# Wagner: Racism or Jealousy?



## ethanjamesescano

I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.

What do you think?


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## Garlic

It's possible, but given how different their music is I'm not sure.


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## brianvds

Perhaps he thought Brahms was a Jew. 

As far as I know, anti-semitism was pretty common at the time, so perhaps Wagner was actually not all that unusual. It is just that his music became something of an anthem for the Nazis, which is probably why his name is now associated with anti-semitism in a bigger way than would otherwise have been the case.


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## KenOC

Anti-Semitism was certainly prevalent in those times and can be seen in the letters and recorded comments of many composers through at least Tchaikovsky. But it was usually of a "casual" kind, like Beethoven's -- he would write of the "Jew tricks" of certain publishers, but stayed on good and even friendly terms with them nonetheless. Wagner's views seem to go well beyond this, although even he can't begin to compete with the elderly Martin Luther in that regard.


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## starry

There are many prejudices out there but the only hip one to point out against people seems to be race. Anyone who uses race isn't just making an insult against an individual, isn't just ignorant but is someone with a universal racial agenda (ie a 'Nazi' who wants to send people to gas chambers). But isn't this making the same blanket simplification that extreme racists themselves use? And is the agenda as much from the person pointing out the race issue as the person mentioning it in the first place?


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## Garlic

starry said:


> There are many prejudices out there but the only hip one to point out against people seems to be race. Anyone who uses race isn't just making an insult against an individual, isn't just ignorant but is someone with a universal racial agenda (ie a 'Nazi' who wants to send people to gas chambers). But isn't this making the same blanket simplification that extreme racists themselves use? And is the agenda as much from the person pointing out the race issue as the person mentioning it in the first place?


No. Using a person's "race" an insult against them is necessarily going to be insulting to anyone identified as a member of that "race", and betrays certain patterns of thinking. ("Race" is in inverted commas because it's a totally nonsensical concept)

What does seem to be hip at the moment is a victim complex among the most powerful in society.


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## starry

Well all kinds of insults can always be said to be insulting anybody else with the same characteristics, about ignorant generalisation. They tend to be about taking people's individuality away, a standard way of insulting. The fact is though many insults are just accepted, even though they are just as ignorant as race insults and end up reflecting widespread misassumptions in society. Race is simply one factor among many used by people. But there's always plenty of hypocrisy I find in this area.


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## sharik

ethanjamesescano said:


> he envies Mendelssohn


if he did then he'd stole from his like from Weber's and others.


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## SiegendesLicht

The more I read about alleged Wagner's anti-Semitism the more I ask myself: what if Wagner expressed, say, anti-French, or anti-Slavic (which the Nazis also had) or anti- any other nation sentiments, instead of anti-Semitic ones? Would that subject be brought up as much, and would Wagner be demonized because of it?


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## Oreb

I love Wagner's music but think he was a detestable person.

It's not difficult to do both.

The excellent little book by Fr. M. Owen Lee, 'Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art' is a pretty level-headed approach to the whole thing.


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## Nereffid

SiegendesLicht said:


> The more I read about alleged Wagner's anti-Semitism the more I ask myself: what if Wagner expressed, say, anti-French, or anti-Slavic (which the Nazis also had) or anti- any other nation sentiments, instead of anti-Semitic ones? Would that subject be brought up as much, and would Wagner be demonized because of it?


I suppose it's likely that if the Holocaust, or anything like it, had not happened then Wagner might not be demonized so much. Poor Wagner the victim! Should we add his name to the 6 million?

No, Wagner didn't himself build any death camps, but the anti-Semites have unequivocally shown us what they're capable of, while the anti-French haven't.


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## ethanjamesescano

SiegendesLicht said:


> The more I read about alleged Wagner's anti-Semitism the more I ask myself: what if Wagner expressed, say, anti-French, or anti-Slavic (which the Nazis also had) or anti- any other nation sentiments, instead of anti-Semitic ones? Would that subject be brought up as much, and would Wagner be demonized because of it?


It's not about anti-Semitism, it's about how he discriminated a race.
by the way, did he have a conversation with Mendelssohn personally?


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## deggial

^ yes, they knew each other.


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## DavidA

Richard Wagner’s feelings about Jews were summarized in his statement that “I hold the Jewish race to be the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble in it.” Wagner was no “casual” anti-Semite, given to occasional disparaging remarks about Jews as was the habit of his day. He was obsessed with the notion that Jews were responsible for just about anything untoward that happened to him — and everything evil in the universe. As he wrote to Liszt, his hatred of Jews was “as necessary to my nature as gall is to the blood.” 
In 1850, he anonymously published an essay, “Judaism in Music,” arguing that popular Jewish composers — meaning Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer — were polluting the mainstream of German music. They lacked creativity; they were just imitators. In 1869, he republished the essay, and expanded on it — this time with his name on it.
In 1871, having learned of a fire at a theater in a Jewish section of Vienna, during which 416 Jews died, Wagner remarked that all Jews should be burned.
Later, Wagner denied that Jesus was a Jew. He referred to a synagogue service he had heard as a “nonsensical gurgling, yodeling, and cackling.” After reading a book about the struggle for survival among animals, he commented that what “remains are the rats and mice — the Jews.” Although he sometimes said he favored having Jews integrate into Christian society, at least once he said he favored expelling Jews from Germany entirely.
Just how much of the anti-semitism finds its way into the operas is a matter of hot debate. But it would be surprising if Wagner's anti-Semitism, which was extreme even for his day, did not find itself somewhere into his 10 operas. This is something that all lovers of his operas have to cope with, unless they want to blind themselves to the truth.
Wagner was other things of course. He was a megalomaniac, a habitual liar and a persistent womaniser who tended to prefer married women to maidens. All together a most unpleasant brew!
Did this awful man write great music? Yes! Does his music excuse his behaviour? Certainly not!
We like to think great artists are great people. This man certainly was not!


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## sharik

Oreb said:


> I love Wagner's music but think he was a detestable person


come on... most of the famous are exactly that.


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## Jobis

Whats interesting is that apparently he had friends who were jews, allegedly, so perhaps there is a dichotomy between his philosophy of race etc. and his personal life?


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## sharik

Nereffid said:


> the anti-Semites have unequivocally shown us what they're capable of, while the anti-French haven't.


the anti-Slavs have. look what the West has done on Yugoslavia and the USSR's Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.


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## sharik

DavidA said:


> Richard Wagner's feelings about Jews were summarized in his statement that "I hold the Jewish race to be the born enemy of pure humanity and everything noble in it."


well the Jews were against the nobility, weren't they?


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## SiegendesLicht

sharik said:


> come on... most of the famous are exactly that.


Most of the non-famous are like that too, it's just that their lives are not explored by biographers down to the smallest detail.

As for Wagner, I don't think a mere fact of his disliking a certain group of people is enough to make him into a detestable person. In fact, I have a lot of respect for him and his life-long work.


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## SiegendesLicht

DavidA, yes, by now we all know, how much you hate Wagner. If it's not the "evil anti-Semite" argument, then it is the "he cheated on his wife" argument or the "his operas are not realistic" one.


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## Vesteralen

I'm glad this wasn't a poll.

The original question was 'racism or jealousy?'.

We'll probably never know if he was jealous. We know, from his own words and writings, that when it came to Jews at least, he was 'racist'. 

What seems to obsess people more is the question - 'Is it okay to like him in spite of it?'

I never conclude that if a person likes Wagner's music he must be racist himself/herself. If, on the other hand, he adopts Wagner's views on life and people, that's another story.


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## Vesteralen

SiegendesLicht said:


> DavidA, yes, by now we all know, how much you hate Wagner. If it's not the "evil anti-Semite" argument, then it is the "he cheated on his wife" argument or the "his operas are not realistic" one.


That may be, but I gave his post a "like" because unlike everyone else on this thread, he actually gave us some facts.


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## Ingélou

SiegendesLicht said:


> Most of the non-famous are like that too, it's just that their lives are not explored by biographers down to the smallest detail.
> 
> As for Wagner, I don't think a mere fact of his disliking a certain group of people is enough to make him into a detestable person. In fact, I have a lot of respect for him and his life-long work.


This fact doesn't seem very 'mere' to me. His anti-semitism shouldn't invalidate his work, but for me it does kibosh his personality.

As far as the OP goes, it doesn't matter whether or no he *was* jealous, because jealousy doesn't excuse indiscriminate hatred.

But I would like to know more about Wagner's music, if SiegendesLicht or another Wagnerian on the site would direct me to a handy 'chunk'??


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## ethanjamesescano

I just have realized that I'm like Wagner, I'm not a racist, but I HATE hipsters.
I hate it when I see someone wear flashy shirts, with wide V-cut neck, spiky hair, flashy colored shoes, hipster shades
ladies wearing sl*t uniforms, etc... I just wish that they will all be burned.
but still, hating hipsters and hating race is different.


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## deggial

Ingenue said:


> But I would like to know more about Wagner's music, if SiegendesLicht or another Wagnerian on the site would direct me to a handy 'chunk'??


*this* is the thread you need. All 27+ pages of it


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## Petwhac

ethanjamesescano said:


> I just have realized that I'm like Wagner, I'm not a racist, but I HATE hipsters.
> I hate it when I see someone wear flashy shirts, with wide V-cut neck, spiky hair, flashy colored shoes, hipster shades
> ladies wearing sl*t uniforms, etc... I just wish that they will all be burned.
> but still, hating hipsters and hating race is different.


Um, wishing people to be burned on the basis of the clothes they choose?

What is a sl*t uniform?


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## ethanjamesescano

Petwhac said:


> Um, wishing people to be burned on the basis of the clothes they choose?
> 
> What is a sl*t uniform?


it's not just that, it reflects their personality.
Those arrogant "swaggers" can't prove anything.

women today are very daring, they wear clothes that almost reveal their whole body, that's what I call sl*t uniform


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## Garlic

ethanjamesescano said:


> it's not just that, it reflects their personality.
> Those arrogant "swaggers" can't prove anything.
> 
> women today are very daring, they wear clothes that almost reveal their whole body, that's what I call sl*t uniform


What about men who walk around shirtless, are they ****s?


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## Pennypacker

Garlic said:


> What about men who walk around shirtless, are they ****s?


No 'cause they don't have boobs!! 








This is how women should look. Leave some room for the imagination!


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## ethanjamesescano

Garlic said:


> What about men who walk around shirtless, are they ****s?











I wish I could find that


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## Petwhac

ethanjamesescano said:


> it's not just that, it reflects their personality.
> Those arrogant "swaggers" can't prove anything.
> 
> women today are very daring, they wear clothes that almost reveal their whole body, that's what I call sl*t uniform


And what is wrong with having a flamboyant personality?
Why should people be burned on the basis of their personality?

I think what a woman chooses to wear is up to her just as it is up to a man what he wears.

That fact that someone would label a woman a sl*t based on her attire is appalling misogyny.

I think (hope) you are not serious because those view are quite as bad as 'racism'.

PS. I also use inverted commas for the word race because we now know it to be a social concept without any basis in biology or genetics.


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## Garlic

ethanjamesescano said:


> View attachment 22589
> 
> 
> I wish I could find that


Oh great, another person using "common sense" as an excuse for bigotry


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## EricABQ

ethanjamesescano said:


> I just have realized that I'm like Wagner, I'm not a racist, but I HATE hipsters.
> I hate it when I see someone wear flashy shirts, with wide V-cut neck, spiky hair, flashy colored shoes, hipster shades
> ladies wearing sl*t uniforms, etc... I just wish that they will all be burned.
> but still, hating hipsters and hating race is different.


This post hit the trifecta of misfortune. It's batsh!t crazy, it has nothing to do with the topic, and Sharik gave it a like.


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## ethanjamesescano

EricABQ said:


> This post hit the trifecta of misfortune. It's batsh!t crazy, it has nothing to do with the topic, and Sharik gave it a like.


yeah, sorry for being off topic. I just realized it's a little similar with his racism


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## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> DavidA, yes, by now we all know, how much you hate Wagner. If it's not the "evil anti-Semite" argument, then it is the "he cheated on his wife" argument or the "his operas are not realistic" one.


I am just arguing from history. This is what we know about this man, mostly based on what he himself said.

I have no reason to hate Wagner. In fact I enjoy his music. But I do think we must have a realistic opinion of him. Else we fool ourselves into some romantic notion of men who produce great art being great moral characters. Most of them were not.

As to his plots not being realistic, that fact applies to the vast majority of opera.


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## SiegendesLicht

Ingenue said:


> But I would like to know more about Wagner's music, if SiegendesLicht or another Wagnerian on the site would direct me to a handy 'chunk'??


What exactly would be a handy chunk for you? You can try a set of orchestral preludes and famous orchestral moments for a start. This one with Solti:









Or this one with Klemperer:









are very good. Or try something like Lorin Maazel's "Ring Without Words"









Or you can just start with one of the operas, _Das Rheingold_, or _Der fliegende Holländer_ or _Lohengrin_, for example, as they are no longer than most operas by other composers, full of beautiful tunes and full of action too. Solti's recordings of the first two (with the Wiener Philarmoniker and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra respectively) are excellent, and for _Lohengrin_ I enjoy the one with Rudolf Kempe and the Viennese the most. I am still not exactly an expert on various recordings though (I have not yet heard all of them!), so maybe someone would give you better recomendations.

I think the right attitude is also very important, as with any new music. If you come to Wagner expecting to hear excellent moments and tedious half-hours, or whatever that famous quote is, that's what you will hear. But if you come expecting to hear lots of beauty and lots of magic, then it will happen.


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## Ingélou

Thank you, SiegendesLicht, that's really nice of you. I hope that my mind is open. I have come onto this Forum to learn, and with helpful posters like you, that is what I shall do!


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## Bix

Garlic said:


> "Race" is in inverted commas because it's a totally nonsensical concept.


I agree and I just do not understand why people do not get this. It's antiquated anthropology.


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## SiegendesLicht

Garlic said:


> Oh great, another person using "common sense" as an excuse for bigotry


Common sense does have a place in the world though, and is not synonimous with bigotry.

And by, the way, personally, I dislike sl*tty-looking clothes as much as hijabs. There are lots of ways to do things, including clothing oneself, without falling into extremes.


