Unleash your inner aristocrat!

[hatzel]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fpetcys2qdQ/T93Vx4_XXKI/AAAAAAAAAsU/je6UdWl2zlA/s1600/Mary+-+Countess+Howe.jpg

Let's remember that the bourgeoisie have not only opposed themselves to the proletariat, but were historically antagonistic towards the old aristocracy. Whilst this is a greatly marginalised current in our times, I'm sure the scars are still there. What better way to overcome the bourgeoisie, then, than by outflanking them on both fronts, with an aristocrato-proletarianism! Brilliant idea...

...no no, that's not the actual point of this thread, that would be pretty stupid (or would it...? :huh: Yes indeed it would). However, various people in recent years have commented on an emerging 'neo-Victorian' aesthetic in art and design (admittedly stuff like steampunk already hinted in that direction, albeit in a different way), the widespread appeal of period dramas such as Downton Abbey, and generally speaking a new-found appreciation of all things aristocratic, from fashion to etiquette. Jane Austen's back with a vengeance, people! Or at least she's back in the form of a distinctly post-post-modern (eww, what a word) neo-romanticism of sorts. I certainly won't pretend to be immune from such ideas; if I look at the above painting of Mary, Countess Howe, I have a great deal of appreciation for the elegance and sophistication of the costume, and the style of painting.

What do others think of these kinds of sentiments? Of course there's always the standard problems of historical nostalgia, a rose-tinted view of the past which overlooks the various obvious problems, but what about this specific case? It's easy to say it's simply a reaction to a discontentment with our current society, but why would it now take this exact form? Can - and perhaps here I'm going off the road a little here - lines be drawn between the increasing anti-work trends in the radical movement and this admiration of the aristocracy? Not to claim that one leads to the other or that these two currents share a worldview, simply that both may reflect a disillusionment with the idea of labour, but a similar disconnection from the world of business, with some then turning to an idealised view of the old aristocracy as somehow 'outside' of these economic problems.

Whatever, talk to me! :)

[Tenka]

During Victorian times the Market was freer than it's ever been, If I do recall. There are many far better oil paintings from those times, and any socialist should prefer Jules Verne to Jane Austen.

Now that's out of the way, this is from the wikipedia article on Dandies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandyism):
With elaborate dress and idle, decadent styles of life, French bohemian dandies sought to convey contempt for and superiority to bourgeois society.
Oscar Wilde was a notorious Victorian British dandy and his The Soul of Man Under Socialism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/) remains relevant to revolutionary thought today, though many have said the same things as it. Not to say Dandyism as such is revolutionary, but taking what one thinks is good from the past into one's own persona and dress can be fully as non-conformist as dressing in a PLA uniform in North America (http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/2nTD6rK9nfM/mqdefault.jpg), if not more.

Well, this is more related rambling than a right and proper reply so I hope you'll excuse me.

[Comrade #138672]

Maybe the 'perfection' or 'refinement' of aristocratic art is something that we need in our organizations, which seem to have undergone a period of breaking down both in size and "quality".

Or maybe it has something to do with the labour aristocracy. ;)1

Or maybe it's just a reflection of bourgeois society. The bourgeoisie and aristocrats have quite some things in common.

Not sure. I'm just making stuff up.

[Luís Henrique]

What do I see here? Peasants partying? Very amusing. [/inner aristocrat]

Luís Henrique

[Tenka]

The urban proletariat, too, can have a healthy distaste for peasants. Coincidence?

[Art Vandelay]

I think Hatzel is on drugs.

[roy]

I think Hatzel is on drugs.

If so I want some

[hatzel]

I think Hatzel is on drugs.

That would probably explain a lot...ah...what's the most aristocratic of drugs? :confused: I wouldn't dream of taking anything else...

Anyway, I don't want anybody here pretending that they don't read Victorian novels and see these aristocrats whose entire life seems to consist of nothing but painting watercolours, crying occasionally and inevitably falling in love with a handsome young man without thinking 'shit I'd do anything for a life like that.' Can socialism ever be anything other than the generalisation of idealised aristocracy? *penetrating question*

[ed miliband]

That would probably explain a lot...ah...what's the most aristocratic of drugs? :confused: I wouldn't dream of taking anything else...

opium, surely?

[hatzel]

When it's opium it's aristocratic, when it's heroin it's proper lumpen...

