Skip to content
1981
The Struggle Before Us
  • ISSN: 2042-793X
  • E-ISSN: 2042-7948

Abstract

The rise of neo-McCarthyism has strengthened the power of the state through the repressive use of public institutions. Those who challenge capitalism and authoritarianism are singled out for reprisal. Arts-based social movements can resist state-sponsored neo-McCarthyite sanctions against democracy. Social movement activists can provide counter-narratives to the emerging forms of anti-leftism in autocratic states. As a model of resistance, travelling art and theatre groups could operate on a collaborative, crowdfunded basis, moving from place to place and providing innovative alternatives to the status quo. They would present comedy sketches, monologues, oratory, parodies, poetry, satires and songs that have a social and political message. They would at the same time disseminate information to help people make effective use of available resources and connect with solidarity networks. Performances could be live-streamed or recorded, then uploaded onto various social media platforms, helping to promote social movement objectives. Due to the collaborative nature of the work, public support would grow for these arts troupes that would eventually become self-funded. As social movement projects move online, artists encounter new forms of neo-McCarthyite repression.

© 2022 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00078_1
2024-02-19
2026-04-12

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alexandersson, B. O. P. and Jónsson, G. H. (2021), ‘Key witness in Assange case jailed in Iceland after admitting to lies and ongoing crime spree’, Heimildin, 6 October, https://heimildin.is/grein/14117/. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Alsayel, A., de Jong, M. and Fransen, J. (2022), ‘Can creative cities be inclusive too? How do Dubai, Amsterdam and Toronto navigate the tensions between creativity and inclusiveness in their adoptions of city brands and policy initiatives?’, Cities, 128, pp. 1–12, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275122002256. Accessed 3 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Apostolopoulou, E. et al. (2022), ‘Radical social innovation and the spatialities of grassroots activism: Navigating pathways for tackling inequality and reinventing the commons’, Journal of Political Ecology, 29:1, pp. 144–88, https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/2292/. Accessed 30 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Asenbaum, H. and Hanusch, F. (2021), ‘(De)futuring democracy: Labs, playgrounds and ateliers as democratic innovations’, Futures, 134, pp. 1–11, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328721001439?via%3Dihub. Accessed 6 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Aswad, E. M. (2020), ‘Losing the freedom to be human’, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 52:1, pp. 306–71, https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/files/2020/11/306_Aswad.pdf. Accessed 3 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Barry, K. (2023), ‘“Artists not tourists”: Ethical tensions between creative mobility and migration’, Applied Mobilities, 6 July, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372178690_%27Artists_not_tourists%27_ethical_tensions_between_creative_mobility_and_migration. Accessed 18 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bee, V. A. (2019), ‘The significance of J20’, Current Affairs, 20 January, https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/01/the-significance-of-j20/. Accessed 17 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Benjamin, W. ([1955] 1968), ‘The storyteller: Reflections on the works of Nicolai Leskov’, in H. Arendt (ed.), Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (trans. H.Zohn), New York: Schocken, pp. 83–109.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Boghosian, H. (2021), ‘How fear of government surveillance influences our behavior: Heidi Boghosian on self-censorship and expression’, Literary Hub, 15 July, https://lithub.com/how-fear-of-government-surveillance-influences-our-behavior/. Accessed 1 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Borger, J. (2021), ‘CIA forges unity in diversity: Everybody hates their “woke” recruitment ad’, The Guardian, 4 May, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/04/cia-woke-recruitment-ad. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Bourdieu, P. ([1977–84] 1991), Language and Symbolic Power (ed. J. B. Thompson, trans. G.Raymond and M.Adamson), Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Bourdieu, P. (1989), ‘Social space and symbolic power’, Sociological Theory, 7:1, pp. 14–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Bourdieu, P. (1993), The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (ed. R. Johnson), New York: Columbia University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.-C. ([1970] 1991), Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (trans. R.Nice), London: Sage Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Bowley, G. (2021), ‘Trump tried to end federal arts funding. Instead, it grew’, New York Times, 15 January, https://archive.ph/oxe4M. Accessed 1 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Ceplair, L. (2011), Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Choi, C. (2020), ‘Street art activism: What White people call vandalism’, Harvard Political Review, 21 October, https://harvardpolitics.com/street-art-activism/. Accessed 1 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Cohen, S. F. (2016), ‘Neo-McCarthyism and the new Cold War’, The Nation, 7 December, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/neo-mccarthyism-and-the-new-cold-war/. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Dreier, P. (2023), ‘The red scare took aim at Black radicals like Langston Hughes’, Jacobin, 31 March, https://jacobin.com/2023/03/langston-hughes-red-scare-black-radicals-leftists-huac-red-baiting. Accessed 3 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Earl, J., Mayer, T. V. and Pan, J. (2022), ‘The digital repression of social movements, protest, and activism: A synthetic review’, Science Advances, 8:10, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abl8198. Accessed 31 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. European Commission (2023), The Status and Working Conditions of Artists and Cultural and Creative Professionals: Report of the OMC (Open Method of Coordination) Group of EU Member States’ Experts, June, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/01fafa79-1a13-11ee-806b-01aa75ed71a1/language-en. Accessed 2 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Fazey, I. et al. (2020), ‘Transforming knowledge systems for life on Earth: Visions of future systems and how to get there’, Energy Research & Social Science, 70, pp. 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101724.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Gerth, M. (2022), ‘British McCarthyism: The anti-communist politics of Lord Vansittart and Sir Waldron Smithers’, History, 107:378, pp. 927–48, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-229X.13326. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Gross, J. (2021), ‘Practices of hope: Care, narrative and cultural democracy’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 27:1, pp. 1–15.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Hauptman, W. (1973), ‘The suppression of art in the McCarthy decade’, Artforum, October, https://www.artforum.com/features/the-suppression-of-art-in-the-mccarthy-decade-214149/. Accessed 1 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Hofstadter, R. (1964), ‘The paranoid style in American politics’, Harper’s, November, https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Isto, R. (2017), ‘“What matters is revolution at the historical moment of radical contemporaneity”: Interview with Marina Gržinić’, ARTmargins, 21 May, https://artmargins.com/what-matters-is-revolution/. Accessed 1 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Jacques, I. (2023), ‘What does “woke” mean? For conservatives, it’s so much more than political correctness’, USA Today, 10 March, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/03/10/what-does-woke-mean-republicans/11427923002/. Accessed 17 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Katz, P. (2015), The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink, London: Penguin Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Klein, N. (2007), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. La Force, T., Lescaze, Z., Hass, N. and Miller, M. H. (2020), ‘The 25 most influential works of American protest art since World War II’, New York Times Style Magazine, 15 October, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/t-magazine/most-influential-protest-art.html. Accessed 2 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Laranja, M. and Pinto, H. (2022), ‘Transformation for a post-pandemic world: Exploring social innovations in six domains’, Knowledge, 2:1, pp. 167–84, https://www.mdpi.com/2673-9585/2/1/10. Accessed 5 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Lippard, L. R. (1984), Get the Message? A Decade of Art for Social Change, Michigan: E. P. Dutton.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Lovink, G. and Rossiter, N. (2018), Organization after Social Media, New York: Minor Compositions.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. McCormick, J. (2013), ‘Travelling puppeteers’, World Encyclopaedia of Puppetry Arts, https://wepa.unima.org/en/travelling-puppeteers/. Accessed 31 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. McRobbie, A. (2016), Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries, Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Messer-Kruse, T. (2021), ‘Anti-critical race theory and neo-McCarthyism’, CounterPunch, 18 June, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/18/anti-critical-race-theory-and-neo-mccarthyism/. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Messham-Muir, K. and Cvoro, U. (2023), The Trump Effect in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture: Populism, Politics, and Paranoia, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Mulgan, G. (2023), Prophets at a Tangent: How Art Shapes Social Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Neo, F. (2022), ‘The power of arts in transforming your social innovation work’, Social Innovation Exchange, 26 August, https://socialinnovationexchange.org/the-power-of-arts-in-transforming-your-social-innovation-work/. Accessed 3 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Ó’Caollaí, É. (2022), ‘RnaG at 50: A radio station created for the people by the people’, Irish Times, 26 March, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/rnag-at-50-a-radio-station-created-by-the-people-for-the-people-1.4834439. Accessed 13 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. O’Neill, M., Erel, U., Kaptani, E. and Reynolds, T. (2019), ‘Borders, risk and belonging: Challenges for arts-based research in understanding the lives of women asylum seekers and migrants “at the border of humanity”’, Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture, 10:1, pp. 129–47.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Power, S. (2023), ‘Jordan Peterson urges Burger King boycott after Russell Brand move’, Newsweek, 25 September, https://www.newsweek.com/jordan-peterson-russell-brand-burger-king-1829563. