On Aesthetics in 21st Century America

Trump is a philistine. We must be a nation of Davids.

[I have decided to abandon the three part structure I attempted previously as it was too formal and unworkable for some topics. After taking some time to retool my approach, I have decided to more thoroughly integrate my thoughts across different domains into a cohesive analysis. This is likely to be the format going forward.]

Introduction

Aesthetics may seem to be quaint topic in light of the political realities of the United States in the 21st century, however I believe that the current approach of the state under Donald Trump is instructive as to the political and personal character he displays as a leader. Furthermore, an understanding of his intense and at times fraught relationship with the expression of American ideals through public art gives some insight into the weaknesses of his basis of power and how his base may ultimately be dismantled.

I. Aesthetics as Politics in American Art

Art and design, and particularly public art done at the behest of or maintained at the expense of government, has long both represented and shaped the prevailing attitudes of American society both during the time in which was commissioned and beyond. The neo-classical style of Washington, D.C., featuring white marble, columns, and other Romanesque accents, certainly speaks to a spirit of republicanism. More broadly, the Federal-style of architecture and art, prominent from the Revolution through the 1830s, which highlighted virtuosity without the grandiosity of European aristocratic commissions, could be seen as an early artistic expression of American idealism: republican, anti-aristocratic, at turns convinced of its virtue but unwilling to assert itself fully.

Of course, like all art, this style also glossed over the reality of the American situation of relative isolation and severe internal turmoil unresolved, and perhaps even accentuated by, its revolutionary ideals. The challenge of slavery to American virtue and humility was hardly reflected in the Federal era art and design, although enslavers were often prominently featured in various depictions of republican valor. Additionally, while Native Americans were often depicted in idealized, and often wholly fictional ways, to represent the untamed spirit of America, it seems likely that many Indigenous people of the time would have been perplexed by the depictions of them doing such things as guiding White settlers to the Northwest Territory to brutally displace them, or deeply mourning at the funeral bier of George Washington, which there is no documented evidence any Native American leader participated in on an official basis or was even invited to attend.

While this essay will not attempt to give a full account of the development of public aesthetics in American history, the reflection of public values in public art and architecture did not end with the Federal-era. The end of America’s relative isolation and normalization of relations with Britain saw the rise of imported Victorian styles and aesthetics, which is evident in the official dress of federal office holders of that same era. Interestingly, this style of dress still exists on an official basis among the staff of the Supreme Court, who wear distinctive morning clothes when performing public duties. Perhaps one could interpret this as indicative of a clinging to tradition from a branch that also resists modernizing in other ways, such as prohibiting live television coverage of its proceedings. Art Deco was the public aesthetic of choice both during the boom era of the 1920s and was subsequently adopted by the WPA Moderne aesthetes of the New Deal era, albeit with some elements of socialist realism melded into it.

The New Deal also brought about a new era in government support for the arts. While modern, non-representational art was not yet popular in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, the U.S. government nonetheless gave grants to artists to develop artforms that were not yet commercially saleable. Perhaps unintentionally, this policy contrasted sharply with “anti-degenerate” public art policy both in the rising fascist empires of Europe and the doctrine of socialist realism in the Soviet controlled East, both of which demanded representation of real objects in ways that were politically aligned with the state, i.e. propaganda. In this way, the U.S. was a leader in public support for the arts as arts, rather than the arts as a product to reinforce the state, and it stood together with its Latin American peers in this effort. This is not to say this policy was without controversy, as evidenced by the cool public response to Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals, which many interpreted as being antithetical to American industrial and even religious values.

Since the advent of the New Deal public support of arts, the production of public art that challenges the views of those in power or of the public at large has remained controversial. However, despite these controversies, the support of the arts (ars gratia artis) by various federally funded institutions and public-private partnerships, such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institutions, the Library of Congress, and even more seemingly commercial and didactic institutions such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has given the American people both a sense of common ownership of the artistic life of the nation and a set of national access points to the arts. While the arts have become more abstract, and at times even more challenging of public orthodoxy, as styles and tastes change, they have nonetheless remained public and non-aristocratic at least in the sense that they are both produced by and accessed by the people. Thus, even though the content of public art and aesthetics may reflect more conflict, uncertainty, and even criticism than they did in the Federal-era, they have both retained their republican character and have adeptly avoided becoming the sort of stolid propaganda that other powerful empires resorted to in modern history.

II. Politics as Aesthetics in the 21st Century

In the year 2025, we are seeing an unprecedented upending of the relatively free dialectic of art and politics that has been indicative of American policy toward the art in the 20th and early 21st centuries. While public support of controversial, and even offensive art, such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Perfect Moment exhibition, have caused debate and have even worked to narrow the scope of what may be publicly funded, i.e. what art may be produced by the collective labor and endorsement of the American people, the moment we are now in is quite different.

