Okay, like the mod said, let's continue our discussion about Wagner and nazis...

millionrainbows said:

I think you're missing the point. Total assimilation would mean the subjective identity as well. Wagner is seeing the Jew in conflict, and underestimates the importance of identity.
We disagree on this crucial point. Mahler is my example of the totally integrated identity. The individual's sense of identity should always matter more than an outside observer's perception.

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We aren't talking about your views on what should or should matter more in any given situation. We're allegedly discussing what Wagner would have thought. And he would have thought that Mahler, as he did of Mendelssohn, was deluding himself.

millionrainbows said:

I think that's a jump. Whether or not he knew it or could articulate it, Wagner was seeing the conflict of the unassimilated Jew, which is absent if the assimilation includes subjective identity, as with Mahler.

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You've invented a whole word there: assimilation. Wagner talks about the 'educated Jew' and makes it abundantly clear that no matter how educated, well-brought up, baptised or whatever, he would always be an eductaed Jew at odds with the society and culture in which he found himself whether he realised it or not.

millionrainbows said:

If Wagner could see the degree of assimilation in modern-day America, he would be astonished. But things hadn't progressed back in his time; there were still large cultural differences in existence; things moved slower, communication was not instant like it is today.
You're trying to apply your new liberal democratic ideas to Wagner, who was in a nineteenth century setting. Not just nineteenth century attitude, but nineteenth century states of cultural melding, social identity, migration, war, etc.

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No, I'm reading what Wagner wrote and determining from what he wrote what he thought. I make allowances for the 19th Century in which he wrote by allowing that Wagner himself would never have contemplated exterminating Jews. That's something he would never have conceived as a possibility. But he certainly contemplated eliminating Jews from Germany. The difference in conception of what the state could achieve is definitely a product of his 19th Century upbringing. But assimilation was not even part of his vocabulary. Being Jewish meant you could never assimilate, fool whosoever you may about it.

AbsolutelyBaching said:

Because the French live in France and don't go around 'planting' themselves in Germanic soil.

Even when they invade with armies, they pack up afterwards and go home!

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I'm half Estonian, half Finnish and currently living in Estonia. Estonia has been occupied by Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Soviet Union, Germany, and by some other nations which don't exist anymore. Do you think they just came, invaded, and left? Nope! Would a patriot agree to regard himself or herself a member of another nation simply because it invaded his or her country? Occupying a country very often requires destroying its national and cultural identity which is done through destroying the local culture and propagating or planting your own one. Nations which occupied Estonia very often tried to "plant" their own culture and/or destroy the local one in one way or another, using religion, language, education, slavery, bringing their own people to live in the area (i.e planting themselves) etc. During a period of the 20th century, use of Estonian national symbols was prohibited, culture and religion were suppressed. What is, for example, Russification if not "planting" Russian culture? This all has an effect on the nation and the country that's being occupied. Saying that Wagner definitely had in mind Jews because others wouldn't try to plant their own culture or themselves is, in my opinion, based on a wrong assumption because even huge occupants have tried to plant their own culture.

And again, I point you to the semi-colon. The prince is one way in which Germany will one day decay (under a false, foreign rule). The 'foreign mists' is another way entirely, and requires no kingdom with a prince.

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While I think it should be read in the original German to analyse in such detail, I'd like to point your attention to something as well.

Beware! Evil tricks threaten us:
if the German people and kingdom should one day decay,
under a false, foreign rule
soon no prince would understand his people;
and foreign mists with foreign vanities
they would plant in our German land;
what is German and true none would know,
if it did not live in the honour of German Masters.

Who is they? "They" needs to be referenced earlier or it wouldn't make any sense at all. It doesn't say that foreign mists or foreign vanities are "they". Only reasonable meaning of "they" is "a false, foreign rule", "prince(s)", or both of them. "They" thus needs be connected with foreign rule or foreign princes. Also, saying "no prince", which assumes that there are many, makes interpreting it as a reference to a single nation even more unlikely. Again, all is pure speculation. My own arguments as well. Wagner didn't say what exactly he meant by this but my opinion is that he didn't mean Jews in particular. Especially considering that the real Hans Sachs lived during the 15th and 16th centuries, so before Napoleon invaded about half of the Germany, it could also be seen as a prediction of what was to come. German art survived during that period as well. This is another thing Wagner could be referencing.

