Tuesday, October 18, 2005
At least Leni Riefenstahl didn't do propaganda films on the subject of Hitler gassing Jews.
David Kaspar writes from Germany:
“Paradise Now” is the first openly anti-Semitic film I’ve seen in the German cinema. Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of the numerous Germans who collaborated in its production (the film is distributed by Constantin Film/Munich). He would have praised in glowing terms the fact that the German taxpayer ponied up an essential contribution to the production costs. The materials for discussion of the film in German schools authored by a federal authority from the Central Office for Political Education (BPB) would have met with his grinning approval...
Previous: Learning from Paradise Now with a link to a critical examination of that "educational material."
Anti-Semitism, in one sense, is like the flu, there's all types of strains and all types of morphings. The latest set of strains are directly or in a more derivative fashion related to decidedly Leftist interests, programs, passions and conceits. Caution needs to attend each generalization, each analogy, but it's also true, nonetheless, that virtually all of the present most critical and prominent strains derive, directly or otherwise, from Leftist interests.
Nothing wrong with criticizing Israeli policies or even Jewish culture (e.g., Goldhagen's excesses mixed with perfectly valid historical claims), but too often the critiques entirely, or partially but critically, pivot upon these types of anti-Semitic interests. Yes, generally it is forwarded with an amalgam of interests, some valid critiques mixed with specious or highly specious claims. But even Hitler and Goebbels and company mixed valid concerns (the social/economic conditions of the '20s and '30s) with their more virulent strains and debauched and murderous hate. Israel can be critiqued on valid grounds, but Israel remains the coal miner's canary and the world needs to fully comprehend that along with the responsibilities which attend that fact.
Elsewhere, Londonistan is thriving.
Enlightenment and German Idealism underpinnings of anti-Semitic strains within modernity are explored in Michael Mack's German Idealism and the Jew: The Inner Anti-Semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses. Have read the first few chapters only but without exaggeration, it's a remarkable and revelatory study.
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