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## Garlic

SiegendesLicht said:


> Common sense does have a place in the world though, and is not synonimous with bigotry.
> 
> And by, the way, personally, I dislike sl*tty-looking clothes as much as hijabs. There are lots of ways to do things, including clothing oneself, without falling into extremes.


Is it really necessary to use such an unpleasant word to describe it? What does what someone wears have to do with their sex life? And why is an active sex life a bad thing?


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## kv466

ethanjamesescano said:


> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that,
> 
> What do you think?


I think I missed that memo and I'm glad I did. He disliked certain races, I dislike his music. Balance.


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## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> Common sense does have a place in the world though, and is not synonimous with bigotry.
> 
> And by, the way, personally, I dislike sl*tty-looking clothes as much as hijabs. There are lots of ways to do things, including clothing oneself, without falling into extremes.


In this case 'common sense' is sadly all too common but _non_sense and is indeed indicative of bigotry.
If you dislike '****ty' looking clothes, don't wear them!!

The Burka issue is wholly different and is the product of an aggressively patriarchal culture and religious indoctrination. The result being the woman has no choice.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Wagner was undoubtedly antisemitic. His antisemitic writings are undoubtedly worthy of contempt. Yet the same could be likely said of a great majority of the composers, writers, and artists prior to the late 19th or even 20th century. It would have been something they were taught at home, in school, and in church.

Wagner had the unfortunate ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity to put his antisemitic thoughts into writing. Much of his antisemitism was fueled by jealousy. He was frustrated by his own lack of success while watching the success of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn whose music, he felt, went against every ideal he had regarding a high, serious, German musical theater. Wagner was also thwarted continually by the critic, Eduard Hanslick, whose mother was Jewish. Such personal frustrations or failures fueled his thoughts of antisemitism. But Wagner wasn't hip on the French either at a time when France dominated... essentially controlled the Germanic states. he quite disliked Offenbach among others.

In spite of his stated broad-sweeping antisemitic statements concerning the abstract notion of "the Jews", Wagner's relationship with actual Jews was more complex. He undoubtedly learned much from Meyerbeer (Rienzi (1842) was facetiously called by Hans von Bülow 'Meyerbeer's best opera') and Meyerbeer supported the young Wagner, both financially and in helping to obtain the premiere productions of both _Rienzi_ and _The Flying Dutchman_ at Dresden. Wagner had several Jewish friends and supporters and even a Jewish lover, while he chose Hermann Levi to conduct the premier of _Parsifal_.

The fact that Hitler liked Wagner or the Nazis employed Wagner's music is irrelevant... and not wholly true. Records show that Italian opera, especially Verdi and Leoncavallo Pagliacci were far more popular and performed more often by the late 1930s. An artist cannot control who uses their works (and how) after their deaths.

Again, Wagner's antisemitic statements are unforgivable... and one surely regrets that his music (and his writings) could be used by the Nazis. Still, I am not one who confuses the artist for the art. The cult of personality... the desire to place the artist's biography above his or her creations has been a bane of art. I love Wagner's music while accepting that I'd probably have found him a real a**-hole. I suspect Brahms, Beethoven, and any number of others were the same.

Now Carlo Gesualdo... there's a real fine morally upstanding character whose music I also love.


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## Feathers

sharik said:


> if he did then he'd stole from his like from Weber's and others.


Well he did take the beginning of Mendelssohn's The Fair Melusina and use it in Das Rheingold, not that it's a bad thing. 

Anyways, I read somewhere that in the early parts of his life (before he let his antisemitism show), Wagner said and wrote some very positive things about/to some of the Jews (including Mendelssohn) he was acquainted with. When negative feelings towards Mendelssohn appeared, they seemed to initially appear through rivalry, and then later antisemitism. If this is true, then perhaps envy is a factor. However, I don't remember the exact quotes and facts to back this up, so please correct me if I'm wrong.


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## SiegendesLicht

sharik said:


> if he did then he'd stole from his like from Weber's and others.


When did Wagner steal anything from Weber? He admired Weber greatly as the author of the first opera based on German folk-tales, _Der Freischütz_, and he was something of a childhood idol for Wagner, but Wagner never used any of Weber's music, at least I can't think of any.


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## DavidA

Now I just cannot see why in discussions like this, people start defending Wagner the man. He was obviously a detestable man with a huge talent, not just for music but for manipulating other people into sharing his own self-adoration. He is still at it today from beyond the grave!
By all means enjoy the music. Love the music. Adore the music. I too enjoy the music. I have nearly all his operas.
But please don't try and defend this man's behaviour, his twisted philosophy, and the things he said! They are indefensible!


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## Aries

ethanjamesescano said:


> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
> I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.
> 
> What do you think?


Everyone in the 19th century was a rassist. Or is it only racism when Jews are the affected?


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## Garlic

Aries said:


> Everyone in the 19th century was a rassist. Or is it only racism when Jews are the affected?


Read DavidA's post on the first page. Wagner's anti-semitism was extreme enough that friends and associates were embarrassed by it. Your second sentence is a non sequitur bordering on straw man.


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## Garlic

On the other hand, I don't know why people have to tear themselves up about this issue. He did some good things (operas) and some bad things (his writings and statements). That's all there is to it, you can appreciate some aspects of a person but not others. It does sometimes seem like some people feel they need to almost apologise for liking his music, which is just silly.


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## starry

DavidA said:


> Now I just cannot see why in discussions like this, people start defending Wagner the man. He was obviously a detestable man with a huge talent, not just for music but for manipulating other people into sharing his own self-adoration. He is still at it today from beyond the grave!
> By all means enjoy the music. Love the music. Adore the music. I too enjoy the music. I have nearly all his operas.
> But please don't try and defend this man's behaviour, his twisted philosophy, and the things he said! They are indefensible!


But it never is about defending anybody. It's about an objective view of the motives of someone. The initial post was actually making assumptions as well, why would he be jealous of Mendelssohn, how does anybody know he was specifically jealous? It could simply be anger. And how exactly do you define racism as well, rather than just use it as a blanket insult just like those who are said to use racism themselves in this way. I don't know the exact origins of his motives and I suspect nobody here does either. I expect it's a mix of personal experience and cultural conditioning. That isn't defending anyone, but then again it isn't making assumptions either. Many people manipulate others, you realise that? How can he do much beyond the grave, unless the music you love is part of that? You actually have to defend your point as I'm not sure how you know exactly what his philosophy was. And I make no claim to know his philosophy.


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## DavidA

starry said:


> But it never is about defending anybody. It's about an objective view of the motives of someone. The initial post was actually making assumptions as well, why would he be jealous of Mendelssohn, how does anybody know he was specifically jealous? It could simply be anger. And how exactly do you define racism as well, rather than just use it as a blanket insult just like those who are said to use racism themselves in this way. I don't know the exact origins of his motives and I suspect nobody here does either. I expect it's a mix of personal experience and cultural conditioning. That isn't defending anyone, but then again it isn't making assumptions either. Many people manipulate others, you realise that? How can he do much beyond the grave, unless the music you love is part of that? You actually have to defend your point as I'm not sure how you know exactly what his philosophy was. And I make no claim to know his philosophy.


It's quite obvious how Rich manipulates people - through the power of his music!
Frankly what you're saying does not make sense to me. If someone were to make that same comments about ethnic minorities today as Wagner did about the Jews of his day then they will be arrested for aggravated racism. Simple as that! 
We are not going into the origins of his motives because we simply do not know for sure. What we do know is what he said. 
All the stuff about cultural conditioning cannot disguise the fact that Wagner was a racist of the first order. Even for his day he was extreme!


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## NightHawk

There is in the PBS archives somewhere a special on the minimalist composer Steve Reich, who is Jewish. I don't remember how he and the interviewer got on the subject but I recorded it on VHS (lost forever) and listened to it several times, so this is a close remembrance of his words: _I know that Wagner was an anti-semite, I believe that he was a Proto-Nazi and if I had him in the sights of my gun I'd be hard pressed not to blow his brains out, but he was a genius composer and you just have to lump it._

Obviously, Reich knew enough of Wagner's music to say he was a genius composer, but I tend to think he quite generally 'lumps it'.


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## DavidA

Garlic said:


> On the other hand, I don't know why people have to tear themselves up about this issue. He did some good things (operas) and some bad things (his writings and statements). That's all there is to it, you can appreciate some aspects of a person but not others. It does sometimes seem like some people feel they need to almost apologise for liking his music, which is just silly.


I certainly do not tear myself apart about Wagner personally but I acknowledge some do. I think it's because the disciples of his music regard the operas almost as some sacred rite which gives meaning to life. They then have to square the fact that the man they regard with almost messianic fervour was a rather horrid little man and a bigoted racist.
A bit like a book I read years ago on Beethoven which said it was unthinkable that the composer of the mighty ninth symphony may have contracted syphilis from a prostitute!


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## KenOC

Some jealousy may have been at work on Wagner. In addition to Mendelssohn, he attacked the Jew Meyerbeer, who had given him earlier financial support and helped arrange his first big success with a Dresden staging of Rienzi in 1841. He criticized Meyerbeer for (among other things) writing music mainly for the money, which is odd because Meyerbeer was independently wealthy and hardly needed his opera income.

The jealousy may have come from Meyerbeer's ability to easily stage grandiose and expensive productions, while Wagner was reduced to begging for loans (rarely repaid) through most of his life.


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## KenOC

DavidA said:


> If someone were to make that same comments about ethnic minorities today as Wagner did about the Jews of his day then they will be arrested for aggravated racism. Simple as that!


Is there a law against "aggravated racism"? In my country, you can't normally be arrested for stating an opinion, however distasteful.


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## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> If someone were to make that same comments about ethnic minorities today as Wagner did about the Jews of his day then they will be arrested for aggravated racism. Simple as that!


Since when should people be getting arrested for saying or writing things?


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## deggial

ethanjamesescano said:


> women today are very daring, they wear clothes that almost reveal their whole body, that's what I call sl*t uniform


_women today_  how old are you?


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## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> By all means enjoy the music. Love the music. Adore the music. I too enjoy the music. I have nearly all his operas.
> But please don't try and defend this man's behaviour, his twisted philosophy, and the things he said! They are indefensible!


What I do have objections to, is you making him out to be some sort of a monster, as if everything he ever did and said, apart from the operas, was pure evil. He was a human being with his own good sides and his faults, not a saint, but also no more evil than an average 19-th century person.


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## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Is there a law against "aggravated racism"? In my country, you can't normally be arrested for stating an opinion, however distasteful.


You obviously o not live in the same country as I do!


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## starry

DavidA said:


> It's quite obvious how Rich manipulates people - through the power of his music!
> Frankly what you're saying does not make sense to me. If someone were to make that same comments about ethnic minorities today as Wagner did about the Jews of his day then they will be arrested for aggravated racism. Simple as that!
> We are not going into the origins of his motives because we simply do not know for sure. What we do know is what he said.
> All the stuff about cultural conditioning cannot disguise the fact that Wagner was a racist of the first order. Even for his day he was extreme!


Well I'm not defending what he said, but I'm not pretending I know his motives either. Obviously in different periods different comments are considered politically acceptable. Although people are still allowed to make comments about some people that I find unacceptable but it still isn't illegal. People will make unacceptable comments, including racial ones, and _it won't stop_ because insulting someone's appearance or other aspects is a basic way people let out anger and insecurities. People are probably more private in their comments now, though maybe Wagner was in his letters or diaries? It would obviously be a better world if people weren't so superficial and prejudiced in order to assuage their insecurities, but I doubt anything will change anytime soon. This is the reality of human beings, and composers aren't exempt from that.

Does it really matter concerning the music? I doubt it. So what are the motives of those who say his music is bad because of it? That's a more interesting question.


----------



## Taggart

SiegendesLicht said:


> Since when should people be getting arrested for saying or writing things?


When they shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre when there is none, for example.


----------



## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> What I do have objections to, is you making him out to be some sort of a monster, as if everything he ever did and said, apart from the operas, was pure evil. He was a human being with his own good sides and his faults, not a saint, but also no more evil than an average 19-th century person.


The Rough Guide to Opera in its lengthy piece on Wagner lists his musical achievements then says, 'the man who did all this was by all accounts a monster.'
I remember Lionel Salter writing that 'musical moralists' have a problem that this composer of many great works was 'a monster of ingratitude and egoism'.
Read what Steve Reich (above) says about him!

I'm not the only one who says it! Even by 19th century standards Wagner was pretty distasteful.


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## tdc

People are influenced a lot by their culture and their surroundings more so than many seem to realize. It is quite possible in a hundred years people could look back at many of our own lives with pure disgust at our ignorance and our evil and destructive ways. As a society changes these types of changes in social mores are quite common. I think it is pretty ridiculous for people to make judgements on people from so far in the past without possibly being able to understand all the complexities of that individual's life and circumstances.

"_Let him who is without sin cast the first stone_".


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## KenOC

Taggart said:


> When they shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre when there is none, for example.


A famous exception to what is not an inviolable rule.


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## KenOC

DavidA said:


> The Rough Guide to Opera in its lengthy piece on Wagner lists his musical achievements then says, 'the man who did all this was by all accounts a monster.'


There's a famous essay on Wagner by Deems Taylor titled "The Monster." But best read it before drawing conclusions.

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/the-monster


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## DavidA

One interesting question is whether we would be having this discussion had not Hitler and the Nazis made such a big deal of Wagner and his music. Probably if Hitler had not come along Wagner would be merely a matter of discussion among lovers of Opera.
Even his anti semitism might be confined to the pages of history.
It's just that Hitler's ideas on race and Wagner's are so uncomfortably close that people felt they could actually see the logical conclusion of Wagner's views. Now this is uncomfortable to many but it happens to be why this discussion is taking place.
However, just to get one in at dear old RW I will now relax to the music of Mendelssohn!


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## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> You obviously o not live in the same country as I do!


You and I definitely live in different countries, and as critical as I usually am about my own, one thing that we seem to have better than in the West is that private conversations are more open about subjects like politics and religion that in the West are considered too controversial or uncomfortable to discuss in polite conversation. We can argue all day long about particular opinions, but we will never shun these subjects just because they tend to create controversy. Just sayin'.

And concerning the Nazis, they killed as many as every fourth citizen of Belarus, by some statistics. But Wagner gets fully packed concert halls every time his music is performed. _Siegfried_ even made it to national news back in December. Again, just sayin'.


