TLR and the Arts

If you view this diagram of the Texas Ascendancy Project you will see a connection between the Texas Leadership Revolution (TLR) and the Arts. The arts do reflect the feelings of a society and leadership needs to take seriously the messages from the artists.

Rod Dreher echoed this thought in his Sunday August 31, 2008 column, "GOP Slouches Toward St. Paul". He quoted Dr. Claes Ryn saying:

"The problem [for conservatives], simply put, was lack of sophistication – an inability to understand what most deeply shapes the outlook and conduct of human beings. Persons move according to their innermost beliefs, hopes and fears. These are affected much less by politicians than by philosophers, novelists, religious visionaries, moviemakers, playwrights, composers, painters and the like...."

Here's another quote: "'Conservatives really don't understand that culture trumps politics,' screenwriter and novelist Andrew Klavan told me recently."

Rod Dreher makes good points when he says later:

"...the chief task before conservatives is not to fight the Democratic Party or prop up the Republican Party. It's nothing less than to recover what it means to be fully human in a postmodern world that denies human nature and the transcendent order underlying our affairs. We must lift our eyes higher than the horizons of the next election and build the institutions and customs that will create an enduring culture based on truth and beauty and virtue...."

I question the fairness of Rod Dreher giving post-modernism a gratuitous slap in the face.

But Dreher is right when he says we need to embrace culture and the virtues of truth and beauty. This is exactly why I wrote my book, developed the Winding Spring Process of Education, and started the Texas Ascendancy Project.

The Texas Ascendancy Campaign believes the connection between leadership and the arts is important. I'm happy to see Rod Dreher also seeing this connection.

Dreher wrote about recovering, "what it means to be fully human," and we can do that by studying the classics.

Robert Canright