This article is taken from the March 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
Great ideas are a splendid thing, and those that are true, even better. But ideas are embodied things, rooted in the real world — and reality has a knack for breaking the mould of ideology. In the arts, grand concepts are often treated like a game of chess: pondered endlessly, yet rarely brought to a decisive conclusion. Consequently, when it comes to economics, far too many insist on envisioning the future of the arts as if it could neatly conform to some off-the-shelf ideological blueprint.
Sometimes, the problem is very subtle. For instance, the rallying cry of the philosopher Roger Scruton’s followers that “beauty matters”, paired with the reactionary disgust for “postmodern art” — too often conflated, confusingly, with “modern” art — has devolved into a predictable online trope.
Valid though the call for more “beauty” is, its champions often struggle to define what they mean, let alone acknowledge the real diversity of artistic creation unfolding today. If we are serious about addressing our artistic crisis, the wearying stalemate of the “culture wars”, we need more than catchy slogans. The real question is: what does this look like in the most concrete possible terms?
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We’ve already had our fair share of neoclassical revivals. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sight of a finely executed neoclassical building, and the delicate elegance of well-crafted chamber music. But art, sacred or secular, is rarely stationary.
Even nostalgic trends need a push towards the unknown — something to propel them beyond the lukewarm reheating of what feels merely “nice” or “comfortable”. Otherwise, they risk becoming little more than the pretty façade of a wider cultural malaise. Indeed as mass culture becomes ever more superficial, it substitutes a fetish for historical detail for a profundity of which it is not even any longer aware.
“Politics,” Andrew Breitbart memorably proclaimed, “is downstream from culture.” Or as John Maynard Keynes put it, rather less pithily, “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” Both the gadfly of the alt-right and the economic guru of the old left recognise that the political and economic are often rooted in assumptions which were once novel and contested.
Economics sets up material constraints that frame artists’ creativity
Just like “faith”, “culture” defines and connects us, whilst conserving a shared way of life. This definition requires elite cultural production, thriving for excellence, and aims to create communal references. By this, I mean practices and beliefs that inform our sense of identity and social interactions.
Economics does have an impact on the arts. It sets up clear, material constraints that frame artists’ creativity. Today, however, tastemakers erupt their decrees with an ideological strength that breaks down former traditional relationships between tradesmen and craftsmen, commissioners and artists.
On the Left, cultural power is delegated to “experts” in academia and the “creative industries”. Gatekeepers of the Overton Window, they seek to shape the assumptions of those who wield power and determine how resources are allocated. Under this rule, “culture” is governed by identity politics, EDI, gender questioning, decolonisation of curricula, erosion of borders and boundaries. This, now largely accepted as valid and integrated in most institutions, undermines capitalism, attacks the idea of private property, seeks a greater role for the state, circumscribes freedom of conscience, sets back educational excellence and contributes to secular decline.
But on the Right, what’s happening? Many don’t know how to solve this issue because they fail to understand what powerful men and women do with their wealth. The wealthier people are, the more they enjoy their wealth, be it in buying houses, racehorses, yachts or art. All of these are valuable things. And there is much art to buy, from the visual to the patronage offered by music or any of a dozen different forms. They, self-evidently, appeal to the people who can afford them. Yet, when it comes to the art world, the power dynamic is radically imbalanced: the recipients of this largesse judge their benefactors, rather than their wealthy patrons judging them.
In practice, this means that conservatives progressively lose their people, not least their elite donor class, to the tastes of others. The “progressive illiberal” stronghold over the intellectual and corporate world on these matters is so predominant that art patronage offers no space for dissent. Rather, it captures the money of conservative donors whilst betraying their beliefs.
Today “Global Britain” has more to do with Harry Potter and the Premier League
No one wants to look a fool in the company of the cultural elite. However, increasingly there is no way for many on the Right to stand their ground since they struggle to have a position to defend. Some, uninterested in the arts, dissociate themselves from it. Others, who like the arts, don’t always fully understand or recognise how its mechanics have been thoroughly captured, and what it takes to move forward, thus delegating the task to others. And the circle completes itself.
We can’t pretend that using meaningless concepts such as “soft power” helps anything. Today, “Global Britain” has more to do with the Premier League, Harry Potter and video games; they say little about excellence and vision in the high arts. If we want to prevent cultural decline and win the debate, our elites need a plan so they know what to do with their own winnings and earnings. Otherwise, we surrender too much high ground to people who use it mercilessly, relentlessly and, yes, intelligently.
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Because our society is still that of the written word, literature is often an easier point of access to talk about the arts. But all arts differ and have specific modes of production, expression and education. One size does not fit all.
Many of us have been through university. That’s why the debate about “culture” in higher education has become so febrile. But who’s been in a conservatoire for five years or more? Or in a visual art school? Or even a craftsman’s workshop? How well do most of us understand their structural problems as well as those of universities? Saying “beauty matters” doesn’t fix anything. It says little about what beauty looks or feels like. It’s a prescription without a medicine.
If we think that politics cannot — or should not — remain neutral about culture, then it’s time to discuss the economic forces underpinning the arts as much as the lofty ideas behind them. It’s not all doom and gloom. There are potent projects and intelligent people up to the challenge. Online, a few admirable voices dedicate themselves to unpacking grand intellectual ideas whilst meticulously explaining the concrete techniques of craft required for beautiful artwork.
The composer Samuel Andreyev, who delves into deep musical analysis, is one. Wrath of Gnon, who offers insights into traditional urbanism, is another. More progressive in his leanings on fashion is “Derek Guy”. When driven by remarkable policymakers and guided by clear policy outcomes, a nexus of talented individuals emerges at the Create Streets Foundation.
But these efforts need cultivation and robust structural support — and this cannot rest solely on central government’s shoulders. As the welfare state killed the welfare society, the cultural state devours the arts. The Académicien and author of the Republic of Letters, Marc Fumaroli, articulated one of the best critiques of state outreach in the arts — now deceptively labelled the “creative industries” — as suffocating the spirit it claims to nurture and reducing culture to a sterile bureaucratic exercise. Historically, creativity flourishes not through centralised directive, but in the organic interplay of dialogue, tradition and individual ingenuity.
Even in France, often hailed as a cultural powerhouse, the formation of the “cultural state” in the early modern period did not take a rigid, top-down approach to the arts. The “cultural politics” of monarchs like François I or Louis XIV were less about initiating artistic innovation and more about lending supports to movements already thriving organically within society.
The Académie Française, for instance, did not emerge fully formed from Cardinal Richelieu’s vision but evolved from private academies where literary reform was already under way. Similarly, French artists who flocked to Rome in the 17th century achieved greater results through independent exploration than through state-sponsored projects like Fontainebleau.
The alternatives, however, don’t need us to reinvent the wheel. We focus so much on the school of thought that led our cultural, self-destructive failures that we often forget that the counter-revolutionary march through the art institutions isn’t an abstract idea but necessitates the funding for concrete spaces: places — studios, conservatories, workshops and private salons — that can serve as sanctuaries of intellectual and artistic exchange, thriving independently of state intervention.
In these arenas, the spirit of ingenuity, wit and intellectual freedom can organically emerge through dialogue amongst artists, mentors and mentees, their supporters and critics. From there, we might rise, courageously and humbly, against the forces of civilisational decline.