(btw, I find the discussion very interesting but, AB, you've managed to get me into the Internet Warrior mode again :lol

JAS said:

Both are terrible, and despicable on their own terms, but yes I see them as very different things. If you do not, then no further discussion is possible or practical to attempt. You are basically suggesting that if you hit someone's car on a bridge, you might as well push them over the edge because it is the same, when it isn't. (And the difference is not merely one of intent.)

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That's a silly comparison.

What I'm saying is that to murder by the million, you have to be able to regard the victims as non-human (otherwise you'd never be able to do it). And you don't get to regard Jews, with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two arms, hands and legs as non-human unless you first think of them as "other".

And Wagner undoubtedly regarded the Jew as "other". He wasn't properly German. He could never be properly German. He had no native artistic ability. He was less than a German, in his potential achievements and capabilities. That is the start of "other", and the other end of "other" lies in the forests around Treblinka.

Naturally, to get from the one state to the other, you have to have a conception of a powerful, centralised nation state (which Wagner didn't have); you have to have the conception of the rightness of the state intervening in the functioning of the lives of people and the economy (which didn't pertain in the 19th Century); and you needed the conception of the practice of the mass slaughter of people (which the Americans may have had in the 1860s, but no-one else really got until 1914/15). So obviously Wagner wasn't a Nazi and didn't conceive of the possibility of annihilating Jews. But he was an antisemite who conceived of the desirability of ridding Germany of its Jews.

My point isn't a silly one about an accident on a bridge versus a cavalier disregard for the well-being of a car's occupants. It's that to get from Wagner to Himmler, you require only 50 years' socio-economic development and the First World War. The ideas of the one, plus the capabilities of those extra ingredients, gets you Naziism.

annaw said:

I'm half Estonian, half Finnish and currently living in Estonia. Estonia has been occupied by Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Soviet Union, Germany, and by some other nations which don't exist anymore. Do you think they just came, invaded, and left? Nope! Would a patriot agree to regard himself or herself a member of another nation simply because it invaded the country? Occupying a country very often requires destroying its national and cultural identity which is done through destroying the local culture and propagating or planting your own one. Nations which occupied Estonia very often tried to "plant" their own culture and/or destroy the local one in one way or another, using religion, language, education, slavery, bringing their own people to live in the area (i.e planting themselves) etc. During a period in 20th century, use of Estonian national symbols was prohibited, culture and religion were oppressed. What is, for example, Russification if not "planting" Russian culture? This all has an effect on the nation and the country that's being occupied. Saying that Wagner definitely had in mind Jews because others wouldn't try to plant their own culture or themselves is, in my opinion, based on a wrong assumption because even huge occupants have tried to plant their own culture.

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You're talking about empire-building. I'm talking about wars. They're different.

The Prussians thoroughly defeated France in 1870/1: there was a humiliating peace treaty, but there was no destruction of French culture, or its supplanting by Prussian (or German) culture. That is generally true for most European wars: they generally didn't involve cultural supplanting. Russia may well be different: I wouldn't know. I bow to your local knowledge on the subject.

annaw said:

While I think it should be read in the original German to analyse in such detail, I'd like to point your attention to something as well.

Beware! Evil tricks threaten us:
if the German people and kingdom should one day decay,
under a false, foreign rule
soon no prince would understand his people;
and foreign mists with foreign vanities
they would plant in our German land;
what is German and true none would know,
if it did not live in the honour of German Masters.

Who is they? "They" needs to be referenced earlier or it wouldn't make any sense at all. It doesn't say that foreign mists or foreign vanities are "they".

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Quite right. It leaves the "they" left unnamed, but it's not true to say that you must reference them earlier or nothing would make sense. He's made a point about foreign princes; he can perfectly well refer to "they" meaning 'a larger, ill-defined, un-named force that you all know who I'm talking about without me having to spell it out". Grammatically, too, the 'they' could just as well refer to "Evil tricks". So then who perpetrates evil tricks by 'mists and vanities that are planted amongst us'?

