Can political art fully satisfy the claims of truth and beauty? Or is it fatally compromised by the passionate desire to persuade? Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal offers a report from the front lines of the increasing politicization of art in twenty-first century America, and the growing inclination of contemporary artists to take the political views of their audiences for granted.
 
Terry Teachout is the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal, the music critic of Commentary, and a contributor to the Washington Post, for which he writes "Second City," a column about the arts in New York City. He also writes about the arts for the New York Times, National Review, and other publications, as well as on his website, www.terryteachout.com. His most recent books are A Terry Teachout Reader, just published by Yale University Press, and All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine, out in November from Harcourt Press. Mr. Teachout is also the author of The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken (2002) and City Limits: Memories of a Small-Town Boy (1991), and the editor of Beyond the Boom: New Voices on American Life, Culture, and Politics (1990, introduction by Tom Wolfe) and Ghosts on the Roof: Selected Journalism of Whittaker Chambers, 1931-1959 (1989). Born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Mr. Teachout lived in Kansas City from 1975 to 1983 where he worked as a jazz bassist and as a music critic for the Kansas City Star. He was an editor of Harper's Magazine from 1985 to 1987, an editorial writer for the New York Daily News from 1987 to 1993, and the News' classical music and dance critic from 1993 to 2000.