I make the argument that this last dead century is a pit, not a descent; that if the reigning culture can be destroyed, tradition can resume; we can have good writers again. I don't consider our daily, living, American culture unwholesome, I consider our cultural elites diseased. If the elites can be destroyed, health will return, and I believe those elites can be destroyed just by the public breaking out in a laugh. Everything done by our "serious set" is self-evidently crap. There is no following, except among the "serious set". If they become laughing stocks, how long will they desire to be laughed at? What if the funding drys up? It's funding that supports crap, funding through government and private institutions. Government programs can be defunded by an enraged public; private institutions can be made to have second thoughts, if enough of the public makes clear their contempt.
This is an argument I've made my entire adult life, that there is nothing good out there among the "serious set" (though a lot of genre is good); that everything from the "serious set" is meant only to offend; that offense is considered excellence (the only possible way these people can be excellent); and that it's all possible as dominant only because of dominant funding; that it all starts with the universities (supported by their graduates, who have never read Shakespeare and anyway couldn't begin to appreciate him); and that the only reason it continues is because it is so massive and pervasive that it is able to lock out all antagonistic input.
Right now I make this only as an observation, rather than as an extended argument. It certainly is true that there's nothing good out there. The questions are:
--Can the elites effectively be mocked?
--Can their lock be broken?
--Are there men out there who can write?
--Is there a public that can appreciate?
And I suppose the most important question is: What in ethos is necessary to produce good literature? It does seem to necessitate all three; elites, writers, public. It's only the elites that for sure are crap, I expect that there are writers, and there would quickly be a ready public. Tea Party Tea Party. I have such hopes, because this is a rising up of contempt, and contempt is the only proper appreciation of our present high culture.
How many good colleges and universities are there out there? Hillsdale College seems fine. There must be two or three more. That's not going to constitute a very large population. Universities and colleges, fundamentally all of them, are government structures; without government funding they collapse. But there is tenure. With tenure they're fossils, they can not be changed. Can government be changed? Can government simply defund? To simply defund, to tie funding to tuition; that is, to the market place, would certainly change the nature of what is taught. With parents as the market place it's impossible that educational quality wouldn't improve. --But this is a bit long term in terms of simply getting some good novels out there.
Conservative non-fiction does very well. Why should not a conservative novel, one expressive of traditional values, also not do well? It would not do well among critics, it should do well among the public. Who reads novels? With "serious novels" only the "serious set", because nobody else will read stink, but those people don't define who reads novels, they only define who reads present novels. If a serious, traditional novel were written with a Tom Clancy capacity for story, if it were published and pushed by a number of people, it could be successful; elite condemning opinion would be ignored, simply because the elites are coming to be ignored.
So, how many people to make a revolution? If Fox can succeed, a serious decent novel can succeed. There's not much money in it, but it can succeed. It can succeed because the gate-keepers have lost their ability to snottily shame. In the present climate it would not take many men to make a revolution, just a number who have decided it's time. Tea Party Tea party. It could happen. --Make it twelve.
(Note: I'm not considering the ethos that can create great literature, only the ethos that can support good literature. --The gate-keepers have to be by-passed.) (Art has been rotten longer than literature, literature rotten longer than film. They all have reached rotten.)
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