
I read Jeff’s article and found it fascinating. I had no idea of the standards of 18th historians employed. The highlighting of the fact that a work of literature says the most about its author is important since it reconnects the author to the text which modern literary criticism rent asunder. I have a slight reservation in that he claims that life is not a story without a definable beginning, middle and end. In fact one’s whole life is a complete story. This is the reason why biography is more easy to read than other forms of history since the beginning and end aren’t arbitrary- Mao The Unknown Story is an excellent read; I did find it slightly disturbing though that I was backing Mao at points not because I agreed with him but that it made an intersting and exciting story.
That shouldn’t be mutually exclusive to literature in particular the true story which is of most important in my recent interest in narrative philosophy/theology. I think though if the importance of the arts was emphasised more then I think some libertarians would turn their hand at it. I found it disheartening that you are the only guy to comment thus far on the thread.
Indeed it makes bad stories and misunderstands how stories work as I outlined in the OP; a good example of this is a lot of Christian literature which is just incredibly hokey. Straight non-fiction works are much better at “getting the message” out, so to speak.
I think I’ll have to add that to my long and growing to read list. And yes any work of fiction should be primarily a good novel everywhere and always.
I think documentaries can be useful but they are never, along with history, going to outsell fiction works; they require you to interested in the same subject area as with history. For example if you asked 1000 people what would they rather watch, a documentary about prsion reform or the Shawshank Redemption. 90+% are going to choose the latter.
Most stories that are to some degree anti-state are normally written by leftists as they hate totalitarianism. The problem is they don’t recognise that their doctrine leads there. I need to practice my creative skills first but I’ve always liked to write a novel which shows the descent from a natural order to a totalitarian state.
If anyone wants to listen to an interesting lecture here is an talk by Chris Tame on Libertarianism and the Arts. He shows how the modern trends in art are anti-liberty.
Sure, but that still doesn’t answer the question of whether or not libertarians would be good at it. I’m going to have to answer that in the negative, it’s an unfortunate aspect of the type of people who are attracted to libertarianism (just like the fact that there’s very few people on these boards that I would like to go for a beer with).
That said, I think MacFall is writing a book. Get in touch with him if you want to see more, I think he’s expressed interest in people here reading a draft.
Right, and let’s face it Atlas Shrugged really isn’t. Nor is any of the other science fiction crap that libertarians seem to love so much.
Well, 10% is a pretty decent amount if you ask me. Once again, it’s all about division of labour. It’s entirely plausible that somebody on these forums could write a decent documentary about a given political event (an election would be a good example), on the other hand, the likelihood of somebody here writing War and Peace is slim to none.
I’ve been working on some screenplays ideas. I plan to sell them to producers in hope of one being a hit. They are engineered using every trick in the book to appeal to Joe Public while being set in plots and content that nobody else will put out. I’d like to try a PC game when that becomes affordable. It’s all for profit, of course. Any additional effect is bonus.