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## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> There's a famous essay on Wagner by Deems Taylor titled "The Monster." But best read it before drawing conclusions.
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/the-monster


Interesting essay--though Taylor tactfully avoids the subject of this thread.


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## starry

tdc said:


> People are influenced a lot by their culture and their surroundings more so than many seem to realize. It is quite possible in a hundred years people could look back at many of our own lives with pure disgust at our ignorance and our evil and destructive ways. As a society changes these types of changes in social mores are quite common. I think it is pretty ridiculous for people to make judgements on people from so far in the past without possibly being able to understand all the complexities of that individual's life and circumstances.
> 
> "_Let him who is without sin cast the first stone_".


I don't need a 100 years perspective to have disgust at people of our own time. Of course that's not a thing you are supposed to say. We are told to believe that we live in great times, with great governance, great laws, that our species is the greatest etc. But there's just too many things that question the status quo that we are told to believe in. I'm sure there's many aspects of humanity that haven't really changed that much at all over the centuries but we are told everything has progressed, as if the mentality has somehow developed just like technology has.


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## KenOC

Blancrocher said:


> Interesting essay--though Taylor tactfully avoids the subject of this thread.


Seems strange, doesn't it? Maybe it's because the essay was written in 1937, before WW II, when anti-Semitism wasn't viewed through the same glasses we wear today. Perhaps that part of Wagner was considered a minor foible...


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## Nereffid

tdc said:


> People are influenced a lot by their culture and their surroundings more so than many seem to realize. It is quite possible in a hundred years people could look back at many of our own lives with pure disgust at our ignorance and our evil and destructive ways. As a society changes these types of changes in social mores are quite common. I think it is pretty ridiculous for people to make judgements on people from so far in the past without possibly being able to understand all the complexities of that individual's life and circumstances.
> 
> "_Let him who is without sin cast the first stone_".


Please, explain to me the complexities of Wagner's life and circumstances that made him an anti-Semite, and I will still respond with this: He was an anti-Semite.
Just because anti-Semitism was the default position of Christians for centuries (read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism) doesn't mean it wasn't anti-Semitism.
I don't care what their "circumstances" were. They hated Jews.
And the reasons why they hated Jews were stupid ones. By anyone's standards.

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" is a nonsensical way of excusing the behavior of stone-throwers.


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## starry

He may have liked some Jews. What people write or say in anger doesn't always reflect what they do of course. I think that's just being realistic.


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## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> Seems strange, doesn't it? Maybe it's because the essay was written in 1937, before WW II, when anti-Semitism wasn't viewed through the same glasses we wear today. Perhaps that part of Wagner was considered a minor foible...


I'm sure you're right.

I'm just having a look at Wikipedia's page on the "Wagner controversies," which has some particularly interesting comments on Hitler's interest in Wagner, which was highly unusual at the time.



> any scholars have argued that Wagner's views, particularly his anti-Semitism and purported Aryan-Germanic racism, influenced the Nazis. These claims are disputed. Recent studies suggest that there is no evidence that Hitler even read any of Wagner's writings and further argue that Wagner's works do not inherently support Nazi notions of heroism.[28] During the Nazi regime, Parsifal was denounced as being "ideologically unacceptable"[29] and the opera was not performed at Bayreuth during the war years. (It has been suggested that a de facto ban had been placed on Parsifal by the Nazis.[30] However there were 23 performances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, between 1939 and 1942, which suggests that no formal ban was in place.[31])
> 
> The Nazi fascination with Wagner was largely inspired by Hitler, sometimes to the dismay of other high-ranking Nazi officials, including Joseph Goebbels. In 1933, for instance, Hitler ordered that each Nuremberg Rally open with a performance of the Meistersinger overture, and he even issued one thousand free tickets to Nazi functionaries. When Hitler entered the theater, however, he discovered that it was almost empty. The following year, those functionaries were ordered to attend, but they could be seen dozing off during the performance, so that in 1935, Hitler conceded and released the tickets to the public.


I'd always assumed that the appropriation of Wagner by the Nazi Party was in response to widespread popularity of his music rather than the idiosyncratic preference of its leader.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_controversies#Antisemitism


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## StlukesguildOhio

Now I just cannot see why in discussions like this, people start defending Wagner the man. He was obviously a detestable man with a huge talent, not just for music but for manipulating other people into sharing his own self-adoration. He is still at it today from beyond the grave!
By all means enjoy the music. Love the music. Adore the music. I too enjoy the music. I have nearly all his operas.
But please don't try and defend this man's behaviour, his twisted philosophy, and the things he said! They are indefensible!

I don't see that I in any way defended or excused Wagner's antisemitism. While we're at it bashing him we might also bring up the facts (in the words of Phil G. Goulding) that Wagner "was a liar, a cheat, a wife-stealer, a home-wrecker and a betrayer of friends. He was anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and anti-French. He was immoral and dishonorable. No one had a bigger ego and he properly belongs high on a list of the World's Most Unpleasant Men." He problem snored loudly and hated kittens. But are his detestable behaviors... primarily his antisemitism... all that he was? I'm not willing to judge Wagner as a wholly detestable man based solely upon one major character flaw any more than I'm willing to judge George Washington or Thomas Jefferson based solely upon the fact that they owned slaves.


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## SiegendesLicht

... And other talented people throughout history have been passionately anti-Slavic, or anti-Arabic, or anti-German (like Nietzsche or Jules Vern), or anti-Catholic, or anti-whatever, or made misogynistic remarks (I think Da Vinci did), or had black slaves (the US Founding Fathers) - so what? If we decide to discard everybody in the various realms of human activities who ever displayed a negative attitude against groups of people, we will not be left with much. 

Ah yes, and Henry Ford was anti-Semitic too. How many folks on here drive one?


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## violadude

I'd rather talk about the musical merits of the Backstreet Boys than touch on the Wagner - Nazi connection YET AGAIN.


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## KenOC

tdc said:


> People are influenced a lot by their culture and their surroundings more so than many seem to realize. It is quite possible in a hundred years people could look back at many of our own lives with pure disgust at our ignorance and our evil and destructive ways.


We will at least seem silly and destructive!

How fortunate we are that our views and values, today and right here, are absolutely correct and unarguable. Never mind that all other people in all other times have held different views and values, or that all other people in future times will also hold different views and values.

The beautiful part of this is that no matter where or when we live, what we believe is absolutely true!


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## starry

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'm not willing to judge Wagner as a wholly detestable man based solely upon one major character flaw any more than I'm willing to judge George Washington or Thomas Jefferson based solely upon the fact that they owned slaves.




Don't forget the treatment of native Americans as well. Though I wonder with politicians if issues like that are more relevant concerning their words and position, compared to say a composer of music who isn't obviously supporting a political platform or issuing moral directives.


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## StlukesguildOhio

KenOC- Is there a law against "aggravated racism"? In my country, you can't normally be arrested for stating an opinion, however distasteful.

DavidA- You obviously o not live in the same country as I do!

I can't say I know which country you live in... but in the US the idea of "freedom of speech" is taken quite seriously... not far removed from Voltaire's ideal: _"I disagree strongly with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."_ Nazis, Communists, the KKK, the Westboro Baptist Church, racists, sexists, and an endless array of other morons are all afforded equal rights of self-expression... and the population as a whole is free to discern whose ideas are worthy of scorn.


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## SiegendesLicht

tdc said:


> People are influenced a lot by their culture and their surroundings more so than many seem to realize. It is quite possible in a hundred years people could look back at many of our own lives with pure disgust at our ignorance and our evil and destructive ways.


I suspect people of the future will behave in other evil and destructive ways, that we cannot think of today. Maybe it would be we, not them, who would be disgusted, if we could look a hundred years into the future. If a person from a hundred years ago looked at our world of today, he would find a lot of reasons to be appalled as well.


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## KenOC

SiegendesLicht said:


> I suspect people of the future will behave in other evil and destructive ways, that we cannot think of today. Maybe it would be we, not them, who would be disgusted, if we could look a hundred years into the future. If a person from a hundred years ago looked at our world of today, he would find a lot of reasons to be appalled as well.


I suspect that people in future times will be amused at us in a lot of ways -- one being the many "inarguable" beliefs we hold that are simply contrary to the consistent and longstanding evidence of science. At the same time, we claim to believe in science!

People from a hundred years in the past would certainly find many of our current values repulsive or even horrifying.


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## Celloman

Wow...this thread is really popular!
Anyway, I'm just adding my voice here. I definitely think it's possible to condemn a person's views while at the same time enjoying and praising their artistic work. As a Wagner fan, I can't ignore the fact that he was anti-semitic, but I can still enjoy his music on its own merits.


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## PetrB

If any cared to research a bit, they would find that Wagner's butcher who sold Wagner bratwurst was about as antisemitic as Wagner, that Wagner's main anti Semite energy was turned upon Meyerbeer, and one other guy, a composer or critic, who said things about the man's music he did not like.

Where, please, are the extensive written antisemitic rants in all of Wagner's literary output? Can't find any? Doesn't matter, just make something up so you can have thrill of your outrage about "Artists who held despicable views."

Do you think the antisemitic vogue / mode at the time had anything to do with Wagner's dislike of Mendelssohn, or perhaps _the_ avant-garde romantic composer of the day had his nose a little our of joint that music of Mendelssohn, a very classicist romantic, was taking up space on concert programs?

That Hitler, or any other of his lumpen bourgeois staff decided upon the few bits of Wagner that are big, bombast, and the sort of thing one might recommend to a youngster who comes with a love of heavy metal and is looking for the most "loud, epic, dramatic,' etc. classical music is Hitler's fault, not Wagner's (there is a lot in Wagner which is not bombast, loud and obvious - the majority of it, in fact

So, happily unarmed with facts, and a super-inflated kind of globally accepted urban myth, threads like this just keep on coming, and they attract both the uninformed and those who love to thrill at being outraged (guess you have to find your adrenaline thrills somewhere, huh?)


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## Petwhac

PetrB said:


> That Hitler, or any other of his lumpen bourgeois staff decided upon the few bits of Wagner that are big, bombast, and the sort of thing one might recommend to a youngster who comes with a love of heavy metal and is looking for the most "loud, epic, dramatic,' etc. classical music is Hitler's fault, not Wagner's (there is a lot in Wagner which is not bombast, loud and obvious - the majority of it, in fact
> 
> So, happily unarmed with facts, and a super-inflated kind of globally accepted urban myth, threads like this just keep on coming, and they attract both the uninformed and those who love to thrill at being outraged (guess you have to find your adrenaline thrills somewhere, huh?)


Actually, I have heard that Meistersingers was Hitler's favourite, a comedy!

I've said this before on a previous Wagner/Hitler thread.
His supposed love of Wagner shows that despite being a deranged, megalomaniacal worm, Hitler had excellent taste in music! And I might add that although Wagner was probably a nasty man, he wrote quite exquisite music.

A lot of great art was made by complete sh*ts. So what! It's Ok to trash the man and not the work.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Where, please, are the extensive written antisemitic rants in all of Wagner's literary output? Can't find any? Doesn't matter, just make something up so you can have thrill of your outrage about "Artists who held despicable views."


Well, you might try Wagner's "Das Judenthum in der Musik" ("On Judaism in Music"), originally published in 1850 and republished, expanded, in 1869. In it he attacks Mendelssohn and, more vigorously, Meyerbeer. And, of course Jews in general.

The purpose of the work was "explain to ourselves the involuntary repellence possessed for us by the nature and personality of the Jews, so as to vindicate that instinctive dislike which we plainly recognize as stronger and more overpowering than our conscious zeal to rid ourselves thereof."

The Jew has no place in the music of the "volk." He writes, "So long as the separate art of music had a real organic life-need in it...there was nowhere to be found a Jewish composer... Only when a body's inner death is manifest, do outside elements win the power of lodgement in it -- yet merely to destroy it. Then, indeed, that body's flesh dissolves into a swarming colony of insect life: but who in looking on that body's self, would hold it still for living?"

This rather striking image was used by Hitler in Mein Kampf, where Jews are described as maggots infecting otherwise healthy bodies.

But Jews can help! "Without once looking back, take ye your part in this regenerative work of deliverance through the bloody struggle of self-annihilation; then are we one and un-dissevered!" If I were a Jew, I think I'd find that proposal less than attractive...


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Well, you might try Wagner's "Das Judenthum in der Musik" ("On Judaism in Music"), originally published in 1850 and republished, expanded, in 1869. In it he attacks Mendelssohn and, more vigorously, Meyerbeer. And, of course Jews in general.
> 
> The purpose of the work was "explain to ourselves the involuntary repelence possessed for us by the nature and personality of the Jews, so as to vindicate that instinctive dislike which we plainly recognize as stronger and more overpowering than our conscious zeal to rid ourselves thereof."
> 
> The Jew has no place in the music of the "volk." He writes, "So long as the separate art of music had a real organic life-need in it...there was nowhere to be found a Jewish composer... Only when a body's inner death is manifest, do outside elements win the power of lodgement in it -- yet merely to destroy it. Then, indeed, that body's flesh dissolves into a swarming colony of insect life: but who in looking on that body's self, would hold it still for living?"
> 
> This rather striking image was used by Hitler in Mein Kampf, where Jews are described as maggots infecting otherwise healthy bodies.
> 
> But Jews can help! "Without once looking back, take ye your part in this regenerative work of deliverance through the bloody struggle of self-annihilation; then are we one and un-dissevered!" If I were a Jew, I think I'd find that proposal less than attractive...


First, I cannot believe Wagner thought of himself as writing "for the people," or as being, in any way, shape or form, one of "Der Volk."

All that ill humor hung about his resentment of Mendelssohn, and his very personal grudge against Meyerbeer (Never criticize or contradict a narcissist autocratic tyrant.) Read any other Wagner? Seriously pretentious stuff, musical genius turned sophomoric essayist / philosopher. Loved every word he wrote, too, it seems.

In a biography of Debussy, ca. 1920, the author said that Debussy's music would be improved if he stopped associating with so many Jews, this a non sequitur, with none of the Jews with whom Debussy may have associated named ...as if Debussy had some huge influence from one or more Jewish friends as far as what his music was. _Antisemitism was in the air throughout Europe, and had been, going back for near one thousand years._

To credit Wagner with an especially virulent case of antisemitism I think is exaggeration beyond support. To credit Wagner with people's use of his music -- to any purpose -- after his death is just ridiculous.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> To credit Wagner with an especially virulent case of antisemitism I think is exaggeration beyond support. To credit Wagner with people's use of his music -- to any purpose -- after his death is just ridiculous.