It's a side-issue, in any case. I only mentioned Sachs because you said "He is the one of clearest examples of an extremely moral and reasonable character who was created by Wagner." And, I think that's very, very largely true. But one part of his moral makeup does consist of thinking German culture is threatened by 'evil tricks' and a nameless 'they'. Look to Wagner's own writings and we can certainly find candidates that would fit those requirements. That's all I'm saying.

JAS said:

You just cannot give up an argument that you have already lost. You and MR should be very happy together. I am done.

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I still have no idea what argument you think you've made that I've already lost. I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about at this point. You could at least elaborate. But feel free to walk off with the ball, if that's what you prefer.

Edited to add.

I have gone back and re-read all your posts, and I assume that you're referring to "I think that there is a huge difference between the idea of forcing people to leave a country and actually killing them."

I've explained precisely how I think the one bleeds into the other (requiring only time, a world war, and the emergence of a stong nation state with a government which understands it can intervene in the life of its people and the economy): the fundamental requirement of either case, being the thinking of them as 'other' and 'less than', already being present in Wagner's conception of the Jews.

You, however, have merely asserted that the two are different. I see no posts arguing that point, just restatements of it as if it's obvious and un-arguable.

Edited again to add:
I missed your post (perhaps a timing issue) in which you wrote "A closer comparison might be that if you are going to rob someone's house, you might as well kill them while you are at it (which is silly)"

That is an argument, not an assertion, so it deserves consideration. The problem with any of your examples is one of lack of time and development between the two situations. I crash a car; I think it appropriate to push said car off the bridge. Ridiculous comparison! Then: I rob a house; I kill the guy whilst I'm at it... Clearly a silly comparison to make! I agree that saying the one implies the other would be ridiculous, because in these examples, both crimes are immediate actions, separated by no time or socio-economic or personal development at all. So of course they are non-sensical situations.

A better example, I would argue, would be: why do the police get very, very interested in cases of animal cruelty? Because they know that torturing animals is indicative of a potential psychopath and a psycopath is quite likely to go on to commit serial killing. Here, we have one criminal commiting one type of crime which eventually and over time develops into another type of crime.

My argument is not that Wagner was a Nazi, in other words, just as little Bobby Cat-Killer, isn't a serial murderer.

But the one can develop into the other, because the underlying psycopathy that allows the crime in either case is already present (in the case of anti-semitism, it's the ability to regard the Jew as not fully deserving of the rights and protections that you yourself are entitled to).

MacLeod said:

I don't see it as a problem that merits repeated exploration in relation to the same composer. But I confess I've fallen foul of the 'problem' of reading/posting in a forum where it's easy to dismiss a discussion older members have already had which newer members want to have. My apologies to you.

I'm not a fan of Wagner, but I don't have any difficulty with the idea of listening to music by a composer of dubious morals, any more than I'd refrain from reading Mein Kampf, or whistling Greensleeves.

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It's an interesting issue. I have no problem with the art of Caravaggio, for example; and he was a convicted murderer!

If you look at the lives of many of the great composers, few of them are saints, it's true. But Wagner does stand out from the crowd for general and pervasive unpleasantness, for me; and the mystery of how a deeply unpleasant person can produce glorious art, whether he be named Caravaggio or Wagner, is one I find endlessly fascinating, I'm afraid.

It is possible that the problem I have with Wagner is (a) the insidiousness of anti-semitism as being a moral world apart from flashes of grumpiniess, moodiness or a quick temper that you find in others; and (b) its relative proximity to the events of 1942-45, together with (c) all his other moral failings.

This has never stopped me enjoying his music, I hasten to add. Or seeking out his haunts in Leipzig or Riga to say 'I've been there!' But it's defintely something that affects my perception of Wagner in a way I'm not affected by knowing the life-stories of any other significant composer I can think of.

pianozach said:

THAT is awful. THAT is how racists talk when attempting to reduce some group of people to a sub-human classification.

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I think he's talking about Jews who were completely culturally ingrained in the Jewish language. Such cultural and familial bonds are hard to break.

But shortly after Wagner's time, high-speed communication, world travel, and breaks with that culture into other cultures, resulted in less mannered speech patterns and eventual loss of accent.

When he says "Throughout an intercourse of two millennia with European nations, Culture has not
succeeded in breaking the remarkable stubbornness of the Jewish naturel as regards the
peculiarities of Semitic pronunciation," this is true, because Europe was much more culturally partitioned than America would become.

