Passage of Interesting Times

On May 1st, Ross Douthat published a conversation with Jonathan Keeperman, titled “The New Culture of the Right: Vital, Masculine and Intentionally Offensive.” Keeperman, known for years on Twitter as “L0m3z” (pronounced “Lomez”), is the publisher at Passage Press, a confidently right-wing publishing company that has reprinted original Hardy Boys stories, HP Lovecraft science fiction, and Robert E. Howard pulp, founded a periodical called "Man's World," and put the words of prominent X-lectuals like Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land in print. His ascent from Twitter anonymity to recognition by one of prestige media’s preeminent thinkers — points of reference bookending his doxxing last year, which transmogrified an internet troll into a handsome young man with respectable academic credentials — denotes the suitability of Douthat’s choice of title for his interview series. “Interesting times,” no doubt.

The duo meander a bit into relevant territory, covering conservative hipsters (news to me), "The Longhouse,” and their shifting disagreements over the president, but the explicit purpose of the sit-down was to discuss a future for right-wing art. Kepperman seeks to present order to his seemingly contradictory mission, while Douthat hopes to discern whether Passage is constructing an institution capable of containing the entropic forces unleashed by the New Right it represents. The unstated point of contention between these representatives of two generations competing to replace the retiring Baby Boomers hinges not so much on the tired debate about “what time it is,” but rather on the appropriate action given the late hour. (You can imagine which party is up for pulling an all-nighter and which prefers to turn in for a fresh start tomorrow.)

Asked what’s wrong with conservative art as it stands today, Keeperman offered the following:

It’s much too moralistic. It’s didactic. It’s always trying to tell you a self-consciously conservative message. It’s overly sentimental. There’s also this nostalgia thing. It’s always looking backward. Conservative art is always looking to the past because it’s familiar, it’s something that’s already been established. They already know what they’re supposed to like, what’s good and what’s not good, so there’s no risk in trying anything new. The third thing I’ll say here is that it’s grievance oriented. This comes in two forms: it’s either ‘we’re owning the libs’ or ‘here’s a story about all of the ways the libs are making our lives unbearable.’

Pressed for examples of the form rightly applied, we’re directed to No Country for Old Men, the films of David Lynch, and even HBO’s Girls. The former two are plausible enough: both imbued heavily with the horrific, grappling with the threat of perdition, these are more than plausibly right-wing. The latter selection suggests a circular logic and a troubling limitation: The worth of art is dependent on its adherence to truth, and narratives unfold toward happy or unhappy conclusions; assessing the conclusion requires a familiarity with the reality of good and the bad; all worthwhile art is right-wing art. I do not know what became of the girls in Lena Dunham’s series, other than that they will become women—lonely ones, romantically fulfilled, professionally successful, or not. But while the series certainly tells many truths about the contemporary “dating” scene, it too often entices the audience with slop. It matters whether we are debased between the opening credits and the ending. It is no coincidence that Americans of this century tuned in for six seasons of Walter White building a meth empire, while Americans of the 20th took away the same moral in two hours as George Bailey settled for protectorship over a sleepy Bedford Falls. Perhaps more time to think on it would have advanced Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress or David O. Russell’s Joy—as confident an ode to capitalism as Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)”. But are these right-wing, or merely conservative? To one still unsure about this new wave, the question remains whether right-wing artists can deliver comedy.

Fittingly, the conversation turned to the subjects most troubling to Douthat: the trolls. Here, the conversation gets to the pressing issue that divides Douthat and Keeperman, one faintly recognizable to those who followed Jonah Goldberg’s debate with Chris Rufo last month. We are best able to see that the generational impasse extends beyond the economic: a preference for stability among the already-established, such that it dims their sights to the perils of those making their way, versus the tolerance for a dust up among restless outsiders, thus blinded by ambition to the pretty good thing we got going here. Douthat wonders what alleged ironic bigotry and meme wars do to the young behind the digital personae; he is skeptical that their attraction to influencers “just asking questions” doesn’t betray the answers they’re seeking. His interlocutor is concerned with the circumstances that pushed boys out of public space toward the refuge of chatrooms and avatars. With some justification, Keeperman can claim that a backlit screen is a powerful weapon for securing freedom. He may well underestimate the negative-sum game of influencer ascendency, but an outside observer can hardly fail to notice that young men at least sound like they’re progressing when prestige media discusses how dangerous they are instead of their sexual ineptitude.

In the Douthat/Keeperman discussion, like the Goldberg/Rufo debate last month, we glimpse the competing pitches of first principles for the disembodied mass of curious digital consumers: one side argues for tending to the soul and all will be, if not well, at least okay; the other urges that without free minds and intrepid self-confidence, free men are doomed to an unhappy end.

So, who will prevail? It is to Douthat’s disadvantage that Cormac McCarthy was right about modern America’s sentiments toward aging men. Keeperman, however, might do well to remember the hare’s track record in races against the tortoise. It’s a good sign that the two camps are starting to parley. Each has a great deal more to offer the other than I imagine they've realized. And time, it would seem we can all agree, truly is of the essence. (Or at least of an essence.)