I don't agree with that. Of course even Tchaikovsky might pen a letter complaining about having to sit opposite a smelly "****" on a train trip. But he didn't bother writing screeds like "Judenthum" attacking Jews in very violent terms, or publishing (and republishing) them. Neither did any other composer that I know of.

Many of Wagner's friends, no doubt casual anti-Semites themselves, were displeased on the first 1850 publication. Per Wiki, "Nearly all of Wagner's associates, including Liszt, were embarrassed by the article and thought it was a passing phase or a mere fit of pique."

On the 1869 re-publication:"Once again many of Wagner's supporters were in despair at the provocation. Even Cosima doubted that it was wise." Cosima, it is noted, was probably more anti-Semitic than Wagner himself. Wagner continued with many similar essays and newspaper articles up to his death in 1883.

My impression from this is that Wagner was definitely a more extreme anti-Semite than was common in his time. I agree that this has (or should have) little to do with appreciation of his music.


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## PetrB

This is not excusing his essay, or its expansion, or any other part of it.

This was a man, who had fans and sycophants to his home in a salon setting: if any of them controverted one of his opinions, and did not relent, they were shunned, ostracized from the group, never called back. (This was also a composer who wrote, not just on music, like other musicians have done / do, but on anything he thought, as well, it seems, having a self opinion that anything he thought was correct and genius.)

That reveals a man who really never let an old grudge go... including a grudge against a composer whose works were more popular than Wagner's in the day, at least till later in Wagner's career, and that other "fit of pique" grudge against Meyerbeer, who had written / said a few negative comments (probably as slicing and colorful as was tradition at the time) about Wagner's music.

As I said, you don't want to get on the wrong side of a narcissist autocrat tyrant - they will never forget it.


----------



## Rapide

ethanjamesescano said:


> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
> I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.
> 
> What do you think?


I would like to know Wagner to discuss music and his musical ideas but probably not to invite him over for a family dinner, if that analogy makes sense. The man was a musical genius. I would like to think I can healthily separate his art from his personal view of non-musical matters of the world. Unfortunately, many cannot (and will not).


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## SiegendesLicht

NightHawk said:


> There is in the PBS archives somewhere a special on the minimalist composer Steve Reich, who is Jewish. I don't remember how he and the interviewer got on the subject but I recorded it on VHS (lost forever) and listened to it several times, so this is a close remembrance of his words: _I know that Wagner was an anti-semite, I believe that he was a Proto-Nazi and if I had him in the sights of my gun I'd be hard pressed not to blow his brains out, but he was a genius composer and you just have to lump it._


Now, _that_ is some hatred.


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## Petwhac

*Nighthawk said-*


> here is in the PBS archives somewhere a special on the minimalist composer Steve Reich, who is Jewish. I don't remember how he and the interviewer got on the subject but I recorded it on VHS (lost forever) and listened to it several times, so this is a close remembrance of his words: I know that Wagner was an anti-semite, I believe that he was a Proto-Nazi and if I had him in the sights of my gun I'd be hard pressed not to blow his brains out, but he was a genius composer and you just have to lump it.





SiegendesLicht said:


> Now, _that_ is some hatred.


Reich's is the hatred of an individual's views and personality. 
Wagner's is the hatred of a whole group of people based on ignorance and bigotry.
There is a difference.


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## starry

Hatred of people you don't know is often based on ignorance, and talking in terms of violence on such people is often the mark of a hypocrite who doesn't realise that the very hatred they decry they practice themselves. It's only a short step from attacking an individual to attacking those associated with them in exactly the same way. I've no doubt some anti-Wagner people not only attack Wagner but those who promote Wagner as well based on assumptions that they are defending Wagner's personal views on issues. Further those who make an issue of racism concerning other people can sometimes be accused of being racist and separatist themselves. It's interesting that Wagner actually considered assimilation and not eradication of Jewish people. But most importantly did he really hate all Jewish people like indoctrinated Nazis in later years? To me race is a non-issue, people tend to be a mix of different races anyway. But to some people like Nazis, Zionists it's obviously very important, but it hasn't exactly led to peaceful co-existence.

"Notwithstanding his public utterances against Jewish influence in music, and even his utterances against specific Jews, Wagner had numerous Jewish friends and supporters even in his later period. Included amongst these were his favourite conductor Hermann Levi, the pianists Carl Tausig and Joseph Rubinstein, the writer Heinrich Porges and very many others. In his autobiography, written between 1865 and 1870, he declared that his acquaintance with the Jew Samuel Lehrs whom he knew in Paris in the early 1840s was 'one of the most beautiful friendships of my life'. There remain, therefore, elements of the enigmatic, and of the opportunist, in Wagner's personal attitude towards Jews."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik

Looks like an unwelcome complication for those who say he hated all Jewish people.


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## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> Reich's is the hatred of an individual's views and personality.
> Wagner's is the hatred of a whole group of people based on ignorance and bigotry.
> There is a difference.


In any case I am glad Reich was not around with a gun at the time Wagner lived.


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## Bix

DavidA said:


> You obviously o not live in the same country as I do!


In the UK aggravated racism is punishable especially when incitement is involved.


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## Petwhac

starry said:


> Hatred of people you don't know is often based on ignorance, and talking in terms of violence on such people is often the mark of a hypocrite who doesn't realise that the very hatred they decry they practice themselves. It's only a short step from attacking an individual to attacking those associated with them in exactly the same way. I've no doubt some anti-Wagner people not only attack Wagner but those who promote Wagner as well based on assumptions that they are defending Wagner's personal views on issues. Further those who make an issue of racism concerning other people can sometimes be accused of being racist and separatist themselves. It's interesting that Wagner actually considered assimilation and not eradication of Jewish people. But most importantly did he really hate all Jewish people like indoctrinated Nazis in later years? To me race is a non-issue, people tend to be a mix of different races anyway. But to some people like Nazis, Zionists it's obviously very important, but it hasn't exactly led to peaceful co-existence.
> 
> "Notwithstanding his public utterances against Jewish influence in music, and even his utterances against specific Jews, Wagner had numerous Jewish friends and supporters even in his later period. Included amongst these were his favourite conductor Hermann Levi, the pianists Carl Tausig and Joseph Rubinstein, the writer Heinrich Porges and very many others. In his autobiography, written between 1865 and 1870, he declared that his acquaintance with the Jew Samuel Lehrs whom he knew in Paris in the early 1840s was 'one of the most beautiful friendships of my life'. There remain, therefore, elements of the enigmatic, and of the opportunist, in Wagner's personal attitude towards Jews."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik
> 
> Looks like an unwelcome complication for those who say he hated all Jewish people.


What is it you are trying to defend?
I'm not anti-Wagner, I'm anti his bigotry and ignorance which is plain to see in his essay.
His bigotry is not unique. Look what's happening with Gay and Lesbian rights in Russia today!


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## starry

Petwhac said:


> What is it you are trying to defend?
> I'm not anti-Wagner, I'm anti his bigotry and ignorance which is plain to see in his essay.
> His bigotry is not unique. Look what's happening with Gay and Lesbian rights in Russia today!


I'm not defending anything lol. Why do people always say that on issues like this? I know bigotry and prejudice is not unique as other posts I've made here say. I'm simply exporing the complexity of issues, which might be thought suitable on a discussion forum even if not welcomed by those who don't like discussion on some issues.

Ok we can all agree we wish Wagner hadn't said some things, end of thread I guess.


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## Vesteralen

Here's what I've learned from this thread so far:


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## tdc

Petwhac said:


> What is it you are trying to defend?
> I'm not anti-Wagner, I'm anti his bigotry and ignorance which is plain to see in his essay.
> His bigotry is not unique. Look what's happening with Gay and Lesbian rights in Russia today!


It's not about defending anything, its about raising broader issues, and trying to put things in perspective. I think the extent Wagner is demonized by many _is_ questionable, in context of the culture he was from, and many of the major injustices that are still present in our society at this very day. The fact people often point their finger at Wagner as practically the definition of an evil, vile man, while putting their head in the sand towards much of the evil that exists in our present society speaks of a brainwashed culture to me. I'm not defending Wagner's views on Jews which I do not agree with, I'd just like to put things in perspective. Today there are tons of people that display downright racist attitudes towards Muslims, yet this does not seem to concern people in the West nearly as much as Wagner's anti-Semitic attitudes, it is in fact in many circles quite socially acceptable, because today (like in Wagner's time) we are given reasons in certain parts of the media as to why we may be justified in hating Islamic people, just like in Wagner's day the demonized culture was the Jews. Hatred is hate, beyond what disguise it wears.

It just seems like many people seem to have this simplistic idea that WWII was fought between "good guys" and "bad guys", and the "good guys" won so now everyone buys into all their propaganda about the "bad guys". I don't think it is that simple myself. I think if the Nazis had won the war, we would see just as many people today buying into _their _propaganda, as we see today people buying into the propaganda of the Americans. There really is a lot of evidence that the current "regime" that has been based largely in the U.S. are just as corrupt, without morals and genocidal as the Nazis. Many believe the same people in power in the decades after WW II, financed both sides of WWII anyway, all in a militaristic game to consolidate power. Do I know this as fact? No. Do I try to exercise rational independent thought based on the actions I see taken by our clearly violent, and militaristic Government? Yes.

I personally like seeing posts on this topic by people who are trying to use some independent thought on these issues, as opposed to spewing the typical same old simplistic "good guys" vs "bad guys" type ideologies.


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> In any case I am glad Reich was not around with a gun at the time Wagner lived.


Indeed. But did you know that Sibelius was in Vienna for the première of Bruckner's 8th and got into fisticuffs (a fight, a punch-up) with his (Bruckner's) detractors? For God's sake, a fight between the Bruckner and Brahms factions!! Over music??!!
I believe this fight left Sibelius with a limp for sometime after. No guns, though. Luckily.


----------



## DavidA

tdc said:


> It's not about defending anything, its about raising broader issues, and trying to put things in perspective. I think the extent Wagner is demonized by many _is_ questionable, in context of the culture he was from, and many of the major injustices that are still present in our society at this very day. The fact people often point their finger at Wagner as practically the definition of an evil, vile man, while putting their head in the sand towards much of the evil that exists in our present society speaks of a brainwashed culture to me. I'm not defending Wagner's views on Jews which I do not agree with, I'd just like to put things in perspective. Today there are tons of people that display downright racist attitudes towards Muslims, yet this does not seem to concern people in the West nearly as much as Wagner's anti-Semitic attitudes, it is in fact in many circles quite socially acceptable, because today (like in Wagner's time) we are given reasons in certain parts of the media as to why we may be justified in hating Islamic people, just like in Wagner's day the demonized culture was the Jews. Hatred is hate, beyond what disguise it wears.
> 
> It just seems like many people seem to have this simplistic idea that WWII was fought between "good guys" and "bad guys", and the "good guys" won so now everyone buys into all their propaganda about the "bad guys". I don't think it is that simple myself. I think if the Nazis had won the war, we would see just as many people today buying into _their _propaganda, as we see today people buying into the propaganda of the Americans. There really is a lot of evidence that the current "regime" that has been based largely in the U.S. are just as corrupt, without morals and genocidal as the Nazis. Many believe the same people in power in the decades after WW II, financed both sides of WWII anyway, all in a militaristic game to consolidate power. Do I know this as fact? No. Do I try to exercise rational independent thought based on the actions I see taken by our clearly violent, and militaristic Government? Yes.
> 
> I personally like seeing posts on this topic by people who are trying to use some independent thought on these issues, as opposed to spewing the typical same old simplistic "good guys" vs "bad guys" type ideologies.


Frankly, I think your post is simplistic in that you are the one who is putting your head in the sand. Of course we are not saying that evil, racism, bigotry, etc, does not exist in our society today. But the question was about Wagner not about our society today. Actually I don't think too many people in the west are concerned with Wagner's anti-Semitism as most people don't know a lot about him outside of classical music lovers. I also think that to say that the current regime in the US is a genocidal as the Nazis is really stretching a point. I do think when you try and exercise independent thinking it should be based more on historical facts than on plucking opinions out of the air. Is the Nazis had have won the war I hope I wouldn't have been buying into their propaganda. My wife certainly wouldn't as she and her family would all have been exterminated.


----------



## Nereffid

Petwhac said:


> I'm not anti-Wagner, I'm anti his bigotry and ignorance which is plain to see in his essay.
> His bigotry is not unique.


I agree with this wholeheartedly.
I know people here aren't trying to _defend_ Wagner per se, but there does seem to be a strong current of "oh, leave him alone, wasn't everyone else the same back then", which is all well and good, but if Wagner seems an unfair target, he did intentionally stick his head above the parapet. He, as it were, started the conversation, and 150 years later people are still arguing with him over it.
And I reiterate the point that the Holocaust has _dramatically_ altered what it means to be (or have been) an anti-Semite. The connection between Wagner's _music_ and the Nazis isn't something I care about; the fact that the Nazis' opinions on Jews were drawn from the same well as Wagner's (and, yes, many others' too) is worth remembering.


----------



## Petwhac

tdc said:


> It's not about defending anything, its about raising broader issues, and trying to put things in perspective. I think the extent Wagner is demonized by many _is_ questionable, in context of the culture he was from, and many of the major injustices that are still present in our society at this very day. The fact people often point their finger at Wagner as practically the definition of an evil, vile man, while putting their head in the sand towards much of the evil that exists in our present society speaks of a brainwashed culture to me. I'm not defending Wagner's views on Jews which I do not agree with, I'd just like to put things in perspective. Today there are tons of people that display downright racist attitudes towards Muslims, yet this does not seem to concern people in the West nearly as much as Wagner's anti-Semitic attitudes, it is in fact in many circles quite socially acceptable, because today (like in Wagner's time) we are given reasons in certain parts of the media as to why we may be justified in hating Islamic people, just like in Wagner's day the demonized culture was the Jews. Hatred is hate, beyond what disguise it wears.


I've never seen anyone "point their finger at Wagner as practically the definition of an evil...". If they do, they are wrong.

If I publish things which are explicitly bigoted then I can expect to be criticised for it.

