Rebecca,
I've felt that much of what you pointed out is true, however, it takes
fertile ground for even a fungus like Hitler to grow. I think that the
Western world has usually gotten the leaders they asked for. An
interesting book on this is Michael H. Kater's "The Twisted Muse,
Musicians and their Music In The Third Reich". It examines both the
ground of Hitler's being as found in the art's community, which under
Hitler had a full employment situation. (Part of the reason being that he
opened up employment for non-Jews by getting rid of the Jewish musicians.)
The only honest non-German language book I've read about this is the
memoirs of the great German Baritone, Dietrich Fischer Dieskau titled
"Reverberations." The book is witheringly honest and points out the
banality of evil as well as it's prevalence. Most religions prefer to
make evil stereotypically powerful (Horns, like pagans, black for Darth
Vader, the "dark side" even Monostatos in Mozart's Masonic Magic Flute,
that can then be applied to race and make dark skins "evil") and miss the
point with evil's everyday commonness. How simply and naturally they slip
into its easy, non orgasmic inanity with small actions that create
holocausts.
Better to blame the beasts, sacrifice a goat, a dog or a sheep, than to
look at the real roots of evil i.e.
"The only true value is monetary"
"If it has no consumers then it is worth nothing."
"This isn't morality, this is just business!"
The one thing we can say for the German people is that they had a culture
of great traditions and value which met them on every corner as they
rebuilt from the bombs. Here in the U.S. we tear down and replace at such
a pace that a war would not bring insight and recovery but only the
awareness of how little we had as a people before the bombs fell.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble of New York, Inc.
mcore@idt.net
Bell, Rebecca S wrote:
> I recently waded my way through the book Explaining Hitler and what I
> discovered there in the description of Hitler's rise to power was that 1)
> he murdered and intimidated his opposition in order to get to the lower
> rung of leadership; 2) the journalists of the time understood him very
> well but they or their organizations were systematically eliminated; 3)
> his final takeover of power was part of a deal that misfired among the
> power brokers of the time, and finally 4) his popular following was never
> very large, but the opposition could never effectively counter him before
> it was too late. I would, therefore, join with those who say he had
> charisma but was not an example of either a leader or leadership.
> But there's an additional link to another recent thread that occurs to me,
> and that is the connection between behavior followed by Hitler's party
> (or, more recently, the Chicago shootings of minorities) and the meaning,
> Harriet, that you ascribed to the turtle story, namely, "when logic fails,
> they (or you) fall back on passionately held and completely unquestioned
> beliefs -- against which there is no logicalargument and it might as well
> be 'turtles all the way down.'" In other words, I believe that
> intolerance, especially the more extreme variety, is based upon
> passionately held and completely unquestioned beliefs...and you often
> can't argue with it or address it logically in any way.
>
> I also see the connection here to fear, often unquestioned fear, which
> could be part of a brake system to change within organizations. Although
> I agree that brakes form a useful service in the change process, it's the
> unquestioned part of it that disturbs me and has frustrated me in the
> past. I have been challenged with how to raise the awareness and
> acceptance of the fear to the surface, even if just within the individual.
> I would be interested in others' reactions to these thoughts.
--"Ray E. Harrell" <mcore@idt.net>
[Host's Note: In association with Amazon.com (sorry, I have to use that magic phrase each time):
The Twisted Muse : Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich by Michael H. Kater http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195132424/learningorg
Ray's second book may be this one.. Reverberation; The Memoirs of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau by Ruth Hein (Translator) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0880641223/learningorg
...Rick]
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>