“Post-truth is the old-fashioned term that political correctness has renamed lies”

Culture has settled into two realities that have relegated art to inconsistency: on the one hand, relativism, which has led to post-truth; on the other, political correctness, which results in the dictatorship of woke up.

This is how strongly it all began Jaime Olmedo your conference Freedom and culturethe eighth of the cycle Freedom in the 21st centurywhich celebrates the tenth anniversary of EL ESPAÑOL and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Camilo José Cela University, of which the philologist and academic is rector.

Convinced that “Culture cannot be reserved for a few”Olmedo attacked the exploitation that is made of her from the political spheres. Although he previously highlighted some historical milestones which, according to him, determined the current situation.

The rejection of classical canons and positivism, at the origin of the dogmatism to which culture is now constrained, appeared in the 19th century. “We have moved from a trust in the rational to a refuge in the irrational,” he explains, and the first artistic movement that gave rise to what he calls the “discrediting of verisimilitude” was the Romanticism.

When society mutated “from rebellion to disenchantment”, bohemianism emerged: “The artist exacerbated the traits of the tormented romantic” – the rector slipped -, removing the humanist attributes which correspond to creation.

Salvador Maria Granés invented the concept in our country “golfemia” to challenge the “art for art’s sake” of the romantics full of individualism. “I hate literary bohemia with all my soul,” Unamuno said, a recurring reference among the many references used by Olmedo.

The avant-garde went even further at the dawn of the 20th century. If shortly before symbolism had revealed the “incapacity” of artists to handle an articulated language with gifts of excellence and that expressionism was abandoned to “the search for the ugly”, the avant-garde movements were “the great aesthetic challenge” against art.

In the name of “the horror of conventions” and ignoring the concepts of “reason” and “tradition”, futurism, cubism, Dadaism and, finally, surrealism led to “aesthetic annihilation” and “the most absolute insignificance”. Dadaism even dared to declare that since then the artist would be more important than the worka notion that – unfortunately for Olmedo – continues to resonate today.

“This irrationalism led to hermeticism,” said the rector, which was the prelude to the lack of communication between the artist and the public.

Still, “it might have made sense at the time,” he concedes; The problem is that it lasted “unbearably” until today and today we are already dragging “a century of avant-garde” in which criticism was gradually relegated.

But it turns out that “the truth exists and there is error”, even if contemporary cultural pride does not intend to be criticized, just said Olmedo, who insisted on the importance of “back to history”. It is not only about “transmitting knowledge to future generations” so that they can “reject traps” and be truly free, but also about pointing out “self-serving interpretations of history” and “distortion as a political objective.”

In this regard, Olmedo provided some examples. THE deconsolidation of museumsWithout a doubt, the most current. “The name is not even correct because Spain did not have colonies, but rather overseas provinces,” he assured. Not to mention the “presentism” with which this political measure is approached, sponsored by the “moral force” of which the left always boasts, he came to say.

However, if at the cultural level progress fights behind the trenches of its supposed “ethical superiority”, the right appears “disdainful”he said. And that always leads to populism.

Returning to the purely artistic domain, Olmedo recalls the emergence of Harold Bloom at the end of the century to claim “the autonomy of aesthetics” and propose, against the grain, the hated canon.

“Against relativism, demagoguery and hypocrisy” which ended up consolidating an “institutionalized avant-garde” where contemporary art is “pure provocative, cynical and anti-aesthetic spectacle”the canon is a kind of countercultural vector. And not only is “there no way to know what is art and what is not,” but it is also virtually impossible to distinguish “good from mediocre,” the rector said.

The contemporary work of art is in the hands of “thieves” and “businessmen”he said, and in addition to being “unable to communicate,” they also don’t know the owner. The exhibitions no longer even have an epigraph that defines them, they are presented before an audience amused by their jokes and, at the same time, abandon themselves to their eloquence.

In short, culture has been abandoned to consumption and, in its name, “everything is permitted”. A universe in which “charlatanism” reigns because it has long been oppressed by “the dictatorship of relativism”. Besides, “post-truth is the old-fashioned term that political correctness has renamed lies,” he said.

Cancel culture and self-censorship are some of its current expressions, but its origins are much further back. The audience present at master class de Olmedo was able to give a good account of it.

The rector still had a message of hope for the end. To fight against the tyranny of dogma, the philologist and academic proposes “the community effort to seek the truth”. Faced with sensationalism, “art must regain its aura”, because “culture is either a necessity or madness”.