People who don't differentiate between Muslims with Islamists are ignorant.
It is OK to be anti-Islamist or anti-Zionist because that is not the same as being anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim.



tdc said:


> There really is a lot of evidence that the current "regime" that has been based largely in the U.S. are just as corrupt, without morals and genocidal as the Nazis. Many believe the same people in power in the decades after WW II, financed both sides of WWII anyway, all in a militaristic game to consolidate power. Do I know this as fact? No. Do I try to exercise rational independent thought based on the actions I see taken by our clearly violent, and militaristic Government? Yes.


If the American 'regime' is anything like the Nazis then I expect you will be getting a knock on your door in the middle of the night for writing that paragraph.:lol:


----------



## Pennypacker

Petwhac said:


> It is OK to be anti-Islamist or anti-Zionist


If you're against nationalities and patriotism in general, sure. Otherwise it's just modern antisemitism.


----------



## Petwhac

Pennypacker said:


> If you're against nationalities and patriotism in general, sure. Otherwise it's just modern antisemitism.


How so?
Neither is to do with nationality or patriotism.


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## aleazk

The idea of the OP is somewhat nonsensical. Only Wagner in person can answer such a thing. And, in any case, I think the guy had a big enough ego and recognition in his own time as to be worried by something like that.
Facts: Wagner was an antisemite (there's enough explicit evidence in his own writings, like his essay "Judaism in Music"), possibly influenced by the society and prejudices of that time (of course, this can't be used in any way as a moral attenuator); 
decades after Wagner's death, Hitler sees his own antisemitic ideas as somewhat reinforced in Wagner's operas, but mainly because of the exaltation of a glorious teutonic past in Wagner's operas rather than actual antisemitic remarks. I think Hitler liked Wagner because he saw realized in the operas his own visions of grandiloquence and megalomania, the ideas of a great and mythical Germany. It's well known the atraction the Nazis had for this thinking about the mythical and even they adapted some of the simbology.
But I don't think one can blame Wagner for that. The guy who killed million of people was Hitler, not Wagner. And I think he would have killed them anyway, knowing or not knowing Wagner's operas. Hitler's antisemitism didn't originate just because he heard Wagner operas or because he knew about Wagner's own antisemitism.
At the end, I think all this is circumstantial. History is a highly complex and non-linear net of relations. I think it's unfair to charge Wagner with Hitler's moral responsibility. It's a great and unjustified extrapolation, which leaves aside the complexity of history.
I think Wagner's operas can be enjoyed as the great works of art they are (they don't have themselves antisemitic content), and at the same time we can be critical about Wagner's personal beliefs and antisemitic prejudices.
I don't buy this silly theory about artists translating literaly and linearly their personal lives into their works of art.


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## Geo Dude

ethanjamesescano said:


> ...just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.


Someone probably already said this, but wut?


----------



## Guest

Geo Dude said:


> Someone probably already said this, but wut?


Didn't Beethoven have the prowess with the ladies? Maybe that is where the jealousy was. Either that, or there have been more movies made about Beethoven than Haydn - Immortal Beloved alone. Jealousy from beyond the grave.


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## PetrB

TalkingHead said:


> Indeed. But did you know that Sibelius was in Vienna for the première of Bruckner's 8th and got into fisticuffs (a fight, a punch-up) with his (Bruckner's) detractors? For God's sake, a fight between the Bruckner and Brahms factions!! Over music??!!
> I believe this fight left Sibelius with a limp for sometime after. No guns, though. Luckily.


LOL. It is likely (though total conjecture) that alcohol was involved


----------



## PetrB

DrMike said:


> Didn't Beethoven have the prowess with the ladies? Maybe that is where the jealousy was. Either that, or there have been more movies made about Beethoven than Haydn - Immortal Beloved alone. Jealousy from beyond the grave.


Beethoven yearned for women he could not have, I wouldn't exactly call that prowess.

Immortal Beloved is a complete fantasy / fiction and a conjecture, which makes for an interesting story line, but there is not one documented fact about Beethoven having an affair with his Brother's wife, ergo Carl being his son.

Good spin on a skeleton, though, what a writer with good imagination might come up with, filling in those blanks.


----------



## KenOC

Back to more-or-less on topic, I found a readable paraphrase of Wagner's article "On Judaism in Music." For those interested in Wagner's views, I put it here:

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/wagner-on-judaism-in-music


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## aleazk

KenOC said:


> Back to more-or-less on topic, I found a readable paraphrase of Wagner's article "On Judaism in Music." For those interested in Wagner's views, I put it here:
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/wagner-on-judaism-in-music


lol, sounds like some crazy dude writing on a blog...


----------



## science

Well, I for one really enjoyed this thread, especially the Reich quote, with which I agree entirely.

Wagner is interesting to me because his operas are approximately what I would've wanted to compose if I'd lived in his time, or for that matter even now. I love intertextuality, retelling old stories, and the thing I love most about opera (or film for that matter) is the union of so many arts: literature, music, visual arts in the setting, dance or at least something like dance in the movement of the characters, all the other aspects of acting....

But I am glad I didn't know him personally. If only he'd kept his mouth shut about everything else! Certainly an immoral man, and a bigot who had the further misfortune of being used by far more extreme bigots.

This is how complex life is. We don't live in a black-and-white moral world, where good people do good things and bad people do bad things, like in _The Lord of the Rings_ or something. We're not saints - we're fortunate to have stumbled upon societal structures in which our greed and selfishness and violence and hypocrisy are channeled in ways that have been generally productive of greater comfort, knowledge, and entertainment than our ancestors enjoyed. Of course we take credit for it, we probably can't help it, but we're kidding ourselves. That we, say, don't have slavery or generally frown upon racism - such facts tell us more about the needs of our most powerful leaders (ie what kind of labor they require) than about our (or their) moral greatness. Beyond some cultural and personal ephemera, human nature remains what it always has been: yours and mine is the same as Wagner's, Hitler's, Ilsa Koch's, Gandhi's, Timur's, Socrates'. We live in a world of almost complete moral darkness, dimly illuminated here and there by the hypocrisy that is about the best we're capable of.

So we ought to enjoy Wagner's operas with the knowledge that he was a genius and a complete **** and at best we're not so much better than he was - taking that hopefully as a challenge to better ourselves rather than challenge to justify ourselves as we are.


----------



## Pennypacker

Petwhac said:


> How so?
> Neither is to do with nationality or patriotism.


I was referring to anti-zionism. Zionism is about the right of the jews for their own state, and today the right of Israel to exist as that state. So being against one particular nation would be...

Anyway, I agree with everything science said (pun not inten.. oh **** it). It's great to be so enlightened and having an independent thought without any guns pointing at you.


----------



## Sid James

ethanjamesescano said:


> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
> ....
> 
> What do you think?


Well whatever the facts, he's one of the most controversial figures in the history of Western classical music. & also the fodder for cult builders - whether Ludwig II, who funded Bayreuth, or Hitler who was his biggest fan, or indeed Boulez, all of these where kindred spirits with The Master, for good or bad. Wagner's megalomania rubbed off on Ludwig II, his operas with their plots of heroes making these mighty conquests and inevitably ending in disaster really got Hitler excited, and in terms of Boulez, Richard's ideology of progress at the expense of everything else has some strong paralells (Pierre has also spent a great deal of time conducting Richard's operas - funny for an avant-gardist to spend _that_ much time with a dead old Romantic fogey, no?).

Yep, a genius, but definitely amongst the least likable composers in terms of personality and ideology - and he's competing with a field of, well (how shall I say it?), a pretty screwed up bunch of people in the first place, generally speaking. I don't like Wagner, I seldom listen to his music, but I'd even say that about many of my favourite (or composers I favour more by far) composers. Beethoven was a bully, Bartok as cold as a fish, Mahler narcissistic to the extreme, and I can go on. But there are composers who I do admire for their integrity as well, but they are comparatively few.

Bottom line is we got to look at Wagner's music. Even though I don't like it, you got things like his innovations or fleshing out of innovations. He didn't invent leitmotifs, for example, but he was the one to most rigorously use them. He influenced many after him, not only the obvious candidates like Richard Strauss and the Second Viennese School guys, but also Debussy (listen to some of Wagner's nature paintings in his operas and they are not far off Claude's - predating them by decades, even 50 years!).

I can go on about his music, it has many things that one simply cannot ignore as being significant and great. However, Wagner himself was plainly vile, it cannot be denied. Not only the anti-Semitism, but other things.

To end this, I'll attempt at being comical. You know about John Lennon's line about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus Christ? Well Herr Wagner could boast about being even more controversial than J.C. and maybe to some at least, an even greater Messiah! But "let it be" as that song from The Fab Four goes...



> ...
> I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven...


I don't know if Haydn was jelous of Beethoven. I know Haydn evidently didn't like Beethoven's first symphony, which he heard at its premiere. However I think their relationship was complex. Beethoven idolised Mozart, who was to teach him, but since he died the job fell to Papa. It was a thankless task since young Ludwig was a difficult person (read above!).

But they admired eachother. I think while they had artistic differences, there was a deal of mutual respect. For one thing, Haydn said Beethoven was his best student. There's a famous quote I can't find now by googling, Haydn said something like Beethoven is an extraordinary mind "with three hearts, three heads, and three brains." Something like that. Is that praise enough?


----------



## Aries

Antisemitism is a tiresome topic. I advise you just to talk about something else. What about music?


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## DavidA

Aries said:


> Antisemitism is a tiresome topic. I advise you just to talk about something else. What about music?


Note that the question asked by OP

I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.

What do you think?


----------



## Geo Dude

PetrB said:


> Beethoven yearned for women he could not have, I wouldn't exactly call that prowess.
> 
> Immortal Beloved is a complete fantasy / fiction and a conjecture, which makes for an interesting story line, but there is not one documented fact about Beethoven having an affair with his Brother's wife, ergo Carl being his son.
> 
> Good spin on a skeleton, though, what a writer with good imagination might come up with, filling in those blanks.


I'm pretty sure that was a joke...



PetrB said:


> LOL. It is likely (though total conjecture) that alcohol was involved


Where Sibelius is concerned it is always likely that alcohol was involved. 



science said:


> Certainly an immoral man, and a bigot *who had the further misfortune of being used by far more extreme bigots. *


Frankly, I think this is the crux of the Wagnerian anti-semitism "issue" that people have. The viewpoints that Wagner expressed were certainly not unique, even uncommon in his time, and I have to think that if he hadn't (posthumously) become Hitler's darling that no one would make a fuss over it, any more than they do other historical figures holding outdated viewpoints.


----------



## Blancrocher

Geo Dude said:


> Frankly, I think this is the crux of the Wagnerian anti-semitism "issue" that people have. The viewpoints that Wagner expressed were certainly not unique, even uncommon in his time, and I have to think that if he hadn't (posthumously) become Hitler's darling that no one would make a fuss over it, any more than they do other historical figures holding outdated viewpoints.


This is especially true of the controversies about his music in Israel; it was entirely understandable (and appropriate) that there was a moratorium on Wagner concerts after the uses it was put to in the Holocaust. With time conductors are approaching his music without much ambivalence--but only because there is no overt anti-semitic content in Wagner's operas. If there were, this would be a much more difficult debate, I'm sure.

Incidentally, the political associations of Wagner's music are exploited to great effect in Lars von Trier's Melancholia--a great, shattering film.


----------



## realdealblues

To answer the original posters question. No, I don't think Wagner was jealous. 

To me, he was exactly who he was and like many people (even today) didn't like certain groups of people. I personally don't know anyone who doesn't "dislike" certain groups of people based on religious beliefs, color or sexual preference.


----------



## Aries

DavidA said:


> Note that the question asked by OP
> 
> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
> I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.
> 
> What do you think?


I think:

What is rassism? Every leftist group has its own definition. I think, "rassism" is a propaganda term.

Anti-semitism is a mysterium. The jewish malice is for anti-semits an incontrovertible fact as the converse is for non-anti-semits a fact. The thinking of the most anti-semits isn't evil (if any thinking can be evil), they just think jews are evil. And the reason for anti-semitism isn't just jealousy. It is difficult.

Did Wagner defy the jewish race or races associated with the Jews or something just described as jewish race or as race associated with the Jews? I think yes. But it is no problem for me. Anti-semitism is a negligible problem, and other problems should be considered more. Without considering the jewish question itself: What the anti-semites accuse Jews, are often real problems that philo-semites do not see at all.


----------



## Pennypacker

Have you swallowed a dictionary? Just say whatever it is you wish to say about the evil jews.


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## aleazk

I say this thread will be closed more soon than later.


----------



## aleazk

Aries said:


> I think:
> 
> What is rassism? Every leftist group has its own definition. I think, "rassism" is a propaganda term.
> 
> Anti-semitism is a mysterium. The jewish malice is for anti-semits an incontrovertible fact as the converse is for non-anti-semits a fact. The thinking of the most anti-semits isn't evil (if any thinking can be evil), they just think jews are evil. And the reason for anti-semitism isn't just jealousy. It is difficult.
> 
> Did Wagner defy the jewish race or races associated with the Jews or something just described as jewish race or as race associated with the Jews? I think yes. But it is no problem for me. Anti-semitism is a negligible problem, and other problems should be considered more. Without considering the jewish question itself: What the anti-semites accuse Jews, are often real problems that philo-semites do not see at all.


This is utter nonsense...


----------



## DavidA

Aries said:


> I think:
> 
> What is rassism? Every leftist group has its own definition. I think, "rassism" is a propaganda term.
> 
> Anti-semitism is a mysterium. The jewish malice is for anti-semits an incontrovertible fact as the converse is for non-anti-semits a fact. The thinking of the most anti-semits isn't evil (if any thinking can be evil), they just think jews are evil. And the reason for anti-semitism isn't just jealousy. It is difficult.
> 
> Did Wagner defy the jewish race or races associated with the Jews or something just described as jewish race or as race associated with the Jews? I think yes. But it is no problem for me. Anti-semitism is a negligible problem, and other problems should be considered more. Without considering the jewish question itself: What the anti-semites accuse Jews, are often real problems that philo-semites do not see at all.


Okay! Just look at Schindler's list and see if anti-semitism is a negligible problem.


----------



## Sudonim

I can't believe it's taken eight pages for someone to point this out, but antisemitism is not the same as "racism." They are both unjustifiable prejudices, yes, but they are not the same.

