One of the most interesting questions of today is "Why is everything so ugly and art so bad?" I'll explore my answer to that question below, and I think the film "Darkest Hour" holds the answer, interestingly enough 🧵👇

The West, when it was much poorer, built incredibly beautiful cathedrals, stately country homes, palaces, and even train stations, while composing beautiful concertos, chiseling great sculptures, and painting incredible portraits

As I explained here, this was largely the result of the aristocracy, or at least gentry, remaining in charge. Social hierarchy led to immense cultural achievement: https://t.co/9YRtIeXUS0

Then, along came mass democracy Though long derided as mob rule, Western leaders lost confidence in themselves and went ahead with empowering the mob to rule Thus, by around the time WWI ended, universal suffrage was the norm and the gentry had disappeared while the aristocracy

With democracy came a change in how wealth existed and was understood Now the riches of the West had to be used for "the common good" and "the little guy" So instead of Chatsworth and Rembrandt, we got Section 8 housing and Medicaid, with the immensely burdensome taxes, namely

Because of that taxation, the treasures of the old world have disappeared for good The exceptions are those that either remained in the hands of an exceptionally wealthy and prudent family, like the Percy family's Alnwick, or were given over to the government or a non-profit to

But, while there are a few survivors, the Old World is largely dead; what little of it was left died with Rhodesia, as I wrote about here: https://t.co/x7wtDCQoiy

What replaced it is mass democracy and its horrid fruits And while those "cultural" fruits, rap music and Marvel movies, are as bad as their architectural and artistic fruits, Brutalist buildings and modern art, the problem is deeper than just taxes and aesthetics

The problem is deeper. It's spiritual The aristocracy/landed elite is, given its privileges of birth and inherited resources, self-assured Democracy is very much not, and so needs the assurance that comes with the agreement of the mob. This is commonly seen in your average

This democratic need to be in agreement is most ridiculously grafted onto the past in "Darkest Hour," the movie about Churchill during the Blitzkrieg across France In it, he's unsure whether to fight or surrender, so he...goes on the subway to talk to voters about how they think

Eventually, a black guy (who is for some reason in London in 1940, despite Windrush not being until after the war) and a child tell Churchill to fight, so he leaves the subway determined to fight because of his discussion with the proles

It's an utterly absurd scene. Churchill was the grandson of a Duke and, until Sonny Marlborough was born, in line to inherit the dukedom. He was an aristocrat to the core who used his birth and connections to advance in life He needed to get elected, but he wasn't so insecure as

Grafting the subway scene onto the movie shows the ridiculous neurosis of a democratic society: even the great must be in agreement with the common, and to think otherwise, or even lack evidence of such, is a sin against "our democracy" So the Last Lion has to chat with sheep

That's pure nonsense, but it does show why we can't produce anything good anymore For one, whatever is created has to fully imbibe the ridiculous views of the present, so instead of a movie about an aristocrat fighting on while all are against him, the true story, we get

That same neurosis applies to art, architecture, and all the rest Greatness in any of those things requires discriminating taste. Chatsworth and Wentworth have what garish American McMansions don't because the cultural taste at their root is aristocratic: it's self-assured and

Self-confidence, both personally and societally, is a good thing. It leaves to achievement and beauty Sadly, however, it's impossible to create in a democratic society. Democracy requires consensus amongst the whole, regardless of the bad taste and incoherent opinions of the

Read about this through the lens of Rhodesia here: https://t.co/OnbZl7wRCy

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