As I understand it, it started with a comment Ann Althouse made in the comments section of her own offhand post about the Scorsese/Dylan film. Someone named Andrew had already graciously referenced RWB’s site as being of possible interest. Ann later said:

To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.

This comment got picked up here and then really caused a storm over at a site called Crooked Timber. Another commenter over there said “Gads, did you catch the link to an entire site devoted to right-wing Dylan interpretations?” and drove all kinds of happy readers my way.

Ann Althouse seemed a little surprised at the volume of the reaction to her comment, and attempted to clarify the thrust of her thought over here.

What is there for RWB to say? I’m glad of all the links, of-course. The debate itself over great artists being inherently right or left wing is a bit too abstract and academic to engage me. Obviously, I don’t think anyone would argue with the assumption that, empirically speaking, artistic types tend to vote liberal – if they can stomach such moderation or stoop to actually participating in the corrupt election process. (Allowed – that’s a terrible generalization.) Ann’s observations get to the notion of whether the independence and self-reliance of a great artist is inherently a kind of conservatism, and also whether left-wing ideology inherently stifles great art by demanding that it conform to a set world-view and propagate the “correct” message. (See Pete Seeger’s reaction to Dylan’s artistic growth for a small example of that – and you can see it right in Scorsese’s No Direction Home.)

But, as said before, this is all too airy for me. I mean, even if true, it’s not like Karl Rove is going to be able to go out and get those votes. “Hey, you great artists! Listen to my argument here! You’re natural Republicans!” Trying to make inroads into the monolithic self-defeating-pro-Democrat voting of the African-American population is a steep enough hill to climb for conservatives. And, let’s face it, real artists constitute a negligible demographic. “Great” ones number about, what … 48 or 49?

However, I think it’s very telling that Ann’s comment riled the online lefties so much. You see: they can’t afford to lose those votes.

As for RWB, I think I should just briefly respond to some of the mis-characterizations of my site that have been floating out there in connection with this debate. The title of the site is designed to tweak the closed-minded. And it seems to succeed in that. The site is not, however, devoted to the proposition that Dylan, or his work, is “right wing.” I think that relatively open-minded people who read the serious things here about Dylan do see that I am:
(a) refuting the long-propagated notion that his work (including the early part of it) belongs to the left, and
(b) making the case that conservatives can find much to cherish and little that attacks their own sensibilities in the work of this great American songwriter. And that is something to say, considering how rarely you could say it about other major pop-culture or rock’n'roll figures.

And Dylan, of-course, just happens to be the best of them.

What did Bob Johnston say in No Direction Home? Instead of touching Dylan on the shoulder, God “kicked him in the ass.”

If so, God’s choice of who to kick exhibited some mighty good taste. Good going, there, God.

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