Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!GAFFA.MIT.EDU!Love-Hounds-request From: Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa Subject: Hitler Message-ID: <671351@mac.Dartmouth.EDU> Date: 18 Oct 89 14:57:49 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: Love-Hounds@GAFFA.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 43 Approved: love-hounds@eddie.mit.edu Really-From: Julian.West@mac.dartmouth.edu Michael Mendelson writes: > I, and many to whom I am close, feel strongly that allusion to > Hitler in any light (e.g. his human side, attractiveness in the midst > of "devil," etc.), however fleeting and cautious, must simply be > avoided no matter the temptation. Michael, it's obvious you have put a lot of thought into this subject, so I'm probably not going to change your mind with a casual posting, but I represent another point of view. Hitler was not the devil incarnate. Even as an icon of Nazism, he did not represent _transcendent_ evil. He represented _human_ evil, not something which came from beyond ourselves. The _truly_ scary about Hitler is that he was a human being, and so were his lieutenants. _Heads_We're_Dancing_ underlines the fact, often forgotten, that Hitler was human and had a life before the Holocaust and even before he became fuehrer. Thereby it makes his later actions _more_ horrific. One phrase often used in this context is "the banality of evil." See, for instance, the recent film about _The_Wannsee_Conference_, which also portrays leading Nazis as human beings. All I have said is equally true if you view the Holocaust in a religious context. What is frightening is not that a deity, or a demon, could unleash horror on the earth. This belief is tempered by religious belief in a redemptive deity. What _is_ terrifying is that we ourselves hold the keys to this horror. A song which makes Hitler sound like you or me is _scary_. The real diminution of the Holocaust is to insist that Hitler was not like you and me, or that if _we_ were in 1930s Germany we would not have let it happen. Incidentally, that a reference is "fleeting and cautious" does not excuse it. Rather the reverse. References to an important subject should at least meet the subject square on. (Kate does, I think.) I'm glad you enjoy the album. Congratulations on being the only (?) person to have begun absorbing it and to post thoughtful comments the day after its release. I was expecting an e-deluge now that TSW is on the stands. ----------------------------- Julian --------