Are tyrants good for art?

[Alex Colter]

"It's because traditional tyrants left a good deal of freedom in society.
Ancient China wasn't anything like a modern democracy, but it produced some
of the greatest art there's ever been, while Mao's China produced nothing.
Tsarist Russia contained many kinds of discrimination and injustice, but in
the late 19th and early 20th Century it was in the vanguard of literature,
painting, music and dance. The Soviet Union produced little that was even
remotely comparable. The arts flourished in the empire of the Habsburgs,
while Nazism produced Leni Riefenstahl's repugnant and much over-rated
Triumph of the Will. Whereas authoritarian regimes leave much of society
alone, totalitarianism aims to control everything. Invariably, the result
is a cultural desert."

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>wrote:

> Culture thrives on conflict and antagonism, not social harmony - a
> point made rather memorably by a certain Harry Lime, says philosopher
> John Gray.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19202527
>
> John Gray
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Gray
>
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