The Poisoned Well

Art is often treated like an accessory, an emblem, a representation of whatever you hope your identity to be. The prints on your wall, the music in your playlists, the books you have read or pretended to read—all add up, in this shoot-first digital culture, to a capsule of who you are for others to quickly swallow. Those who still profess to care about art, in this era, may tremble from time to time. Do I like the right things? Are my choices good enough? Good is less a function of talent than some moral calculus. Right-wing and left-wing each revel in this exercise. The Right hopes their favored artists can initiate another round of lib ownership. Jason Aldean has happily become their new totem. Or they’ll settle for “Rich Men North of Richmond.” On the Left, there’s a bit more neurosis, an affect of strained curation. Whatever I like, it must be good for the Democrats. All of this accelerated when Donald Trump became president and plenty of it has lingered into the 2020s.