Sometimes Jewish speakers want to sound "Jewish," like some stand-up comedians exaggerate.

It's the same with blacks; most, if they want, can go into a mode of Ebonics or "black-speak" if they wish, but usually refrain when in the business world, politics, etc.

Wagner is guilty of underestimating the adaptability of the human being, not dehumanization. That was the state of things back then, and he didn't like what he heard, that's all.

AbsolutelyBaching said:

You are now equating antisemitism with racism. Whilst anti-semitism can be regarded as a form of racisim, it's not equivalent to it, and the stating of equivalence is to diminish the peculiarly nasty aspects of anti-semitism.

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"Is Antisemitism Racism?"

Depends on who you ask, I suppose.

And if you ask me, yes, it is.

Racism is based on the idea that there are different human races: the 'white race', the 'black race', the 'yellow race', the 'red race'. People of the same race are assumed to share certain characteristics. Hitler and the Nazis also believed that people could be divided into races. And they believed that the races were in competition with each other. According to the Nazis, the Jews were a weak, dangerous, and inferior race that did not belong in Germany.

So, yes, Jews are not a "race", but even so, some people still believe in the concept.

If it is the basis for their hatred of Jews, it is undoubtedly racist.

And splitting hairs over degrees of racism is counterproductive.

So, yes, both Wagner and Hitler were racists. Hitler found himself in a position of power to bring his racism to a horrific conclusion. The hypothetical here is whether Wagner, had he been in a position of power as Hitler was, would have committed a similar genocide. And, of course, we cannot know if that is true.

What we do know is that Wagner hated Jews because they were Jews, sounded jewish, acted jewish, and even "thought jewishly", and looked down on them as being a racially inferior group of people.

The splitting of hairs on degrees of racism is pointless, like comparing Olympic divers that dive from different heights as being a relevant point. One isn't MORE of a "diver" because men jump from a 27-metre-high (89 ft) platform while women jump from a 20-metre-high (66 ft) platform.

pianozach said:

So, yes, Jews are not a "race", but even so, some people still believe in the concept. If it is the basis for their hatred of Jews, it is undoubtedly racist.

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The idea that Jews are not in any way a race is a result of changes in thinking after World War II. It really is a matter of culture, ethnicity, and social constructs. There are Ethiopians who are Jewish by genetics, although they exhibit no "Jewishness."

What we do know is that Wagner hated Jews because they were Jews, sounded jewish, acted jewish, and even "thought jewishly", and looked down on them as being a racially inferior group of people.

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When you say "Wagner hated Jews because they were Jews, sounded jewish, etc," (are you unconsciously using the idea of race against Wagner as a convenience?) he did not specify that he believed this was based on race, and it's presumptuous to assume that he "believed" these differences were racial. It's actually irrelevant. Wagner did not like the Jewish cultural identity.
Wagner's target of disdain for "Jewishness" can be safely called identity traits.

The more strongly a person identifies with a minority, foreign, or fringe identity, the more friction and conflict it causes in a majority culturally ethnocentric society.

The more strongly identified with being part of a majority/status quo of whatever country, the less friction and conflict it causes.

This is totally subjective and identity-based, and not based on any other factors such as ethnicity, color, race, etc.

For example, blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan was essentially a "black" person. I've seen many cases on Jerry Springer where white women married to black men talk and act "black." Many people in Georgia and New Orleans, with their "black" speech patterns, strike Northerners in this way.
Modern-day rappers such as Kid Rock, Justin Bieber, and others have chosen culturally to be "black" in this manner.

It's a way of separating oneself from the status quo, to oppose the majority, be a subculture, and not be "gamed" by "The Man."

WIK: Sociologists, in general, recognize "race" as a social construct. This means that, although the concepts of race and racism are based on observable biological characteristics, any conclusions drawn about race on the basis of those observations are heavily influenced by cultural ideologies. Racism, as an ideology, exists in a society at both the individual and institutional level.

The splitting of hairs on degrees of racism is pointless...

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I don't think so. In the modern world, "identity" becomes important. We need to explore what "racism" means. If we want to separate "racism" from "race," we need to explore ethnic, cultural, and social traits.

WIK:...racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial.
According to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms "racial" and "ethnic" discrimination.