This is why parents will rush to place their kids on long waitlists for art and music programs, but won’t encourage them to become artists or musicians as they age. It’s as if creative expression is useful for its ability to create connections between young neurons, and once that purpose has been fulfilled, it becomes an obstacle that gets in the... See more

Great art is everywhere and always rightist, not in a political sense, or an ideological sense, but temperamentally and philosophically. By this I mean that only art informed by Tradition has the ability to reach the status of greatness, first because it admits the possibility of excellence in the first place (quality being the opposite of... See more

Interestingly, Hoffer also makes the repeated but less emphasized point that creative people— fulfilled creative people; Hitler was not alone among Nazi leadership in being a failed, frustrated artist—are less prone to subsume themselves in mass movements. Not because fulfilled creative people are smarter or more successful or wiser, but because... See more