Category Archives: Ray Sawhill

Aristocratic Aesthetic Socialism

Aesthetic Socialism, aesthetics, Aleister Crowley, Alt Center, American Culture, Archeofuturism, Architecture, Aristocratic Individualism, Art, Art Deco, California, capitalism, Cinema, Cities, Class, Communism, conformity, Consumerism, Corporations, Culture, David Lynch, demographics, Disneyland, Eugenics, Europe, Film, Germany, Giovanni Dannato, History, Immigration, income inequality, John C. Portman Jr, Journey to Vapor Island, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Malls, Marxism, materialism, Matthew Pegas, Michel Houellebecq, Mid-Century Modern, Neoliberalism, Nudism, Philosophy, Psychology, Ray Sawhill, Religion, Retro Futurism, Roman Empire, San Francisco, Sexuality, Skyscrapers, social status, social trust, Socialism, Urbanism, Utopia, Wealth

By Robert Stark: Originally Published on Alt of Center

The concept of beauty throughout history has been a force for creation, inspiring mankind to reach the pinnacle of civilization. From men accomplishing great things to win over a lover, the beautiful female as a muse for the artist, religions building great temples and cathedrals to attract worshipers, kings and emperors building monuments to demonstrate their greatness, and businesses using aesthetics in architecture and advertisements to attract more consumers.

In today’s society aesthetics serves primarily as a force to manipulate people to keep them striving and conforming to the liberal capitalist system. Advertisements use aesthetics to create a vision of a product to consume; not just the product itself but an overall aesthetically pleasing scene involving beautiful women, luxurious furnishings, great architecture, natural scenery, and music to create the mood.

Continue reading Aristocratic Aesthetic Socialism →

Robert Stark interviews Ray Sawhill about Journalism

aesthetics, Alex von Goldstein, Architecture, Art, censorship, Cinema, Cities, Culture, Film, Internet, journalism, Millennials, Music, New York, Political Correctness, Ray Sawhill, Santa Barbara, Social Media, Travel

Ray Sawhill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Stark and co-host Alex von Goldestein talk to Ray Sawhill. Ray is a retired journalist who lives in Santa Barbara, CA. He blogs at Uncouth Reflections as Paleo Retiree

Topics include:

Ray’s career as an Arts, Culture, and Film journalist at Newsweek
How Ray stumbled into journalism, and how that was not his original passion in life
How artist and writers often get into journalism to make a living
The era of the journalist as the gatekeeper
Censorship in journalism
How the internet is changing journalism
The effects of the internet on cultural innovation
How the internet both enables creative types and non conformist to get their views across, while enforcing conformity for the rest
The impacts of the internet and social media on millennials
The internet and the concept of infinite knowledge
Ray started online blogging at 2Blowhards, because he wanted a platform for people with interesting cultural views who did not embrace the political correctness of the culture scene
Arts & Letters Daily
Ray writings for Salon.com, how he interviewed Roger Scruton, and Thomas Sowell, and how Salon was much more open minded back than
The concept of good taste, and Ray’s observation that the wealthy and cultural elite form their taste in consensus
Ray’s point about people who travel is that they don’t come home and say why doesn’t their home town resemble the places they visit
Ray’s involvement the Punk Rock scene in New York in the 70’s and 80’s
How the Avant Garde was a product of technological limitations
The yippie movement in the 60’s as a precursor to the Alt Right troll culture
How the left counter-culture got absorbed into the establishment and the Alt Right is the new counter-culture
How the culture has stagnated and people are looking to the past for inspiration
Ray and his wife Polly Frost co-produced a webseries THE FOLD
Vaporwave & MACINTOSH PLUS
Sam Hyde’s new World Peace show on Adult Swim
How the 1970’s are considered to be the peak of American Cinema
Films including, Taxi Driver, Dirty Harry, and Falling Down
How art should transcend politics


Click Here to download!
Check out Robert Stark’s Artwork




Robert Stark interviews Ray Sawhill

1980's, aesthetics, Anarchism, Architecture, Art, Art Deco, Bill Kaufman, Bioregionalism, censorship, Cities, comedy, Conservatives, Cuisine, Culture, decentralization, Environment, Erotica, Exposed, Film, hedonism, Hipsters, Historic Preservation, Homosexuality, humor, Immigration, James Howard Kunstler, Jock Sturges, journalism, Literature, localism, New Urbanism, New York, Overpopulation, Photography, Political Correctness, Politics, Polly Frost, Pornography, Ray Sawhill, Roger Scruton, Santa Barbara, Sex and the City, Sexuality, Skyscrapers, Suburbia, Taxi Driver, Theatre, Travel

Ray Sawhill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ray Sawhill worked as an arts and culture reporter for Newsweek. He has also written for Salon.com and blogs at Uncouth Reflections as Paleo Retiree. He splits his time between New York and Santa Barbara.

Topics include:

How Robert and Ray both have personal connections to Santa Barbara and how the city is almost too idyllic
Crime Fiction Novelist Ross Macdonald who’s work captures Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara as a place with strict zoning laws that was modeled after Andalusia in Spain
The contrast between life in Santa Barbara and New York City
How New York City has changed in Ray’s time there in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s
How Cuisine is the one area that has seen increased innovation in New York
Ray’s cameo in the film Exposed set in New York in 1983 staring Nastassja Kinski
How films such as Exposed and Taxi Driver are documentaries for New York in that era
The new peculiarly shaped skyscrapers going up in New York today
“See through buildings” where wealthy Foreigners are buying up real estate in New York and leaving them empty
How Ray is drawn to architecture because it is art you can experience and changes the world in a way that regular art doesn’t
How most of the general public has little input and interest in architecture
How places without zoning laws tend to lack any aesthetic value
How the main rule in urbanism is not to do anything that harms the city
Art Deco and how it succeeds in bringing tradition and modernity into one
Architectual Revivalism which seeks to recreate older forms of architecture
Robert Stark’s Artwork
Ray’s work at Newsweek as a reporters covering art, culture, literature, film, and theatre
How Ray’s most significant interviews were with Writers Philip, Roth, and John Updike, filmmakers Francis Coppola, and Robert Altman and Architect Christopher Alexander
How conservatives tend to avoid culture and leave that domain to the left
English Philosopher Roger Scruton as a model for a cultured conservative
Front Porch Anarchist Bill Kauffman
New Urbanism
The The Retro Cocktail and Locavore movements
James Howard Kunstler
Ray’s involvement with Environmentalism and Bioregional Anarchism
How the environmental movement abandoned the overpopulation issue due to political correctness and mass immigration
The Alternative Right
How the real political divide is between globalism and decentralization
Cultural trends and how Ray views himself as a cultural radar
The trend towards a focus on muscles for young men and men are more self-conscious about their bodies
The value of pleasure and leisure
Erotica and the debate about what’s art and what’s pornography
Controversial nude photographer Jock Sturges, who Ray interviewed
How society is a taking contradictory paths towards lewdness and prudishness
Students Still Sweat, They Just Don’t Shower
How having taste and style has become equated with homosexuality
Young women moving to New York City because of Sex and the City
“Sex Scenes” which is a raunchy, satirical audio entertainment that Ray created with his wife playwright Polly Frost. Check it out.

Click Here to download!

This show is brought to you by Robert Stark’s Artwork