Why Are So Many Artists Leftists?

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I’m referring to visual artists, actors, authors, singers, directors, producers, and just about any other type of artist or performer you would care to name. It seems as if many of them, both today and throughout history, have been leftists.

Does anyone know why this is often the case? I’m not just referring to Hollywood. Picasso was a Communist, and many famous writers were socialists, too. Left-wing thought seems to dominate a lot of artistic planes.
 
TheLiberator said:
I’m referring to visual artists, actors, authors, singers, directors, producers, and just about any other type of artist or performer you would care to name. It seems as if many of them, both today and throughout history, have been leftists.

Does anyone know why this is often the case? I’m not just referring to Hollywood. Picasso was a Communist, and many famous writers were socialists, too. Left-wing thought seems to dominate a lot of artistic planes.
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I don’t know but my guess:

They gravitate to careers and a way of life that emphasize a “do what you feel” attitude, and that society should support them in their efforts, since they are contributing their talents to society without any compensation. Sort of a communist attitude, which doesn’t work well in a very large society like ours (USA).

I grew up in the 60’s, and had friends who were actual hippies. They lived on communes, where everyone contributed their talents and abilities, and the commune took care if everyone equally.

Guess what?
They are all now capitalists (one an engineer, one a respiratory therapist, and one - yep, still an artist!). 🙂
 
My best friend is an artist and a republican. Now there’s a rarity!
 
captainrick said:
I don’t know but my guess:

They gravitate to careers and a way of life that emphasize a “do what you feel” attitude, and that society should support them in their efforts, since they are contributing their talents to society without any compensation. Sort of a communist attitude, which doesn’t work well in a very large society like ours (USA).

I grew up in the 60’s, and had friends who were actual hippies. They lived on communes, where everyone contributed their talents and abilities, and the commune took care if everyone equally.

Guess what?
They are all now capitalists (one an engineer, one a respiratory therapist, and one - yep, still an artist!). 🙂
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I’d go with this: if you look at the sixties - free-love, tree-hugging, drug-slugging, and the bringing back of pagan cults, you can’t exactly call this conservative. And considering that music is considered art…the same goes with the Impressionist era of painting and the little rebellious free-thinkers in France that were the Enlightenment, they are always anti-establishment or norm. It is odd in some ways that Communism is considered far left as it is about control and so in actual fact it really belongs, with reflection, along with fascists in the far right, or along those lines, somewhere. The only reason Communism is lumped in the left is because it pretends to be something it is not.
 
Far-left equals chaos, indulgence and free-for-all. Far right equals Dictatorship and old-hat.

Artists want to be ‘free’ but end up being at the mercy of their own ‘free’ passions so cease to be ‘free’ at all.:rolleyes:
 
I’m a Reagan Republican, Conservative, Pro-Life Artist.

…
 
It’s funny. I’d say that a lot of Enlightenment thinkers were classical liberals, which would make them much more conservative in regards to today’s political lingo.

I would actually put fascism on the left, since leftism is mainly about control, but it depends on how you define your political terms. I think of ideologies which emphasize more government as on the left, while those on the right are much more about limited government.
 
TheLiberator said:
It’s funny. I’d say that a lot of Enlightenment thinkers were classical liberals, which would make them much more conservative in regards to today’s political lingo.
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True. They were classical liberals. 😊 Was John Keats part of the Enlightenment, I can’t remember? I think they would now be considered left, though.
I would actually put fascism on the left, since leftism is mainly about control, but it depends on how you define your political terms. I think of ideologies which emphasize more government as on the left, while those on the right are much more about limited government.
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I am from the U.K not the U.S so this could be why our views differ (?). I define it like this: far left is the appearance of freedom. Less known rules in play. What happens as a result is an intolerance born in the guise of equality but stems from a need to change for the sake of change, kind of autocratic. Which is why Communism is lumped in the left - because it tries to claim equality. In the right, conservative, we have known rules and a general keeping to the same old, same old - to conserve - but with far right, becomes the aggressive enforcement of sustained rules. I can see why you would put fascism in the left except that it stems from a claim to keeping things the same (I think?), for example, the Nazis wanted a ‘pure’ race, free from other bloodlines (kind of like vampires 🙂 ), so in that sense they would be considered conservative extremists.
 
Hmmm…this is a juicy topic and one that I’ve thought about a lot as I spent a great deal of time with a number of very leftist, very creative/artistic types in my college years. The ability to experiment and trail blaze with constructive critique is very important, and from what I remember, many artists feel as though they need to continuously push boundaries and break away from and “question” any type of social or moral constraint/standard/norm (or, at the very least, re-examine it). Perhaps these values simply translate to the political sphere? To be honest, I think some of it might simply be following the crowd. I’ve seen some very experimental work in my day…oh yes… :eek: I remember struggling a lot with the nihilistic attitudes that were present in a lot of the projects.

I wonder if it’s not that the elite artistic industries (e.g.- Hollywood, the art world) tend to be dominated by certain perspectives, but if you expand your definition of practicing artists to include those who might be more on the margins or creating niche work, you’d find that the numbers were more even? 🤷 I’d like to think so!
 
Just my opinion:

Artists tend to me more creative, open minded and yes more “Hippy” in that they believe in peace, love, and tolerance. And they also really enjoy sex and don’t get guilty thinking about it. As an artist myself, I can agree with the statements 😉
So from a right wing conservative religious standpoint, this would be very “leftist.”
That’s why I think so many artists/musicians are of course liberal leftists, although I don’t like using that word leftists.
 
BlueElf said:
Just my opinion:

Artists tend to me more creative, open minded and yes more “Hippy” in that they believe in peace, love, and tolerance. And they also really enjoy sex and don’t get guilty thinking about it. As an artist myself, I can agree with the statements 😉
So from a right wing conservative religious standpoint, this would be very “leftist.”
That’s why I think so many artists/musicians are of course liberal leftists, although I don’t like using that word leftists.
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Although I’d say that their version of *peace, love and tolerance *could be reevaluated as really being: desire for social acceptance, indulgence and vanity, disdain for sanctity of life. 😛 I went to an art college / Uni though wouldn’t call myself an artist because I’m not doing anything arty but I would look at art work from there now as more critiques on life and order, but in reality ends up as being deep-seated desires for *‘following the crowd’ *as iwillrise suggested. In some cases: the finding of self.
 
sscott said:
A lot of artists also have same-sex attraction.
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Lots of artists don’t. Teachers and nurses and all sorts of people do. I would say that most artists are heterosexual. But then who knows? Not sure what the point is here?
 
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