[smellincoffee]

I tend to find the aristocrats interesting because of the value they placed on manners, culture, and so on. I like people who push themselves to be excellent in someway -- but I despise those who think think they're excellent through privilege of birth. Excellence is earned, created by work, sweated for -- not given. Some aristos were born into privilege and then tried to make themselves worthy of the privilege. I think people are so bothered by the tastelessness of contemporary life -- the whoring out of children on television, the perpetual entertainment culture, etc -- that the more graceful life of the old aristos is more appealing, especially if they're reading Austen and so on where the main characters never DO anything, and life seems so pleasant and easy. (In Pride and Prejudice, you'll never see any of the main characters do anything useful: the girls sit around talking all day, and dancing all night. They don't do wash, they don't work the fields, they do nothing productive. And you have to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for working people to even a mention, and there they're just being eaten by the unmentionables...)

[bcbm]

might be relevant to your interests http://www.dandyism.net/


Jane Austen's back with a vengeance, people!

jane austen was savaging the aristocracy in her work

[Tenka]

might be relevant to your interests http://www.dandyism.net/


I see poseurs in gaudy business suits some way down that page!
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oscar_wilde_2.jpg Doing it right.
http://cdn1.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/images/oscar-wilde.jpg I hope that's real fur.

[Turinbaar]

I've done a bit of looking, and I found that my surname originates from a very old English House that dates back to the time of William the conqueror.

The first recorded man to bear this name was knighted by Richard III during the first crusade. The family ruled over Devon, until the plague hit in the 1300's and the title and land was lost. From then on the descendants of that line lived in Hull, which I found in a 2005 article was declared "worst place to live in UK," so if things were as bad then as they are now, I surmise the fall of the family fortune was very great indeed.

Before leaving for the New World, a family member rose to prominence as a mayor in southern Wales. Once in Virginia (I think), the family produced generals in both the Revolutionary war, and then after in the civil war. True to tradition, they fought on the side of the Confederacy.

The connections between then and now are very sketchy, because my grandfather, from whom I gained this lineage, knew little of his ancestors, and died before I was born.

(On the other side of my family I descend from bedraggled peasants fleeing from opium ridden southern China.)

[hatzel]

jane austen was savaging the aristocracy in her work

The interesting thing, though, is that it almost doesn't matter; even the most hostile representation of aristocratic excess can be reread as somehow endearing. Take Marie Antoinette, for example, who is obviously engrained in popular consciousness as the very symbol of everything that was wrong with the aristocracy, to the extent that any non-critical depiction of her would seem almost comedic. Whilst I don't necessarily think that 'Farewell, my Queen' was a particularly remarkable film, it's certainly interesting insofar as it portrays all the pomp, aloofness and extravagance of the ancien régime, and of Antoinette personally (and to be honest, choosing to tell the story not of Antoinette herself, but of her reader - the very existence of a servant dedicated solely to reading to the Queen is a sure sign of excess, and when that queen happens to be the infamously excessive Marie Antoinette, it strikes even harder - was probably intentional, to accentuate that sense of overindulgence), and yet still maintains an intense admiration for her, perhaps even a strange sympathy, a certain amount of which is probably a result of the very pomp, aloofness and extravagance that make her so inaccessible. Even objects of criticism can eventually be transformed into something rather quaint.

Saying that seems to draw my thoughts to this essay (http://www.metamodernism.com/2011/10/24/seeking-substance-in-historical-costume-films/), which I still seem to be wrestling with. Haven't yet decided whether I'm willing to endorse it or not...

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The urban proletariat, too, can have a healthy distaste for peasants. Coincidence?

Ah yes, the superstitious, provincial, and reactionary peasant folk. All the Olde Worlde backwardness of the aristos, but with none of the glamour. What's not to like about them?

As an unrepentant advocate of modernity, I struggle to understand the romanticism that is imputed to such feudal remnants by certain people.

If I'm to engage in vain dreams and idle fantasies, then I much prefer them to look to the future, which is fluid and ever-changing and thus offers the hope of something better than what exists now, and not the past, which is set in stone and thus offers a reminder of previous failures. The past is the domain of the nobs, but the future is ours for the taking.

[Ravachol]

There is nothing less aristocratic than the neurotic tastes of the incestuous aristocracy. True aristocracy finds itself reflected in the louvre going up in flames!

[GerrardWinstanley]

For what it's worth, I love the music and art of the Ancien Régime. Specifically the composers Lully, Charpentier, Rameau and Couperin and the painters Claude Lorrain and Jacques-Louis David, not to mention majestic buildings like the palace of Versailles. In terms of cultural output, I think it beats post-revolutionary France easily.

I don't know enough about Louis XIV's conduct as a leader to pass comment on it, but he was clearly a man of elegant tastes, unheard of in bourgeois leaders and the monarchs of the 19th century.

[Chris]

As a peasant (small-farmer, descending from tenant farmers) I despise the aristocracy. Death to the aristos! Viva la Revolucion!