Waitman Wade Beorn takes a closer look at the supposedly innocuous activities of a series of massively viral social media accounts
You have probably seen those massive accounts on social media that post beautiful examples of classical art and architecture. You may have even forwarded them on yourself. After all, some of those buildings are amazing; I love the libraries, myself.
One of these accounts on X/Twitter, the anonymous Culture Critic (@Culture_crit) has 1.2 million followers. However, there is a darker undertone to these accounts as well.
Often their posts come with additional messaging along the lines of “why can’t we have beautiful things like this anymore?” or “look what we used to have!” A closer inspection will almost inevitably reveal that almost all the examples of beautiful art and architecture are European, white, and male. You generally won’t find the Great Mosque of Djenne (Mali) , the Wat Arun Ratchawararam (Thailand), or Himeji Castle (Japan) in these richly-illustrated posts of the ideal art and architecture. You won’t find women represented either. A powerful subtext begins to emerge from these accounts asserting the cultural superiority of white Europeans and claiming a malignant force has intentionally destroyed beautiful things.
White supremacists identify this force variously as Jews, non-white people, immigrants, communists, liberals, and atheists, while rarely addressing the role capitalism has played in changes in our built environment.
This should be read in the context of growing scholarship on the co-opting of classical history by the far right. The alignment of the right with classical (or neo-classical) cultural forms serves two purposes. First, it reinforces a supremacist view of culture that sees white European accomplishments as superior. Secondly, it provides a coded language for that extremism that is both more socially acceptable and harder for critics to pin down than more blatant racism.
As most white supremacists view their movements as “Eurocentric,” it makes sense that they would mythologize and glorify white European cultural achievements. Right-wing movements throughout history have always viewed the classical past as an ideal time of superior cultural expression, foundational philosophical development, and architectural innovation. They make no attempt to at all to hide the belief that this was due to the ultimate racial superiority of white Europeans. This included the literal whitewashing of history which Classics scholar Sarah Bond pointed out in 2017. Bond showed that early popular studies of art in antiquity “celebrate the whiteness of classical statuary” despite the fact that classical statues were originally painted. For noting this, she received criticism from conservative news outlets and death threats from the far right.
The connections between far-right and white supremacist movements and narratives about cultural superiority are numerous. Paul Watson, a famous alt-right British YouTuber, posted a video in 2017 entitled “Why Modern Architecture Sucks” in which he calls modern architects the “social justice warriors of their time.” He decries public housing which leads to crime, he laments the “ghettoization of the landscape,” and he blames Arab money for much of this.
The now-defunct white supremacist group Identity Europa frequently used classical sculpture as background to its flyers with seemingly innocuous slogans of “Serve your people,” “Protect your Heritage,” and “Our Future belongs to Us.”
Conservative commentator Douglas Murray has bemoaned so-called wars against “white people…our history…our religious inheritance…our philosophical inheritance…our cultural inheritance.” He blames “highly tolerant societies” and claims that that non-Western cultures did not produce much of value. He then claims that we should stop pretending that “alongside all the great philosophy of the West that native American philosophy is equal.”
In Germany, far right leaders have embraced the rural völkisch architectural style. The völkisch movement was a German ethno-nationalist movement that was amplified by and reflected in the Third Reich. When he was the President of the United States, Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again” which mandated the classical style as “the preferred architecture” for government buildings. White nationalist Richard Spencer claimed in a promotional video that “We aren’t just white…we are part of the people, history, spirit of civilization of Europe,” meanwhile the camera pans long a line of classic busts.
Culture Critic is an anonymous account (another red flag) so one can only infer its intentions from posts and interactions. One or two elements alone may not be conclusive, but taken together, it certainly appears that its messaging fits into white supremacist manipulation of history introduced above. The account is not just a fan of classical style; rather, it editorializes and it clearly ranks white European accomplishments above all else. As a result, it only posts images of (predominantly western) European art and architecture.
Secondly, the implicit and explicit message is that classical and traditional is superior to other forms. In short, this is not a fan account, but one with an argument. For example, in one post, the account argued that, “Ugly public art demoralizes us because it is in some sense anti-human. It certainly doesn't come from that worldview centered on the importance of humanity that inspired the Trevi Fountain.” The thinly-veiled message here is that anything not springing from a classical Western worldview is ugly. In another post, it showed images of classical statuary and asked “why did we stop?” The question remains unanswered as does who “we” is, but the implication is clear.
Thirdly, the account has written what can only be described as Nazi apologetics. A blog post on Culture Critic’s Beehiiv page entitled “Dresden’s Architectural Miracle- and the rebirth of culture” begins by lamenting the loss of the Baroque Frauenkirche church during WWII. Then, in the section entitled “The Fall of an Empire,” Culture Critic gives a one sentence description of Germany’s “humiliating defeat” in WWI before calling Hitler a “charismatic leader” whose “message of German pride rallied the country, inspiring Germans to fight to the bitter end of WWII.” And that is the end of the explanation of the Nazi state and/or the reasons for the war. The post then goes on to lament the Allied strategic bombing campaign that destroyed Dresden in 1945.
Culture Critic calls the Soviet rebuilding program in Dresden “Punishment by architecture,” consistent with its social media messaging that socialism/communism is the enemy of traditional culture. This is itself a common refrain in far-right circles where everything that they disagree with is socialist or communist. The post ends with a somewhat cryptic series of questions “Why does the world feel empty? Is something missing in the modern age? And is there any way to find it again…?” This yearning for a return to a (white, European) golden age is another key characteristic of white supremacist propaganda.
Lastly, the account appears to be massively popular among actual white supremacists and Nazis. While an account with over a million followers can’t necessarily control who follows and shares posts from their X/Twitter account, it is yet another data point to suggest that the coded messaging is landing exactly as intended.
When I pointed out the potential white supremacist messaging of the account on X/Twitter, I was immediately assaulted by masses of racist and white supremacist users, rather proving my point as they constituted the overwhelming majority of respondents. I was repeatedly called a “degenerate Jew,” told that I was “anti-white,” and given multiple variations on “traditional European culture is superior to other world cultures.”
If Culture Critic isn’t deliberately sending white supremacist messaging, it’s at least a bit strange how many white supremacists are deeply invested in defending the account from being tarred as white supremacist. Note: at the time of publication of this piece, Culture Critic has made no comment, nor, to my knowledge, ever made any statement distancing the account from far-right extremism.
To be clear, no one is saying that appreciating classical art means you are a white supremacist. However, when viewed in its totality, the evidence strongly suggests that these “art” accounts are acting as dog whistles for the far right, spread by an audience that contains both unsuspecting fans and knowing extremists. The challenge is that ultimately these accounts can hide behind seemingly innocuous posts while, particularly with these coded questions, encouraging white supremacist nostalgia for a particular past and stoking anger about what a commonly understood group of “enemies” are doing in the present.
We should all be more careful about accepting such Trojan horses into our social media cities.
Dr Waitman Wade Beorn is an historian, writer and public scholar. He is an Assistant Professor of History at Northumbria University, Newcastle.
https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-classical-culture-social-media
