October 17, 2017

"But the two dictators were would-be intellectuals—Adolf Hitler a failed painter inebriated with the music of Wagner, and Mussolini a onetime schoolteacher and novelist."

"Unlike American philistines, they thought literature and the arts were important, and wanted to weaponize them as adjuncts to military conquest.... During World War I German patriotic propaganda vaunted the superiority of Germany’s supposedly rooted, organic, spiritual Kultur over the allegedly effete, shallow, cosmopolitan, materialist, Jewish-influenced 'civilization' of Western Europe.... Hitler invested considerable money and time in the 1930s, and even after World War II began, in an effort to take over Europe’s cultural organizations and turn them into instruments of German power.... Goebbels and Hitler were as obsessed with movies as American adolescents are today with social media. Convinced that cinema was their era’s main engine of cultural influence, they tried to control filmmaking as far as their influence could reach.... The dominance of American films had troubled European filmmakers and intellectuals from the beginning.... Hitler’s efforts to stem the mass appeal of Hollywood films and jazz only made them... more seductive and, in a final irony, prepared for the triumph of American music, jeans, and film in the postwar world by trying to make them taboo...."

From "The Cultural Axis" in The New York Review of Books. The reviewed book is "The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture."

30 comments:

buwaya said...

Mussolini actually was an intellectual. He did create his own ideology as a synthesis of elements from many sources, which he worked out for himself, or in genuine collaboration. He sought out genuinely brainy fellows like Pareto and sat at their feet. He had a reputation for Italian prose. A self-educated man, and remarkably so.

Hitler not so much. But still, compared to US Presidents he does stand out as a reasonably well educated man.

Bay Area Guy said...

It's true that Hitler (the ultimate dictator) is historically linked to Mussolini (the original "Fascist") become Germany and Italy were allies in WWII.

But the truth is Mussolini was a mere piker. A non-factor. Frankly, a goofball. I'm not even sure he oppressed anyone in Italy. He was a leftist, big government, corporatist stooge.

Hitler should be historically linked to Stalin (the penultimate dictator) because they ignited WWII by jointly invading Poland.

Of course, honor between dictators doesn't last too long, and by 1941, Hitler was fighting Stalin. But they are more similar than dis-similar (if that's a word).

rcocean said...

Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky were no different. Like the Leftists of today, they recognized the need for propaganda through art.

Speer makes the point that Hitler's ideas and views on politics/arts/military were formed prior to 1914. He understood naval and land power, but couldn't grasp the impact of air power. Nor could he ever shake his belief that the Russians were a bunch of backward peasants.

You see the same thing with the Boomers. To them its always the 1960s, even though that was 50 years ago.

buwaya said...

And the thesis of the piece is correct.

What it fails to consider is whether the Fascist/Nazi judgement of prevailing European culture was not correct, that it was indeed an "effete, shallow, cosmopolitan, materialist, Jewish-influenced “civilization”. Leaving the Jews out (their influence being much less consistent than the Nazis required them to be), this was not at all unique in that period.

This was not just a German-nationalist or Fascist opinion, this was also the general opinion of the Catholic church, of much of the Spanish intellectual tradition, of Russian nationalists of the 19th century (Orlando Figes, "Natashas Dance"), and a host of others.

Nonapod said...

I have a bit of a mistrust of people who call themselves or are declared to be intellectuals. Historically there seems to be a lot of bad ideas that are originated and popularized by such people. These ideas are eventually put into practice and result in a great deal of human misery. Of course there's been lots of good ideas too, but the ones that seem to resonate strongly among the "intellectuals" always boil down to full top-down control by a small elite, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and the like.

rcocean said...

Today, the Left-wing gatekeepers in the arts and Entertainment are keeping out any who disagrees with them.

I wonder if there's a resentful would be Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler growing up in today's world.

buwaya said...

And in the US today we are likewise saturated with propaganda through art.
There is only one artistic message, none others are permitted, at least not though the channels that receive financing.

Anything that does not fit the hegemony is underground.

rhhardin said...

It didn't make jazz more attractive to me. Burbeck Take Five was okay but that was it. It at least was interesting.

buwaya said...

"Historically there seems to be a lot of bad ideas that are originated and popularized by such people."

Of course. The best things come from the anonymous toilers who improve things by bits and pieces gradually. All technology comes from them, all useful institutions, all improvements in the standard of living. Empiricists, engineers, in other words, are the treasures of humanity. Intellectuals are not to be trusted.

rcocean said...

"Hitler’s efforts to stem the mass appeal of Hollywood films and jazz only made them... more seductive and, in a final irony, prepared for the triumph of American music, jeans, and film in the postwar world by trying to make them taboo.."

There are a lot "..." here, but its the Defeat of Hitler and the triumph of Communism in the USSR/Eastern Europe that accomplished that. The defeat of Hitler, made any opposition to jazz or American films on solely conservative grounds seem "pro-nazi" while the looming Soviet menace made anti-Americanism seem suicidal.

jwl said...

"But the two dictators were would-be intellectuals—Adolf Hitler a failed painter inebriated with the music of Wagner, and Mussolini a onetime schoolteacher and novelist."

----------

George Orwell - Notes on Nationalism: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that; no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

rhhardin said...

Kroger has background music of some lady singing with voice going up and down with no melody at all. I have no idea what genre it is but it's all over. I associate it with black radio church music in style. It goes on and on and on. A fusion of jazz and idiot perhaps.

Larry J said...

