Art, or Propaganda?

'Passage Prize - Volume 1: Exit From the Longhouse' Reviewed

‘Is conservative art possible?’ that is the question that the new publication by Passage Press, Passage Prize Volume 1: Exit from the Longhouse seeks to answer, and that answer is decidedly ambiguous.

This gorgeous new book, currently available only in limited quantities is the direct result of the Passage Prize, a new literary prize set-up by members of the online dissident right in order to support conservative and right-wing artists. It is not difficult to see that the current cultural scene, both in its high and low forms is dominated by the left. This was arguably always true, and for a variety of reasons. Basic psychological testing shows that people who score highly on a trait called ‘openness’, that is being more inventive and curious rather than consistent and cautious, are more likely to align with the political left. Artists are likely to score higher on ‘openness’ and therefore are more likely to be on the left. It is not all that simple however, the connection between the so-called Big Five personality traits and politics has been called into question, especially since the Covid pandemic where the right and left behaved in ways that the Big Five traits would not expect them to. Moreover, high openness does not necessarily lead you into the arms of the political left. Many great artists of inter-war Europe such as Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis and the Italian Futurists aligned themselves with fascism. This shows how rather than being a far-right movement fascism was syncretic and unique, appearing to offer an exciting and dynamic third way between liberal democracy and socialism. Paradoxically, at least in its early stages, fascism could appeal to artist in a way that staid conservatism never could.

To get back to the point, cultural production is dominated by the left. Visual art either celebrates degeneracy and ugliness or makes blatant and boring political points. Sometimes it does both. Even worse it is often actively funded by the government of the day. Funding art generally is not a good idea as it produces bad art. Funding people who actively hate you to produce bad art is a very bad idea. In literature something similar is going on. There’s been a problem from both the supply side and the demand side. Men have increasingly stopped reading, and when they haven’t they have definitely stopped reading fiction. At the same time, publishing houses have sought to be more diverse, seeking authors from different backgrounds. As the writer Joyce Carol Oates (who is no raging reactionary) tweeted: ‘A friend who is a literary agent told me that he cannot even get editors to read first novels by young white male writers, no matter how good; they are just not interested.’ There are no more Phillip Roths, Norman Mailers and Saul Bellows anymore because increasingly the culture doesn’t produce them, and if it did they wouldn’t get published, and if they were to get published they wouldn’t sell very well. Film is perhaps the most visible case of decline. The messaging of American films has become increasingly and aggressively liberal, see for example the Marvel films which started off apolitical and patriotic and have now embraced wholeheartedly the worldview of the American cultural elite. The Oscars are another example of this; rarely does the best film win, but instead the most politically correct one is chosen. All in all, it is clear to see why the Passage Prize is needed. The hegemony of the left needs to be broken.

First awarded in 2022, the Passage Prize was started by an anonymous Twitter user known only as ‘Lomez’. The prize categories included fiction, non-fiction, poetry and art. There were over 2000 entries and up to $20,000 in cash prizes. Although done entirely outside the mainstream, the Passage Prize was a serious and real effort. A short while after the winners were announced a book collecting the winning-entries, along with the runners-up was published. The book itself is a fascinating document. No expense was spared, from the glossy and colourful inside pages full of illustrations, to the stunning cover that simultaneously calls back to the past with its marble background, and to the future with its psychedelic design. The prize and the book it produced are already a real accomplishment – as far as I now, nothing comparable to this has ever been done before. The content of the book, however, is a more mixed picture.

I won’t go through every detail and every story in the collection as there is little point. The quick conclusion is that the majority of book is good. A few of the submissions aren’t quite to my taste but that is to be expected from every collection; a few are truly wonderful and I’d like to read more from those authors. The introduction by Lomez sets the scene. It begins with a quote from Ernst Jünger’s underrated work The Forest Passage: ‘ Any power struggle is preceded by a verification of images and an iconoclasm. This is why we need poets – they initiate the overthrown, even that of titans’. The message is simple: to control politics, you must control culture. The ambitions of the Passage Prize then, are massive: to get rid of the ‘utter wasteland’ of culture in ‘the Current Year’ and to replace it with something better.

Much of the fiction in the book has either covert or overt science-fiction elements. It often takes place in the murky time-period so beloved by writers now, the near future. One of the best stories in the collection begins ‘It’s Wednesday night in March 2041 and you’re standing in line to kill Baby Hitler’. It’s a short and light story, that nevertheless plays with your expectations. The premise is that in future there are sophisticated virtual reality arcades, where, through a combination of technology and a special cocktail of drugs, you get to replay moments in history. Some people chose to relive the battle of Mogadishu, but killing Baby Hitler is always a popular choice. With a premise like that you would assume that this would be some sort of time-travel story, where the choices one makes go on to impact the future. Instead, it is something more simple. The protagonist of the story goes back to Branau am Inn, kills Baby Hitler and then enjoys spending time in the town. He starts to come back to the simulation more and more often, not for the pleasure of killing Hitler, but for the pleasure of spending time in 1890 Austria, where the atmosphere is peaceful and he’s still allowed to drink and smoke.

Other stories include a creepy tale about a flying saucer that crash lands on a 1940s farm, a tribute to Medieval chivalric romances written in the style of the time, and a science-fiction tale about the colonisation of the Red Planet titled The Paul Bunyan of Mars in which it is strongly implied that Elon Musk will achieve god-like powers and be worshipped by future civilizations. There are also plenty of stories of social criticism. 3000 Years of Porn takes place on a space station, but effectively explores the dangers of pornography. Similarly, there is a powerful story about artificial wombs which raises all sorts of questions about the morality of a technology that will likely be available in my lifetime. But the two best stories in the collection, neither of them prize-winners, are also the simplest.

