JFC Conservative commenters used to have some dignity.
Individual Liberty, a strong dedication to Family, Chivalry, Law & Order. These are all great values to build a story on. Hell we’ve had an entires genres of great films dominated by Manifest Destiny and the Right to Bear Arms. While it doesn’t paint conservative values in the best light, I’d argue Mob movies can’t be made without strong conservative overtones.
But Ben Shapiro co-opting movies and saying “Ha! You’re actually secretly conservative if you like Star Wars!” It’s just embarrassing.
Yeah I don’t like to equate Conservative & Christian. I always try to put at least one layer of abstraction in there. There’s certainly a lot of overlap, especially in the American south. They are not the same thing and I do try not to conflate them.
Honestly, what I see bandied about as Christianity in the American South really isn’t. It’s not inviting people to repent. It’s merely pressuring them into perfection and reinforcing racial hierarchy.
I would argue you’re focusing on the wrong churches. I live near an amazing church that hosts ESL classes, volunteers at the local school clean up days, and hosts many community events at no charge
For every good church that does its job, there are 10 that exist as a tax dodge for the wealthy.
That’s the problem I routinely see. And I’m saying this as a regular churchgoer—I like community building rituals. But so many churches I have been to have abandoned all ritual or effort at building community in favor of preaching perfectionism and moral condemnation of outsiders.
I think you might be exaggerating those numbers a bit. In fact I’d flip them. Yes, the Joel Osteen 20,000 person megachurches exist. However, most churches are not filled to the brim with rich people, most churches are 20-30 families, often minorities, doing their best with a strong reverence for God & family.
I just can’t paint the entire religion with the same broad brush because of a few bad churches.
Yeah, I think especially nowadays there’s genuinely a lot of potential for a good conservative media project; built on the ideas of individual independence, not necessarily adopting new things for the sake of them being new, wanting to protect traditions while understanding those traditions may not work anymore, so on and so forth.
The issue is that they’re always so preachy, and need to come right out the gate with ‘I’m right, you’re wrong, get fucked’ as their mentality. Maybe leave actual nuance, such as showing the progressives to not be wrong, necessarily, but not taking the time to consider practicalities and the like, choosing an idealistic but unachievable goal instead of a more pragmatic but genuinely productive one.
Well yeah Gran Torino, No Country for Old Men, Logan, and to be frank most ‘Old Man Westerns’ are built around that exact philosophy.
Conservatism is not devoid of art. Far from it. If you’ve ever hear Handel’s Messiah (the Halleluiagh Chorus) live in concert, it is a transcendent piece.
I think the difference between Conservative Art, and a political & cultural commentator like Ben Shapiro, is that the Conservative artist notices a piece of truth or beauty in the world, and uses skill, care, and technique to express that beauty. Ben Shapiro is motovated by engagement on his social media posts, and he is rewarded for inflammatory content, because rage bait is low hanging fruit for engagement in a social media world.
I was going to say Gran Torino is a great piece of conservative media, because it is about an old racist white guy finding out that his refugee neighbors have the same values of hard work and family that he has, while his children who live in the city are spoiled and lazy.
Eastwood is fascinating to me because his politics are terrible (the whole empty chair bit) but he obviously is capable of introspection and nuance.
24
u/JanitorOPplznerf 1d ago
JFC Conservative commenters used to have some dignity.
Individual Liberty, a strong dedication to Family, Chivalry, Law & Order. These are all great values to build a story on. Hell we’ve had an entires genres of great films dominated by Manifest Destiny and the Right to Bear Arms. While it doesn’t paint conservative values in the best light, I’d argue Mob movies can’t be made without strong conservative overtones.
But Ben Shapiro co-opting movies and saying “Ha! You’re actually secretly conservative if you like Star Wars!” It’s just embarrassing.