There is no such thing as a "Jewish race" - as if Judaism were something passed down genetically. Racially speaking, most Jews are white. Judaism is a religion; it's not a "race."

On the subject of Wagner, I'll echo what others have already said: I can enjoy his music, or not, on its own merits. It's perfectly proper to separate the man from the art. You have to do so, and probably do more often than you know, or there'll be previous little music (or art of any kind) left for you to enjoy. I love the music of Miles Davis, irrespective of the pretty well-established fact that he was often a rotten human being. And so on.

Having said that, I acknowledge that antisemitism - especially German/Austrian antisemitism - does seem to have a special stigma that makes separating the art from the artist more difficult. That isn't because of some powerful "Jewish lobby" that's been especially successful in promoting victimhood, but - as Nereffid pointed out - because the Jews in particular were victims of a brand of antisemitism that went far further than any previous brand had. The Nazis didn't create the swastika, but because of its associations at their hands, it can never be used innocently again. 

Or if it were discovered - in an example more fitting for this thread - that Heinrich Himmler had written a string quartet, how well could I separate the man from the music? Would I want to hear it? That's a question that's admittedly harder to answer.


----------



## Aries

DavidA said:


> Okay! Just look at Schindler's list and see if anti-semitism is a negligible problem.


There is a difference between the past and the present.


----------



## DavidA

Aries said:


> There is a difference between the past and the present.


It's because of attitudes like this that we fail to learn from history.


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## mmsbls

The discussion has veered off the topic of Wagner and his views to member's views on racism and anti-semitism. While veering off-topic by itself is not a problem, the path of this thread is headed towards a topic that often closes threads. We do not wish to close threads so I would urge people to come back to the original OP.


----------



## Pennypacker

Sudonim said:


> I can't believe it's taken eight pages for someone to point this out, but antisemitism is not the same as "racism." They are both unjustifiable prejudices, yes, but they are not the same.
> 
> There is no such thing as a "Jewish race" - as if Judaism were something passed down genetically. Racially speaking, most Jews are white. Judaism is a religion; it's not a "race."
> 
> On the subject of Wagner, I'll echo what others have already said: I can enjoy his music, or not, on its own merits. It's perfectly proper to separate the man from the art. You have to do so, and probably do more often than you know, or there'll be previous little music (or art of any kind) left for you to enjoy. I love the music of Miles Davis, irrespective of the pretty well-established fact that he was often a rotten human being. And so on.
> 
> Having said that, I acknowledge that antisemitism - especially German/Austrian antisemitism - does seem to have a special stigma that makes separating the art from the artist more difficult. That isn't because of some powerful "Jewish lobby" that's been especially successful in promoting victimhood, but - as Nereffid pointed out - because the Jews in particular were victims of a brand of antisemitism that went far further than any previous brand had. The Nazis didn't create the swastika, but because of its associations at their hands, it can never be used innocently again.
> 
> Or if it were discovered - in an example more fitting for this thread - that Heinrich Himmler had written a string quartet, how well could I separate the man from the music? Would I want to hear it? That's a question that's admittedly harder to answer.


Words mean what the people who say them mean. Of course race is a bullsh*t term. But antisemitism from the 19th century and on refers to the jews as exactly that: a race. Converting to christianity wouldn't have helped you as a jew in Nazi Germany.

I agree with you on Wagner. His music is all that matters to me. I wish people could separate the art from the artist, maybe I could have listened to some performances of his works in my little jewish state. Same goes for a hypothetical piece by Himmler - I would have judged it by the music. 
People care too much about the personalities of artists. Like all these actors stating their opinions on everything - why on earth would you give a ****?


----------



## Petwhac

Sudonim said:


> There is no such thing as a "Jewish race" - as if Judaism were something passed down genetically. Racially speaking, most Jews are white. Judaism is a religion; it's not a "race."


That comment makes no sense. You are correct that Judaism is not a race but neither is whiteness so you cannot say 'Racially speaking most Jews are white" *There is no such thing as race.* 
There _is_ such a thing as bigotry and prejudice and ignorance and tribal mentality and in-groups and out-groups and scapegoating and political expedience. They are aspects of human nature that have a negative impact on us in an ever shrinking world.

Really it's quite a shame that *Wagner's* name has to be associated with those ugly human traits when his music is some of the most gloriously and _humane_ ever written. The Liebestod, The fated tragic Kundry from Parsifal, the hilarious scenes from The Meistersinger and never mind his breathtaking orchestration. 
It really is a shame that that grubby little essay has made some people turn away from the treasures that he has to offer in his music. But I guess he only has himself to blame. After all....
*If you can't say some thing nice, keep shtum!!*

:tiphat:


----------



## Aries

Petwhac said:


> That comment makes no sense. You are correct that Judaism is not a race but neither is whiteness


There is a western eurasian race (Island to India, northern Africa to Vladivostok). Many indian peoples belong to it. The US Census differentiate between "white" (not including any Indians) and "asian" (Indians and Orientals are put together in this). The racial theory of the US Census is faulty.



Petwhac said:


> so you cannot say 'Racially speaking most Jews are white"


Most Jews are europid. More specifically: The jewish center is armenid. - One of the less risky statments of the traditional racial theory.



Petwhac said:


> There is no such thing as race.


There is.


----------



## Sid James

I have had a bit of time to read this thread and I would validate people who say that the cultural context which Wagner lived in was indeed racist as a whole. I made this thread some time back: http://www.talkclassical.com/22784-classical-music-its-so.html ... and here is a quote from my opening post of that which speaks strongly to this:



Sid James said:


> ...
> 
> 3. Despite countries like imperial Germany and Russia, or Austria and the rest of Central-East Europe which the Habsburgs ruled, or what is today Italy and so on, having a very rich and long tradition of classical music behind them, it did not make them better societies. The basis of these cultures being very authoritarian, racist, based on rigid hierarchy and rankings of power and privelege, militarism and so on, had more impact on the lives of people than classical music, or other areas of art, or philosophy. ...
> 
> ...


I don't wish to go back to that debate, where if I remember correctly I got little validation, but its true that obviously Wagner wasn't the only racist with a high profile around then, nor was he the only composer to express anti-Semitic views. Chopin did too, but he didn't spend something like a decade (as Wagner did) formulating his theories of rassenkunde (the theory of the race) in the many writings he did on this topic. Wagner was obsessed with so-called race, maybe just an extreme example of the frankly toxic cultural context he was part of, that of 19th century Mitteleuropa.

There are many ironies here though. One is that up until the Shoah, many Jews frequented opera houses in Central and East Europe to listen to the music, including Wagner's. Jews where very much integrated into the cultures of the region. There was a good deal of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, and a number of Jews had converted to Christianity (albeit high profile guys like Mahler, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky did it for opportunistic reasons - my impression is that you couldn't get into the classical music industry as it was then, or not that high up, without converting). Same went for jobs in the bureaucracy and judiciary, for example.

Another contradictory thing is Wagner's firm belief in German democracy and unification. For supporting the uprising in 1848, he had to go into exile for something like two decades. Most of that was spent in France and Switzerland. I am no expert on him, but since his exile period is when he wrote his rassenkunde, I think he felt kind of bitter and in need of a scapegoat?

In terms of democracy, it appears he hated the feudalist and ancien regime residue which survived in Europe until the end of World War I. Even Hitler needed the support of the old gaurd like Hindenburg to get into power. In terms of Wagner's view of democracy, Bayreuth is built so that every spectator gets an equally good view of the stage to others. There is no traditional "horseshoe" design as in the court operas of Europe built during the 19th century. All of these had one seat that was the best, at the back of the horseshoe. This was the monarch's or the biggest fish in the pond, if we are talking of a smaller regional opera house somewhere in say Slovakia, Romania or Hungary outside the capitals. Every other seat in the house was inferior, by gradations, to the Kaiser's or highest level aristocrat's. He had the best view, then his entourage, then other high level officials, then other levels of the neo-feudalist class system maintained in Mitteleuropa quite rigidly at that time. Wagner did away with class distinction, Bayreuth is less a horseshoe and more an ampitheatre.

Another thing is that Wagner's operas do tend to have at least a subtext of his ideology. It depends how much we read into it. Rienzi is the most obvious, with this heroic central character leading a rebellion on behalf of the people, but it all ends badly. This opera in particular resonated strongly with Adolf Hitler, who apparently owned a copy of its score and had it with him right up until the end, when the fantasy of Gotterdammerung became a terrible reality - the once proud capital of imperial Germany, Berlin reduced to rubble.

Re the *Haydn quote about Beethoven* that I paraphrased earlier, here it is, I found it:

"You make upon me the impression of a man who has several heads, several hearts, and several souls."


----------



## Petwhac

Aries said:


> There is a western eurasian race (Island to India, northern Africa to Vladivostok). Many indian peoples belong to it. The US Census differentiate between "white" (not including any Indians) and "asian" (Indians and Orientals are put together in this). The racial theory of the US Census is faulty.
> 
> Most Jews are europid. More specifically: The jewish center is armenid. - One of the less risky statments of the traditional racial theory.
> 
> There is.


We all descend from African ancestry. We are all cousins. It's in the DNA. The US census is not based on biology.


----------



## Aries

Petwhac said:


> We all descend from African ancestry.


Yes, of course. Some creatists believe something else, but they are stupid.

But we've grown apart. We and protozoa have also only one descend. But we differentiate species and races and things like this.



Petwhac said:


> We are all cousins.


No, I have only 6 cousins.



Petwhac said:


> It's in the DNA.


Do you heard about epigenetics?



Petwhac said:


> The US census is not based on biology.


Yes, and that is a fault.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> We are all cousins.


That is an error in so many ways. I know who my family is, and who my cousins are, and would never count someone to them who does not belong there, not to mention anyone who treats the rest of the family with hostility and scorn. And yes, I mean it in the same figurative sense as you.


----------



## ethanjamesescano

Aries said:


> There is a western eurasian race (Island to India, northern Africa to Vladivostok). Many indian peoples belong to it. The US Census differentiate between "white" (not including any Indians) and "asian" (Indians and Orientals are put together in this). The racial theory of the US Census is faulty.
> 
> Most Jews are europid. More specifically: The jewish center is armenid. - One of the less risky statments of the traditional racial theory.
> 
> There is.


I think that's just figure of speech.
obviously we have a race, I'm an Asian (Filipino) 
but the essence of that statement is that you do not treat a race differently with the other.

I mean like or example:
A black person is dumber than a white person
Americans don't exercise.
Europeans look clean, but they actually smell bad.
Spaniards are lazy.

see what he means?


----------



## Petwhac

ethanjamesescano said:


> I think that's just figure of speech.
> obviously we have a race, I'm an Asian (Filipino)
> but the essence of that statement is that you do not treat a race differently with the other.
> 
> I mean like or example:
> A black person is dumber than a white person
> Americans don't exercise.
> Europeans look clean, but they actually smell bad.
> Spaniards are lazy.
> 
> see what he means?


When you say "a black person" you of course mean someone from the Nuba mountains, or did you mean an Australian Aborigine or maybe a Hutu from Rwanda....

Black is a _colour_. American and Spanish are _nationalities_. Judaism, Islam and Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster are _religions_.


----------



## Aries

ethanjamesescano said:


> I think that's just figure of speech.
> obviously we have a race, I'm an Asian (Filipino)
> but the essence of that statement is that you do not treat a race differently with the other.
> 
> I mean like or example:
> A black person is dumber than a white person
> Americans don't exercise.
> Europeans look clean, but they actually smell bad.
> Spaniards are lazy.


The treatment is something completely different than making these statments. And whether these statments are true or not, and whether the reasons for that are racial or enviromental, are also two different questions.

A black person can be smarter than a white person. But the IQ-average of African blacks is 30 points lower than the IQ-average of Whites and 36 points lower than the IQ-average of Orientals. But studies of adopted children show that only around 33-50% of the difference to the White are racial conditioned.

Americans use cars more often than others and especially the people of Housten are the fattest of the world. Obviously this has no racial reasons.

Maybe Europeans look clean, but smell bad. You can assess that probably better than I.

That southern Europeans have a different working attitude than northern Europeans is a fact. Whether there are racial reasons for that, is a different question.

Draw into consideration, that the science is at all times under pressure by the expectations of the politics and the people, and that the general public suffers from selective perception.


ethanjamesescano said:


> see what he means?


I do not think, that he means what you mean.


----------



## Aries

Petwhac said:


> When you say "a black person" you of course mean someone from the Nuba mountains, or did you mean an Australian Aborigine or maybe a Hutu from Rwanda....
> 
> Black is a _colour_. American and Spanish are _nationalities_. Judaism, Islam and Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster are _religions_.


You can not say "I am a Jew now, because i believe in Judaism now". Jews are a people. They only count as Jew, who was born by a jewish mother. Black is a color, but means also a specific race.


----------



## Petwhac

Aries said:


> You can not say "I am a Jew now, because i believe in Judaism now". Jews are a people. They only count as Jew, who was born by a jewish mother. Black is a color, but means also a specific race.


There is no specific 'Jewish' gene that is passed through the mother. It is a convention. Jews used to take the lineage through the father but changed it some time in the past because a child doesn't always know who the father is. It is not a biological matter. There are African Jews and Chinese Jews. The Jewish religion spread into Europe and beyond as much by conversion as by migration.


----------



## science

Identities are complex - neither religion nor race nor even nationality follows any consistent set of rules. 

We basically make all this stuff up as we go along - largely in order to justify discrimination, often even violence. 

That is why modern, pluralistic societies, with economies of a complexity that none of us can fathom, which require the labor and cooperation (and even some degree of trust) of hundreds of millions of people, have to insist (contrary to our innate tendencies) that discrimination over such things is unacceptable, and that the closer we come to achieving the elimination of our prejudices, the better off we'll be. 

Anyway, back on topic Wagner failed to realize that, for whatever reason. (I'll guess it wasn't jealousy, but it's just a guess.) And he was a jerk in numerous other ways. (Us too!) He also composed really great operas. (Us, well, not so much.) That's how life is! 

Guys, I'm pretty sure the mods are going to lock or delete this thread soon. But I really did enjoy it, so I hope they choose to lock it rather than delete it. Thanks!