The first, Nectar of Gods, is a critique of so-called ‘Cancel Culture’. It is told through flash-back, as Madeline, a patient at a nursing home, is reaching old age and is due to be euthanised by the government. She reminisces about her university days and her brief affair with a sculpting teacher that she had. After a sculpting lesson the teacher asks her if she’s willing to model for him. She does it for a few days, eventually getting comfortable. After the work is done the professor asks to have dinner with her. She agrees and they spend a romantic weekend together. Yet, the spell is soon broken as a scandal envelops the professor. Apparently he refused to use a previous model because she was ‘too overweight’ and so got accused of ‘racial abuse’. Students, including Madeline’s room-mates who make pornography on the internet, rush to condemn the professor and to tear down one of his statues. He flees to France, but Madeline doesn’t join him. Back in nursing home Madeline has a final wish before she dies, so she bribes her El Salvadorian nurse and slips out of the facility, along with her robot assistant. She goes to Central Park, where the statue of her as recently been unveiled, after the clay model was a found in some warehouse and it was cast in bronze. She looks up at her younger self, the classical statue serving as a reminder of the glorious past in more ways than one. In twelve pages, Nectar of Gods does what it took Tár 158 minutes to achieve.

The second stand-out story, Amira, also has a tinge of science-fiction to it, and is also about cancel culture. It begins, like the last story, at a university campus. Grace is a student in a Family Law class. Allie, an Amazon robot in the class, takes five minutes to answer a question from the professor because the formatting of the webpage she is reading from incorrect. Allie reads out long URLs, letter by letter for ages, until Grace tells her to stop. When Grace says this, the class goes silent. Only three earlier had Amazon sent out a update deprecating the ‘stop’ command and making synthetics more independent. Synthetics were people after all, and shouldn’t be treated like slaves. Ashamed at what she had done, a tearful Grace runs out of the class. Soon she is put in front a morbidly obese university administrator, someone so fat that their race and sex and age are indiscernible, and told that there will be an investigation into her behaviour. The video of the incident at the lecture spreads online. Grace’s boyfriend breaks up with her and confesses that he has been cheating on her with Allie. Amazon releases a statement saying that the university should ‘protect the dignity of all students’. Eventually Grace snaps and tries to assault Allie. She knows that she’s not human despite the whole world being determined to lie about that. Grace is sentenced to jail time for attempted manslaughter. Allie runs for congress as ‘the first bisexual female synthetic major-party candidate (in that district)’. In prison Grace receives postcards from fans; anime drawings of her in American flag bikinis or SS uniforms. Many of the new inmates in prison seem to have committed crimes against synthetics. The TV news shows hate crimes against synthetics on the rise. Two Senators and eight House members are arrested for seditious conspiracy and incitement to riot. The story ends like a Hollywood movie; there’s an explosion and the prison is attacked. A figure in a balaclava and ski goggles rescues her. ‘Grace Park?’ he says. She nods. ‘The jihad has begun, we’re here to rescue you’.

The two stories are the undoubted highlight of collection, both using science-fiction conceits to shine a light on the lies that we tell ourselves as a society. Yet, neither of them were prize-winners. Which brings me to a light critique of some of Passage Prize Vol 1. I don’t think it has achieved its aim. It has certainly come close, but I think its aim was impossible in the first place. The Passage Prize sought to create a new wave of right-wing art. In many ways it has come close. Though it beyond my means to adequately judge the visual art and poetry in the book, much of it is beautiful and affecting. The non-fiction is the weakest aspect of the book. There is an interesting piece about German U-Boats and a good instruction manual on how to hunt. Yet many of the entries devolve into boring and pessimistic political creeds, full of denouncements and whining, with little solutions.

The winning fiction entry, American Buddha is also not to my liking. Harkening back to classic American literature in its setting and style, the story has a nasty, ugly tone and a retrograde worldview. Whilst technically sound, it certainly wouldn’t have been my top pick. Yet it is no wonder that it won. The judge of the fiction category, who goes by the name Zero H.P. Lovecraft, explains in his introduction, that he rejected a story for inclusion in the book because it was open to a feminist and humanist interpretation. On the other hand, American Buddha has a solid conservative message and that is at least part of the reason it was chosen. That is why, ultimately the Passage Prize fails. Because Zero H.P. Lovecraft’s criteria are criteria for the selection of propaganda, not art. And there’s nothing wrong with propaganda. I like a lot of it. Much of the what the left creates these days (in fact, the overwhelming majority), is propaganda, and there is no shame in creating counter propaganda. Yet, when trying to create a dissident artistic movement, it is imperative that no propaganda be allowed anywhere near it, as it can taint the whole thing. The problem with Passage Prize Vol 1, even though it is a good read that I recommend to anyone interested, is that some of the pieces are art, and some are propaganda, and the two certainly don’t mix. Despite this I’m heartened by its publication and hope that it spawns other similar projects. Perhaps the whole conceit is misguided. Perhaps right-wing art will come from a place where you least expect it, like the second season of Mike White’s White Lotus. Yet, the Passage Prize is still a fantastic and worthwhile project. As the back cover of the book says ‘We are going to win’. I have no doubt about that.

This article originally appeared in Interkom magazine.