Instead of considering what works will be tolerable to society at large or will be funded through existing public mechanisms through a deliberative process, the United States is currently undergoing the fundamental restructuring of the organs of the production of public art and aesthetics. The deliberative process is being replaced by the individual whim of the president, Donald Trump. This unilateral imposition of his will is evident in his decision to name himself the head of the Kennedy Center, as well as removing and replacing board members in that and other cultural institutions, including the Library of Congress and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with close proxies who will, in effect, shape those institutions in the image of Trump. While it would be worrying that this process put this power into the ambit of the office of the president, it is not entirely clear, at this early stage, that the intent is even so benign as to make the arts accountable to popular politics. At this point, it is only clear that the intent is to make the arts accountable to the tastes of one man, who happens to be president at the moment. Only time will tell if these powers remain with the office when (assuming he does) leave.

This fundamentally alters the relationship between art, aesthetics and politics that Americans have known and thrived on for the past near century explicitly, and much longer implicitly. No longer do the arts and politics exist in a Hegelian dialectic in which they inform one another, with neither holding the position of the master for long and from which both new political strains and new artistic commentary are realized. Now, with public artistic enterprise and the attendant monetization of public art firmly and expressly tied to the will of the personification of the state, public aesthetics are at risk of being permanently made the servant of politics. And if that is the case, it is necessary to examine what kind of aesthetics the political master will favor.

III. Trump the Philistine

The term philistine is sure to raise some hackles. And while, like King David, I am happy to sling stones at philistines and the bigger the better, I do not use the term here to be entirely deprecating, but I do use it to be critical. Philistinism has been a subject of aesthetic criticism since the 18th century, and although it has taken on several meanings in that time, and certainly some with disastrously classist overtones, it has consistently denoted an undue focus on materialism, particularly one’s own material life, and conformity. An early critic of philistinism J.W. Von Gothe stated “the philistine not only ignores all conditions of life which are not his own, but also demands that the rest of mankind should fashion its mode of existence after his own.” Later critics have largely followed this trend, with Kierkegaard deriding the philistine as incapable of sufficient spiritual transcendence of material fears to be truly imaginative, and the arch-atheist Nietzsche, in a rare moment of convergence with his theistic philosophical brethren, bemoans the philistine as one who sees art that exists outside of his material interests as antagonistic to it. While Nietzsche is rarely subject to obvious interpretation, in this case he appears to believe this is an example of weakness and a failure to integrate one’s material interests with proper invigorating passions.

Further artistic commentary from figures such as Horvath and Nabokov, both well acquainted with the stultifying effect of materialism as orthodoxy in the arts (at the hands of Nazism in Horvath’s case, and both Nazism and Soviet communism in the case of Nabokov), use the term philistinism to denote an aesthetic that prizes materialism and conformity, but with added notion that the philistine, possessed of the advantage of being able to make an informed and knowing choice, nonetheless chooses the path of philistinism. This distinction will be important as we progress.

Donald Trump is, based on all available evidence, a philistine. His concept of beauty is intimately tied to a reflection of his own wealth and power. One need only look at the ostentatious gilding that has become synonymous with his brand to see ample evidence that not just wealth but his own wealth is the value he most wants reflected back at him when he looks at ornaments. Furthermore, he has demonstrated that the value of art is, in his mind, only judged by the degree to which it stands to enrich him or further his plans. His destruction of the Bonwit Teller friezes, works of art deco history that had been accepted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for preservation, is a manifest example of the Nietzschean definition of philistinism: both disregard for the value and hostility toward art that interferes with owns material position. I will leave it as an exercise for others whether he is also a Kierkegaardian philistine.

It should also be clear from the nature of his orders and statements, both personally and through his staff, regarding the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that he prizes conformity. For instance, the May 1, 2025 proclamation, purporting the defund the CPB, states “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” This appears to be an implementation of the statute, cited in the same order which states “the Corporation shall not contribute to or otherwise support any political party.’ 47 U.S.C. 396(f)(3). However, this provision is not a programming demand. It is a condition of non-profit status, and all tax exempt non-profits are similarly bound despite many, including churches and special interest committees, having clear viewpoints. And not materially supporting a party is certainly not synonymous with having no point of view. What the law actually says about the purpose of the CPB is much less censorious, and rather than stating it should have no discernible viewpoint, as Trump states, the same section of statute cited above states “expansion and development of public telecommunications and of diversity of its programming depend on freedom, imagination, and initiative on both local and national levels” … “will constitute an expression of diversity and excellence”. Furthermore, and perhaps most likely to be galling to Trump, the federal law specifies “it is in the public interest to encourage the development of programming that involves creative risks and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities.” None of these expressions, actually stated in the law, bears any resemblance to the flattened, viewpoint-free vision of public media Trump espouses in his order.

Perhaps more directly, Trump’s philistinism is on display in his statements regarding the Kennedy Center. In appointing his close associate Richard Grenell to the post of executive director he stated “Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center. NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA — ONLY THE BEST.” (capitalization in the original). Thus it is clear that Trump has a unitary vision of what “American arts and culture” are, measures it against a seemingly platonic ideal (the golden age being borrowed directly from Plato’s account of history), and believes that any performance that deviates from his preferred standard is not only displeasing to him, but “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA”. This is a demand for conformity.