----------



## Mahlerian

Sid James said:


> There are many ironies here though. One is that up until the Shoah, many Jews frequented opera houses in Central and East Europe to listen to the music, including Wagner's. Jews where very much integrated into the cultures of the region. There was a good deal of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, and a number of Jews had converted to Christianity *(albeit high profile guys like Mahler, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky did it for opportunistic reasons* - my impression is that you couldn't get into the classical music industry as it was then, or not that high up, without converting). Same went for jobs in the bureaucracy and judiciary, for example.


In Mahler's case this is undoubtedly true. At one point he said that he would never write a Mass setting because he could not, in good faith, set the Credo to music.

On the other hand, Schoenberg's religious feelings were very complex. First of all, in order to get ahead in the Austrian hierarchy, one had to convert to Catholicism, which was the state religion. Schoenberg converted to _Lutheranism_, which had no such standing. Secondly, although he was something of a seeker all his life, he set at least one text with explicitly Christian overtones (Friede auf Erden) and wrote an arrangement of a Christmas hymn (Es ist ein Ros entsprungen) in an unpublished chamber work he called "Christmas Music" (quite Brahmsian in nature and sound, despite being written around the time of the first 12-tone pieces).






After that it becomes even more complex. He had worked on an oratorio called _Der Jakobsleiter_, which was about the struggle to find meaning in the universe and the search for religious truth. It incorporated elements of mysticism as well as traditional Christian thought. Then, along with the rising tide of anti-Semitism came an increased sense of his own Jewish identity. Schoenberg wrote a Zionist-themed play called "The Biblical Way", some elements of which influenced the libretto for _Moses und Aron_. He converted to Judaism and thereafter wrote a number of explicitly Jewish-themed works (Kol Nidre and the Op. 50 choral works, among others).


----------



## Aries

Petwhac said:


> There is no specific 'Jewish' gene that is passed through the mother. It is a convention. Jews used to take the lineage through the father but changed it some time in the past because a child doesn't always know who the father is. It is not a biological matter. There are African Jews and Chinese Jews.


I didn't say Jews are a race, I said Jews are a people.



Petwhac said:


> The Jewish religion spread into Europe and beyond as much by conversion as by migration.


Non-Jews have just married Jews. Much conversions without marrying? I don't think so.


----------



## KenOC

Aries said:


> Non-Jews have just married Jews. Much conversions without marrying? I don't think so.


Wiki has a quite extensive list of notable converts to Judaism, including some very familiar names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Judaism


----------



## Aries

KenOC said:


> Wiki has a quite extensive list of notable converts to Judaism, including some very familiar names.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Judaism


I only knew Bärbel Schäfer from this list. She married a Jew. Campbell Brown married also a Jew. Just two samples.


----------



## Petwhac

KenOC said:


> Wiki has a quite extensive list of notable converts to Judaism, including some very familiar names.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Judaism


Now imagine all the converts stretching back 5 thousand years!

For anyone who doubts we are all cousins all you have to do is learn to multiply by 2.
There are 7 billion humans living now. Each has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents.................................
you only have to keep going back 1000 years (assuming an average of 3 generations per century) and each person alive today has over one billion great-x30 -grandparents. This obviously cannot be. Therefore, we all share the same ancestors in the very recent past. It take only a handful of inter-'racial' couples to have an impact on millions of descendants.


----------



## KenOC

Aries said:


> I only knew Bärbel Schäfer from this list. She married a Jew. Campbell Brown married also a Jew. Just two samples.


I guess I'm kind of surprised that you're not familiar with several names from the list:

Polly Bergen
May Britt
Connie Chung
Jim Croce
Sammy Davis, Jr. 
Jacqueline du Pré
Mary Hart 
Dr. Laura
Marilyn Monroe
Kim Stanley
Elizabeth Taylor 
Ivanka Trump
Ike Turner

For better or worse...


----------



## Aries

Petwhac said:


> There are 7 billion humans living now. Each has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents.................................
> you only have to keep going back 1000 years (assuming an average of 3 generations per century) and each person alive today has over one billion great-x30 -grandparents. This obviously cannot be. Therefore, we all share the same ancestors in the very recent past.


Some persons are just multiple times in multiple ways ancestors of us. The mtDNA-Haplogroups-distribution and the Y-DNA-Haplogroup-distribution shows that there is not much blood exchange between Blacks and Europeans in the last 1000 years for example.


----------



## Nereffid

Does anyone remember what this thread was even about at this stage?

Seriously, the debate is straying so far that I'm having trouble remembering which of the posters are anti-Semites and which aren't.



















:devil:


----------



## Aries

KenOC said:


> I guess I'm kind of surprised that you're not familiar with several names from the list:
> 
> Polly Bergen
> May Britt
> Connie Chung
> Jim Croce
> Sammy Davis, Jr.
> Jacqueline du Pré
> Mary Hart
> Dr. Laura
> Marilyn Monroe
> Kim Stanley
> Elizabeth Taylor
> Ivanka Trump
> Ike Turner
> 
> For better or worse...


Oh, i know Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Both married Jews.


----------



## Mahlerian

Nereffid said:


> Does anyone remember what this thread was even about at this stage?
> 
> Seriously, the debate is straying so far that I'm having trouble remembering which of the posters are anti-Semites and which aren't.


Clearly, _*I*_ am an internally inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical anti-Semite! Wait...what? 

Only because this is the internet, and someone is bound to misinterpret a joking comment: no, I am not anti-Semitic....


----------



## Rapide

Sid James said:


> ...Rienzi is the most obvious, with this heroic central character leading a rebellion on behalf of the people, but it all ends badly. This opera in particular resonated strongly with Adolf Hitler ...


... and _Rienzi_ resonates strongly with me, and millions of other opera listeners, and will continue to resonate strongly (though we are obviously not dictators).


----------



## Rapide

Mahlerian said:


> Clearly, _*I*_ am an internally inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical anti-Semite! Wait...what?
> 
> Only because this is the internet, and someone is bound to misinterpret a joking comment: no, I am not anti-Semitic....


No, you are, like me, a lover of Wagner's music. For some, that appears very difficult to understand or even morally questionable. I'm not sure why.


----------



## aleazk

Mahlerian said:


> Clearly, _*I*_ am an internally inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical anti-Semite! Wait...what?
> 
> Only because this is the internet, and someone is bound to misinterpret a joking comment: no, I am not anti-Semitic....


Thank god for the clarification. I was this close of pressing that little black triangle!. (and when I said black triangle I was not trying to imply anything about the triangle's race!, another clarification)


----------



## Sid James

science said:


> ...
> Guys, I'm pretty sure the mods are going to lock or delete this thread soon. But I really did enjoy it, so *I hope they choose to lock it rather than delete it.* Thanks!


I second that notion! There has been a number of excellent posts here. Admittedly the opening post was not as clear as it might have been. However, if I am going to criticise Wagner and talk of his politics etc., I'd rather do it on a thread like this. When Wagner's anniversary came up a few months ago, I did not participate in that thread, cos I don't want to rain on people's parades. I find it to be bad form. If I am to discuss rassenkunde and so on, I rather do it on a thread like this, ostensibly set up for that purpose.


----------



## peeyaj

*Fill the blank:
*
Every debate regarding Wagner's music and Antisemitism always end in ______________.


----------



## science

peeyaj said:


> *Fill the blank:
> *
> Every debate regarding Wagner's music and Antisemitism always end in ______________.


Tears?

Answer gotta be "tears."


----------



## aleazk

peeyaj said:


> *Fill the blank:
> *
> Every debate regarding Wagner's music and Antisemitism always end in ______________.


Food fight? .


----------



## Sid James

Doesn't have to end in tears. I've pointed out, as a number of people have here, we can look at him as both a significant composer and a not very nice person. Its similar with many other composers actually, many of them I'd call barely human, honestly. In terms of their actions to others - the opportunism, the backstabbing, the politics, character traits that are like extreme and so on. But maybe that's how it is. Composers are, or tend to be, sensitive people. Perhaps they are more prone to a bit of madness or obsession? But more importantly, they're just people with the same flaws as anyone else. Its less a matter of condemning these people and more (in terms of what I'm interested in) is seeing what made them what they where - things like cultural milieu and historical context, connections between them and other people of the time, what inspired their music, and so on. Its a bid to get a more holistic picture of these people, not just this decontextualised view, and if people read my posts here generally I am just as scathing of some of my favourite composers for their flaws as my not so favourite composers. I don't worship these guys, I don't do whitewash, they're just people.


----------



## Guest

Nereffid said:


> Does anyone remember what this thread was even about at this stage?
> 
> Seriously, the debate is straying so far that I'm having trouble remembering which of the posters are anti-Semites and which aren't.:devil:


I thought there was not much point dropping into this thread until at least 10 pages had gone and the battle lines had been drawn. I see that you've not even sorted out which side you're supposed to be on, so should I come back after another 10 pages? Might things have been cleared up by then? 

As I'm neither a Jew nor a Wagnerphile, I guess I don't really have stake in the outcome.


----------



## Petwhac

peeyaj said:


> *Fill the blank:
> *
> Every debate regarding Wagner's music and Antisemitism always end in ______________.


.....time for the next debate on Wagner and anti-semitism to begin.


----------



## Rapide

Sid James said:


> ...I don't do whitewash, they're just people.


I don't think many if not all members of TC here would objectively "whitewash" either. That's a good thing. Historical facts are what they are.


----------



## DavidA

Rapide said:


> I don't think many if not all members of TC here would objectively "whitewash" either. That's a good thing. Historical facts are what they are.


There was a tendency years ago to equate musical genius with a kind of morality. Great composers were supposed to be moral people who gave great philosophical lessons in life. Hence it disturbs people who worship at the shrine of these great composers to see in many instances that they were pretty awful as people. Here is where we must yield to history. For example, when we realise that Beethoven, for all his great ideals of the brotherhood of man, spent most of his life alienating people who were closest to him. 
Having discovered this we then seek to decide what we do with the music. With Wagner this problem becomes more acute than with most other composers, as his views were particularly repugnant and in some cases it may be argued they are built into the operas. What we do with that is a matter of personal choice. 
Where I resist is where Wagnerian disciples want to whitewash the man and his opinions.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Honestly, what I really care about, is Wagner's attitude towards his own people, the Germans. Whenever he talked about them in his writings, it was with warmth and reverence, both for the great masters who lived before him and for the common man. That attitude is definitely built into his operas, and in my eyes, it makes up for all the dislike Wagner might have ever had for any other nations.


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> Honestly, what I really care about, is Wagner's attitude towards his own people, the Germans. Whenever he talked about them in his writings, it was with warmth and reverence, both for the great masters who lived before him and for the common man. That attitude is definitely built into his operas, and in my eyes, it makes up for all the dislike Wagner might have ever had for any other nations.


Hahaha! that is the weirdest thing I ever heard.
:lol:

I can be as horrible as I like to your people as long as I'm nice to mine and we'll be even. Yeah that's a plan!


----------



## Kieran

Would Wagner's opinions be noticed if it wasn't for the Nazis?

I remember reading about the secular saint John Lennon, he was in the studio with Elton John but he was haggling stressfully down the phone with an estate agent, trying to get his hands on his big feck-off gaff in Central Park. Multi-storey mansion. He came off the phone, and by way of witticism Elton said, "Imagine no possessions," quoting the sloganeers popular phrase.

"That's just a ****ing song!" Lennon snapped.

The point being, any idiot can enjoy the song Imagine, but don't hold it against Lennon that he didn't actually believe what he'd written. His private life was separate to the songs and he realised this, though his fans may not have. With Wagner, his music isn't understood in the light of his views, however unpalatable they may be...


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> Honestly, what I really care about, is Wagner's attitude towards his own people,


If you're going to bother caring about the man at all (instead of just caring about his music) why would you not care about his attitude to other peoples?


----------



## Guest

Kieran said:


> don't hold it against Lennon that he didn't actually believe what he'd written. His private life was separate to the songs and he realised this, though his fans may not have. With Wagner, his music isn't understood in the light of his views, however unpalatable they may be...


The thing is, many (all?) fans like their musical heroes to have palatable personalities as well - palatable to the fan, that is, not some objective palatability. So, for the fan, criticise the man and you criticise his music.

But for the discerning, objective listener (or the apolitical), this doesn't matter. Just gimme the music (or, in my case, don't!)


----------



## SiegendesLicht

MacLeod said:


> If you're going to bother caring about the man at all (instead of just caring about his music) why would you not care about his attitude to other peoples?


If only because it is his love and interest for _German_ history, _German_ tales and legends that abundantly spills over into his operas, not whatever attitude he had for the Jews or anybody else - and this love and interest is a part (although only one out of many) why to me Wagner is special.


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> If only because it is his love and interest for _German_ history, _German_ tales and legends that abundantly spills over into his operas, not whatever attitude he had for the Jews or anybody else - and this love and interest is a part (although only one out of many) why to me Wagner is special.


I can see how love for one's own country is something admirable, and if that was all, I could accept your analysis. However, you also said that



> That attitude is definitely built into his operas, and in my eyes, it makes up for all the dislike Wagner might have ever had for any other nations


I'm not about to try and quantify all the dislike that he might have had for other nations and other peoples - the mere thought that he might have had _any _at all is, to my mind, a diminution of the man. Are you saying that the dislike of other nations is acceptable?


----------



## Geo Dude

Kieran said:


> Would Wagner's opinions be noticed if it wasn't for the Nazis?
> 
> I remember reading about the secular saint John Lennon, he was in the studio with Elton John but he was haggling stressfully down the phone with an estate agent, trying to get his hands on his big feck-off gaff in Central Park. Multi-storey mansion. He came off the phone, and by way of witticism Elton said, "Imagine no possessions," quoting the sloganeers popular phrase.
> 
> "That's just a ****ing song!" Lennon snapped.
> 
> The point being, any idiot can enjoy the song Imagine, but don't hold it against Lennon that he didn't actually believe what he'd written. His private life was separate to the songs and he realised this, though his fans may not have. With Wagner, his music isn't understood in the light of his views, however unpalatable they may be...


I love that anecdote and will be stealing it for future reference.