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Quammen, D. (2023), ‘Let’s leave the COVID origin mystery to scientists’, Washington Post, 23 January, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/23/covid-origin-house-subcommittee-scientists/. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Quinn, B. (2019), ‘Sweden drops Julian Assange rape investigation’, The Guardian, 19 November, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/19/sweden-drops-julian-assange-investigation. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Raikes, J. (2023), ‘Is the “war on woke” a war on our country’s future?’, Forbes, 17 July, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffraikes/2023/07/17/is-the-war-on-woke-a-war-on-our-countrys-future/?sh=5b4fa12a754a. Accessed 17 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Raymond, A. K. (2018), ‘Charges dropped against remaining J20 inauguration day protestors’, Intelligencer, 6 July, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/charges-dropped-against-all-j20-inauguration-day-protestors.html. Accessed 17 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Reja, M. (2021), ‘Trump’s “Chinese virus” tweet helped lead to rise in racist anti-Asian Twitter content: Study’, ABC News, 18 March, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/trumps-chinese-virus-tweet-helped-lead-rise-racist/story?id=76530148. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Rogers, D. (2023), ‘What’s next for Extinction Rebellion after a disappointing success?’, Waging Nonviolence, 8 June, https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/06/extinction-rebellion-uk-big-one/. Accessed 18 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Ross, A. S. and Rivers, D. J. (2017), ‘Internet memes as polyvocal political participation’, in D. Schill and J. A. Hendricks (eds), The Presidency and Social Media: Discourse, Disruption, and Digital Democracy in the 2016 Presidential Election, London: Routledge, pp. 285–308.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Said, E. W. (1983), The World, the Text and the Critic, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Saunders, F. S. (2000), The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New York: New Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Seligman, L. and O’Brien, C. (2021), ‘Conservatives lash out at the military over “woke” politics’, Politico, 21 May, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/21/conservative-critics-military-policies-490197. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Semedo, M. (2021), ‘Report on the situation of artists and the cultural recovery in the EU’, European Parliament Report, Committee on Culture and Education, 13 October, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2021-0283_EN.pdf. Accessed 2 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Shugerman, E. (2018), ‘J20 protests: What it’s like to face 60 years in prison for protesting Trump’, The Independent, 28 January, https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/j20-protests-trump-what-happened-protesters-interview-a8179836.html. Accessed 17 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Stubbs-Richardson, M., Gilbreath, S., MacKenzie, P. and Reid, A. (2023), ‘It’s a global #MeToo: A cross-national comparison of social change associated with the movement’, Feminist Media Studies, 4 July, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2023.2231654. Accessed 18 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Suliman, A. (2023), ‘Banksy unveiled Valentine’s Day street art. A local council dismantled it’, Washington Post, 15 February, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/02/15/banksy-valentines-day-art/. Accessed 1 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Swenson, A. (2023), ‘Retread scare: Trump and other Republicans evoke another era by calling Democrats “communists”’, PBS, 19 June, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/retread-scare-trump-and-other-republicans-evoke-another-era-by-calling-democrats-communists. Accessed 29 September 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Ulas, H. (2021), ‘The dynamics of social movements in unrecognized states – A comparative study’, Frontiers in Political Studies, 3, 12 November, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2021.724125/full. Accessed 13 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Weij, F. and Berkers, P. (2023), ‘Artivist reception on Twitter: Art, politics and social media’, Information, Communication & Society, 26:8, pp. 1618–36.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Zuboff, S. (2015), ‘Big other: Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization’, Journal of Information Technology, 30:1, pp. 75–89, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1057/jit.2015.5. Accessed 5 October 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Zunes, S. (2022), ‘People-powered and non-violent social movements: Forcing gradualist democratic reforms in authoritarian societies’, Frontiers in Political Science, 3, 4 February, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2021.721055/full. Accessed 6 August 2023.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00078_1
Loading
Art for democracy’s sake: How neo-McCarthyism is resisted by arts-based social movements
Art & the Public Sphere 11, 187 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1386/aps_00078_1
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00078_1
/content/journals/10.1386/aps_00078_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): activism; anti-communism; authoritarianism; counter-narratives; social movements; travelling arts

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test