The New Philistines: How Identity Politics Disfigure the Arts by Sohrab Ahmari, 104 pages
The New Philistines is Sohrab Ahmari's lament for the current state of the arts - a genre he is well aware is already well-established. Yet he is convinced that something has gone uniquely wrong in the past few decades, a period during which Western cultural elites have had their worldviews narrowed by their embrace of identity politics. The result has been the wholesale abandonment of aesthetic standards in favor of a propagandistic political statements, which has not only further impoverished the art of today and led to a triumph of spectacle and cliche, but has deprived many of the ability to appreciate the great works of the past.
Ahmari is a journalist, and The New Philistines is journalism in the formerly archaic but once again popular sense, a journal of personal encounters and experiences, in this case disappointing ones with the elite art world. As such, it is accessible but not particularly deep, though keenly observed.
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