Finally, in making the case that Trump is a philistine, I will examine whether he has made these choices knowingly and with the opportunity to decide otherwise. I contend that he has. Trump boasts of his fine education, social credentials, and connected, high status position. Taken at his word, he has been given the opportunity to become an appreciator, or at least an informed and thoughtful critic, of the arts. However, he remains mired in fearful, materialist rejection and demands for conformity by others to his timid tastes. That satisfies the final requirements, laid out by Nabokov and Horvath, that he is in fact a philistine.

I will not argue here that an educated person need to adore or even appreciate every form of art in order to avoid being classed as a philistine. Despite citing them earlier in this essay, I find some of the work of Mapplethorpe and Nabokov repellent, although I do consider myself educated and in general an informed viewer of the arts. But while one may not enjoy these specific works, one need not confine criticism of those works to one’s own material and temporal interests that such works may challenge, nor need one demand that others conform their tastes to my own. Criticism, as in the dialectical process championed in parts I and II, is valid and in fact an important aspect of a healthy aesthetic culture. What Trump offers is not criticism, it is wholesale suppression and at times destruction, both physically and mentally, of both art and criticism. He is protecting himself from art, and in turn demands we afford legitimacy to that protection by demanding our public aesthetics be dictated not by robust experimentation and constrained by serious debate, but by what comforts the most powerful man in the world. This should be a matter of serious concern to all of us.

IV. A Nation of Davids

The term philistine is derived, quite tangentially, from the biblical people of the same name. Perhaps the most notable biblical Philistine was Goliath, famously slain by David, the future King of Israel. Drawing from this historical and mythological basis, the composer Robert Schumann imagined a League of David, a group of contemporary artists and critics who would defend advancements in music from the vulgarian detractions of aesthetic philistines. However, Schumann’s Davids largely existed in his imagination, and made their appearance only in his own writings. Fortunately for the United States, a permanent organized League of Davids has been largely unnecessary, although certainly we have seen organized defenses of the arts, such as the Committee for the First Amendment during the Second Red Scare. It is also fitting that now the most powerful philistine in the world happens to be the President of the United States. A more fitting Goliath in need of resistance by a League of Davids could not exist.

Whereas Trump believes, or at least hopes, that he speaks for the “average American” in opposing any aesthetic that does not relate materially to his interests or which diverges from the political orthodoxy and conformity of thought he wishes to establish, it is not as clear that this is a deeply held sentiment of the American people. While Trump derides plays like Hamilton when those involved in the production criticize his arts policies, it remains one of the most popular musicals ever produced, especially surprising given its academic and previously obscure subject matter. Similarly, Americans have given audience to numerous exhibitions, films, plays, and musical pieces that controvert the “official narrative” or even seek to offend public sensibilities. Mapplethorpe’s aforementioned exhibition would have had little effect or enduring legacy had people not seen it, let alone 400 people removed from the gallery by police seeking to build an obscenity case around it. The Last Temptation of Christ, a highly controversial film, gained modest box office success, with its popularity likely due to a desire by ordinary people to engage with the controversy surrounding the film. Americans are curious and engaged people. Trump concludes otherwise at his own risk.

This positive outlook on the character of Americans is not to say that we can sit back and let this problem sort itself out. While Trump may be a committed philistine, he is also setting the stage for many Americans to occupy the nebulous realm of artistic children and adolescents described by Nabokov, wherein they have philistine opinions, but only because they do not have the experience necessary to form different ones.

This is where there is real battle to be won or lost against Trump’s philistinism. America has maintained its status as a nation of Davids in large part because, since the early 20th century, our public policy regarding arts and aesthetics has favored a certain amount of literacy and a mostly apolitical and agnostic approach to allowing and promoting art in public spaces. With control of federal art institutions now being wielded in a manner that promoted orthodoxy and the material interests of the president, i.e. as institutions of propaganda, we risk the literacy and appreciation of art, even in the form of criticism, deteriorating into an uninformed pseudo-philistinism of the masses. This is not a battle for whether the American people, individually or collectively, like or dislike some piece of art or another, but whether the American people, like their president, fear and reject art in favor of the propaganda of conformity.

America must commit itself to being a nation of Davids, slinging stones against the Goliath of a censorious president. In order to do this, we must recognize that 1) Trump derives power from the ignorance, not stupidity, of others, and 2) ignorance can, in many cases, be displaced with exposure to new ideas. This is not to say that they must agree with our own interpretations of and preferences for art (which is presumably impossible as our own interpretations and preferences are nearly infinite), but they must come to understand that their informed opinion, whatever it may be, or even desire to come to an informed opinion, is vastly superior to the committed and ignorant fear of our leader on this point. And once people can see themselves as superior to Trump, they will be free to question and examine him in a way they are not currently capable of from their own position of fear and presumed inferiority. This is the psychological power of art and education that Trump is attempting to suppress and reverse. Arts are not merely a trophy to be won by one side or the other in this struggle. Arts are both a weapon and a battlefield, and the sooner we use it to its fullest effect, the less power its attempted suppression by the opposition will be.