Stalin was a poet writing in his native Georgian language and a failed seminary student. He also pushed Soviet Art and movies as powerful political propaganda tools. Mao was also a poet. What is it about liberal arts majors and dictatorship?

rcocean said...

"Of course. The best things come from the anonymous toilers who improve things by bits and pieces gradually."

I agree but while Nuclear power and nuclear weapons aren't a "Best Thing" its due entirely to scientists directing engineers in a fairly quick fashion.



buwaya said...

Francisco Franco and his regime, not often noted, did the same things in his more limited sphere, and had much more time to carry it through. His government did all it could to promote native Spanish culture and keep it an innovative and living thing. To a great degree he succeeded, though it too is getting swamped now.

Hence the golden age of the bullfight, of national costumes, of music - especially Andalusian forms. The modern Flamenco was largely a post-WWII revival. The cuple or copla song and verse style was being promoted by nationalist elements even in the 1920s. All this in deliberate opposition to "modern" Franco-British-American popular forms.

An interesting and ironic circumstance was the murder of Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca, who did so much to revive Flamenco and all these traditions. The Franco government always treated this as an embarrassment. Post-war under the regime the music and poetry of Garcia Lorca (not a composer, but an influential collector and arranger) became popular standards.

buwaya said...

"I agree but while Nuclear power and nuclear weapons aren't a "Best Thing" its due entirely to scientists directing engineers in a fairly quick fashion. "

I disagree about nuclear power. These things were discovered as phenomena, but the real creation of what was useful in them was purely empirical. The refining of uranium/creation of plutonium, the making of the bombs (Tallboy was extremely crude), and for that matter the development of the modern LWR are all engineering processes.

Greg Hlatky said...

George Weiss, general manager of the Yankees in the 50's, sneered that you could buy a sportswriter for a steak dinner.

Intellectuals and artists sell themselves cheap to become throne sniffers.

PaoloP said...

What I find always missing in this NYT's pieces on Mussolini is that he was, for several years, an ardent Socialist: in particular, he was the director and one of the most important journalists at the official Socialist party's paper "Avanti!"

Indeed, Socialists were certainly interested in culture.

Martin said...

Those boring bourgeois and low-brow Trump-supporter types never ran a revolution that killed tens of millions of people.

For that you need people with intellectual pretensions and cultural credibility and access. A taste for theory over real-life experience helps a lot.

That's how you get a Hitler, a Mao, a Stalin. Not always, but it's the best way to get there.

Oso Negro said...

It's a pretty bad week for Jews in the news, so let's leaven it with a bit of Hitler.

Amadeus 48 said...

I wonder how that worked with Lenin/Stalin/Mao?

Oh yeah, same thing.

n.n said...

Huh. A musician, a lecturer, a novelist, perhaps. The tell-tale signs of a left-wing ideologue.

n.n said...

the development of the modern LWR are all engineering processes.

Following the sources and sinks to their fateful conclusion. Of which human consciousness is a causal, if limited, factor.

mockturtle said...

Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky were no different. Like the Leftists of today, they recognized the need for propaganda through art.

Beat me to it, rcocean. Nothing uniquely 'fascist' about cultural propaganda. Stalin said: "We must seriously ponder over who and what is inspiring us today, with the help of literature and art, so that we can put an end to this ideological Western subversion. We must understand and accept that Culture is one of the integral parts of social ideology, of class, and it is used in safeguarding the interests of the ruling class. For us it is to safeguard the interests of the working class, of the dictatorship of the proletariat."

tcrosse said...

How does one write about Hitler and Fascism without mentioning Trump ? This must be an old article.

William said...

History has validated Hitler's judgment on atonal music. Not a lot of people listen to it. Kern, Berlin Gershwin and Rodgers are the most enduring examplars of degenerate Jewish music. Our degenerate music was a quantum jump ahead of theirs........You know who else was interested in German Kultur? Jews. The Jews of central and Eastern Europe were crazy about German Kultur and made huge contributions to it. Mendelssohn reintroduced Bach to the highbrows, and made quite a few contributions to German music on his own. Heine wrote some poems that are so much a part of the German soul that even Hitler could not banish him from German textbooks. German was the language and culture that Jews most eagerly embraced throughout the Austro-Hungarian and even Russian Empire. Their was never that much of a love affair between Slavic and French culture and their Jewish citizens. Ironic, huh.

William said...

Can we make some conclusions from the fact that any number of worthy composers, poets, and artists were Marxists and most of those on the Fascist side were second rate? Marxists would certainly linked to think that this is significant. But I'd note that the catalogue of Marxist artists had more distinguished names than those found in Republican or liberal Democratic circles. My take away is that artistic ability and political wisdom have, at best, only a chance correlation and may, in fact, be contradictory.

Fernandinande said...

Unlike American philistines, they thought literature and the arts were important

IOW, they weren't philistines, unlike philistines, American or otherwise.


tcrosse said...
How does one write about Hitler and Fascism without mentioning Trump ?


Thanks, I was tempted to look at another load of trash.

mockturtle said...

The Jews of central and Eastern Europe were crazy about German Kultur and made huge contributions to it. Mendelssohn reintroduced Bach to the highbrows, and made quite a few contributions to German music on his own.

While Mendelssohn had Jewish ancestry he was, I believe, a Lutheran.

Bad Lieutenant said...

While Mendelssohn had Jewish ancestry he was, I believe, a Lutheran.

Wouldn't have saved him.