----------



## DavidA

Kieran said:


> Would Wagner's opinions be noticed if it wasn't for the Nazis?
> 
> I remember reading about the secular saint John Lennon, he was in the studio with Elton John but he was haggling stressfully down the phone with an estate agent, trying to get his hands on his big feck-off gaff in Central Park. Multi-storey mansion. He came off the phone, and by way of witticism Elton said, "Imagine no possessions," quoting the sloganeers popular phrase.
> 
> "That's just a ****ing song!" Lennon snapped.
> 
> The point being, any idiot can enjoy the song Imagine, but don't hold it against Lennon that he didn't actually believe what he'd written. His private life was separate to the songs and he realised this, though his fans may not have. With Wagner, his music isn't understood in the light of his views, however unpalatable they may be...


Yes. Lennon called himself an 'instinctive socialist' and said that money should be abolished.
He died worth £75 million.
He definitely knew how to dissociate his private life from his publicly expressed views!


----------



## SiegendesLicht

MacLeod said:


> I'm not about to try and quantify all the dislike that he might have had for other nations and other peoples - the mere thought that he might have had _any _at all is, to my mind, a diminution of the man. Are you saying that the dislike of other nations is acceptable?


It's definitely not a virtue, but also not an unforgivable sin.


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> Are you saying that the dislike of other nations is acceptable?


Wagner was not the first and certainly not the last. From mid-century last, the Kingston Trio:

"They're rioting in Africa, they're starving in Spain.
There's hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much."


----------



## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> It's definitely not a virtue, but also not an unforgivable sin.


I think you are taking the view (shared by Wagner himself) that the man's musical genius excused everything - his loathsome views and his megalomania. Wagner definitely believed it (as did Beethoven to a lesser extent and other artists of genius) and appeared to be able to convince his often ill-used disciples that it was true.


----------



## KenOC

A serious question (hopefully not a stupid one). Wagner's anti-Semitism was well-known in his lifetime. So why do there seem to be quite a few Jews in the late-19th early-20th centuries named "Sigmund" or "Siegfried"? Were these simply common German given names pre-Wagner, or were they inspired by Wagner's operas? If the latter, that would seem strange.


----------



## Aries

KenOC said:


> A serious question (hopefully not a stupid one). Wagner's anti-Semitism was well-known in his lifetime. So why do there seem to be quite a few Jews in the late-19th early-20th centuries named "Sigmund" or "Siegfried"? Were these simply common German given names pre-Wagner


Siegmund and Siegfried were common german names.


----------



## Rapide

Poor old Wager, always under the microscope but if one's own neighbour next door is anti-semitic, then we would often "mind our own business" and not tell our neighbours of their deplorable morals ...


----------



## Couchie

Frankly I do not find Wagner's antisemitism particularly shocking or even eyebrow-raising. Like most everybody else, he was proud of his country and ethnocentric about it. Like most everybody else, he held his own cultural in the highest regard as something to be cherished and preserved. Like most everybody else, he was concerned about the erosion of his own culture by the influx of foreigners who do not share the traditional cultural values. This is no different from today:

1. The West is wary of the erosion of their "enlightened" values by the immigration of Muslims and the spread of their "medieval" values.
2. Islamic countries are wary of the westernization of their "moral" societies by "immoral" secular values.

Even the most ardent western multiculturalists will start drawing the line at honor killings and execution of apostates. The prejudiced sons-of-b*tches.

In Wagner's day it wasn't Muslims, but Jews. And so you have "Das Judenthum in der Musik", Wagner's diatribe about how the Jews' insistence of maintaining their own culture in Germany is a threat to Germany's own culture and they must assimilate into German culture or leave. Rather "standard issue" xenophobia, I think.

Coming back to the OP, I do think Wagner's antisemitism was indeed personally motivated. He nearly starved to death in France with such masterpieces as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser in his pocket while Meyerbeer's hackneyed spectacles enjoyed tremendous popularity and Meyerbeer himself great fame and fortune. Mendelssohn was quickly adopted at a very young age as the lovechild to the elite and lived comfortably while Wagner was entirely ignored.

I like to think people should be "above" prejudice to a group based on their personal experiences with a few, but in humans rational thought will bow to powerful emotional personal experiences EVERY TIME. And we can agree Wagner was far more in tune with writing deeply emotional music than in espousing rational insight.

I would like to label Wagner as some out-of-the-ordinary monster, but I can't. Not when even in my own country, often heralded as one of the most tolerant and progressive in the world, gays have to risk their personal safety to show their affection for each other in public. Not when there is an officially unspoken of but all-to-obvious deeply held prejudice against Native Americans (or “savages” as my Dad calls them). Not when French-Canadian-bashing is one of the great pastimes of Anglophones. Not when racism against blacks is still all too alive and well.
Again, this is Canada I’m talking about. In most of the rest of the world, the picture is far grimmer.

We can quote-mine awful things from the unprecedented abundance of info we have on Wagner's private utterances, but there is really little there that should raise eyebrows as anything other than a "typical" off-color joke of the day. Schumann and Chopin were known to make such remarks. I still hear such off-color jokes all the time, be it about blacks, Jews, women, homosexuals, Muslims, Natives, Mexicans... Wagner maintained many friends, even Jewish ones. If his views were so out-of-line and appalling by the day's standards, why did they maintain the friendship? Why didn't they rebuke him? Would you maintain a friendship with a hard-core white-supremacist today? This points to Wagner's views not really being so extraordinary by the standards of the day.

The irony is in DavidA and others judging Wagner by the standards of our own post-holocaust western culture. That is a display of ethnocentricity ultimately torn from the same cloth fueling Wagner's own antisemitism.


----------



## mmsbls

I think there are 3 statements we can make (and almost everyone on this thread has said something similar).

1) Wagner is a great composer (though not everyone likes his music).
2) Wagner was an anti-semite who espoused some rather unpleasant views towards Jews. 
3) Wagner was a product of his time and situation such that if he were born in today's Canada (for example) the probability of him being anti-semitic would be rather small. 

It's reasonable for people to say his views on one group of people were horrible, but as Couchie points out we could say similar things today about many 100s of millions (billions?) of people. In my country (USA) we revere our first president (Washington), but that president owned slaves. It is said that he treated his slaves well, but of course, how well can one possibly treat a slave? 

I think owning slaves is horrible. I think Washington was a decent man who was a product of unfortunate times and situations (his slaves were a product of even more unfortunate situations). I think it's more useful to point to the overall history of the US with slaves as problematic rather than to condemn Washington. Similarly, I think it's more useful to point to anti-semitism as a horrible thing rather than condemn Wagner.


----------



## Guest

Couchie said:


> Frankly I do not find Wagner's antisemitism particularly shocking or even eyebrow-raising. Like most everybody else, he was proud of his country and ethnocentric about it. Like most everybody else, he held his own cultural in the highest regard as something to be cherished and preserved. Like most everybody else, he was concerned about the erosion of his own culture by the influx of foreigners who do not share the traditional cultural values. This is no different from today:


"Like most everybody else" - that's quite an assertion. First, you're claiming a majority, which I'm not sure is the case. Second, Joe Public's opinion can be captured when he is asked a specific question, but I would assert that mostly, people want to get on and live their lives and frequently have no real, deep-seated opinions beyond today's jobs and today's relationships.



Rapide said:


> Poor old Wager, always under the microscope but if one's own neighbour next door is anti-semitic, then we would often "mind our own business" and not tell our neighbours of their deplorable morals ...


The difference is that whilst my neighbour could, in theory, become the next PM/President and carry a great deal of influence, it is more likely that they are anon. Wagner's opinions (at that time) mattered more.


----------



## Couchie

MacLeod said:


> "Like most everybody else" - that's quite an assertion. First, you're claiming a majority, which I'm not sure is the case. Second, Joe Public's opinion can be captured when he is asked a specific question, but I would assert that mostly, people want to get on and live their lives and frequently have no real, deep-seated opinions beyond today's jobs and relationships.


I thought I was being generous adding "most". I have a hard time believing most people would be "cool" with the proliferation of tribes which practice ritualistic human sacrifice and cannibalism in their societies. Of course people take their values and customs for granted and do not think about them until they perceive a threat emerging to challenge them. Cue Wagner and the increasingly prevalent Jewish faction in German society. Cue gay marriage in the States. Cue "Londonistan".


----------



## Guest

Couchie said:


> I thought I was being generous adding "most". I have a hard time believing most people would be "cool" with the proliferation of tribes which practice ritualistic human sacrifice and cannibalism in their societies. Of course people take their values and customs for granted and do not think about them until they perceive a threat emerging to challenge them. Cue Wagner and the increasingly prevalent Jewish faction in German society. Cue gay marriage in the States. Cue "Londonistan".


Well, AFAIK, there are no tribes practising human sacrifice and cannibalism in my neighbourhood, so it's not an issue round here. Ask me if I think such practices are a good idea, I'd say no. Ask me if I would be worried if such practices started appearing in my neighbourhood, I'd say yes. Ask me if I think the government should 'do' something about those countries where they are being practised, I'd say it depends what we could do and whether it was a greater priority than ending world poverty!

Ask me, I'll have an opinion, probably.

But this is a long way from having a genuine, daily fear about such things in my daily life.


----------



## HaydnBearstheClock

ethanjamesescano said:


> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
> I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.
> 
> What do you think?


Where did you read that Haydn was jealous of Beethoven? This is very debatable - at this point in his career, I don't think he could be jealous of anyone. As to Wagner, he wrote some good music but I have so far been avoiding it because I don't like the connotations around it and find his racism completely ungrounded, considering how many great Jewish scientists, artists, etc. there were.


----------



## DavidA

Couchie said:


> Frankly I do not find Wagner's antisemitism particularly shocking or even eyebrow-raising. Like most everybody else, he was proud of his country and ethnocentric about it. Like most everybody else, he held his own cultural in the highest regard as something to be cherished and preserved. Like most everybody else, he was concerned about the erosion of his own culture by the influx of foreigners who do not share the traditional cultural values. This is no different from today:
> 
> 1. The West is wary of the erosion of their "enlightened" values by the immigration of Muslims and the spread of their "medieval" values.
> 2. Islamic countries are wary of the westernization of their "moral" societies by "immoral" secular values.
> 
> Even the most ardent western multiculturalists will start drawing the line at honor killings and execution of apostates. The prejudiced sons-of-b*tches.
> 
> In Wagner's day it wasn't Muslims, but Jews. And so you have "Das Judenthum in der Musik", Wagner's diatribe about how the Jews' insistence of maintaining their own culture in Germany is a threat to Germany's own culture and they must assimilate into German culture or leave. Rather "standard issue" xenophobia, I think.
> 
> Coming back to the OP, I do think Wagner's antisemitism was indeed personally motivated. He nearly starved to death in France with such masterpieces as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser in his pocket while Meyerbeer's hackneyed spectacles enjoyed tremendous popularity and Meyerbeer himself great fame and fortune. Mendelssohn was quickly adopted at a very young age as the lovechild to the elite and lived comfortably while Wagner was entirely ignored.
> 
> I like to think people should be "above" prejudice to a group based on their personal experiences with a few, but in humans rational thought will bow to powerful emotional personal experiences EVERY TIME. And we can agree Wagner was far more in tune with writing deeply emotional music than in espousing rational insight.
> 
> I would like to label Wagner as some out-of-the-ordinary monster, but I can't. Not when even in my own country, often heralded as one of the most tolerant and progressive in the world, gays have to risk their personal safety to show their affection for each other in public. Not when there is an officially unspoken of but all-to-obvious deeply held prejudice against Native Americans (or "savages" as my Dad calls them). Not when French-Canadian-bashing is one of the great pastimes of Anglophones. Not when racism against blacks is still all too alive and well.
> Again, this is Canada I'm talking about. In most of the rest of the world, the picture is far grimmer.
> 
> We can quote-mine awful things from the unprecedented abundance of info we have on Wagner's private utterances, but there is really little there that should raise eyebrows as anything other than a "typical" off-color joke of the day. Schumann and Chopin were known to make such remarks. I still hear such off-color jokes all the time, be it about blacks, Jews, women, homosexuals, Muslims, Natives, Mexicans... Wagner maintained many friends, even Jewish ones. If his views were so out-of-line and appalling by the day's standards, why did they maintain the friendship? Why didn't they rebuke him? Would you maintain a friendship with a hard-core white-supremacist today? This points to Wagner's views not really being so extraordinary by the standards of the day.
> 
> The irony is in DavidA and others judging Wagner by the standards of our own post-holocaust western culture. That is a display of ethnocentricity ultimately torn from the same cloth fueling Wagner's own antisemitism.


You don't find Wagner's antisemitism shocking because you have the luxury of being largely removed from it by history. You could also say that Hitler was a man of his day. But If you were a Jew living in a Nazi occupied country in WW2 you would no doubt be rather more shocked by antisemitism, torn from the same cloth as Wagner's.
To say my judging Wagner's antisemitism is a display of my 'ethnocentricity' is frankly laughable! So I also condemn the brutalities of the slave trade. But these were done by men of their day so according to you it is just a display of my ethnocentricity! Really!
On March 16th 1190 a wave of anti-Semitic riots culminated in the massacre of an estimated 150 Jews - the entire Jewish community of York (UK) - who had taken refuge in the royal castle where Clifford's Tower now stands. The chronicler William of Newburgh described the rioters as York acting "without any scruple of Christian conscientiousness" in wiping out the Jewish community. 
Am I just displaying my 'ethnocentricity' in deploring such things? I hope not!
I know as a disciple of RW you go to any length to defend him but please don't turn Logic on its head!


----------



## Petwhac

Couchie said:


> I thought I was being generous adding "most". I have a hard time believing most people would be "cool" with the proliferation of tribes which practice ritualistic human sacrifice and cannibalism in their societies. Of course people take their values and customs for granted and do not think about them until they perceive a threat emerging to challenge them. Cue Wagner and the increasingly prevalent Jewish faction in German society. Cue gay marriage in the States. Cue "Londonistan".


The practices you use as examples are against the law.
I'm not aware of any German laws that Jews of Wagner's time were breaking. So your comparison doesn't hold up.

The Gay lobby is trying to get a change in the law in order to have equal rights. Anyone who writes a diatribe against Gays based on their own prejudice, religious or otherwise, is in my view, equally guilty of bigotry. Regardless of the fact that it may be 'understandable'.


----------



## DavidA

One of the problems the Jews had over the years was that they were the money lenders of the day. Hence it was very convenient for the nobility who owed them money to stir up anti-Semitic riots against them. It was 'understandable' but who is going to justify it?


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> It's definitely not a virtue, but also not an unforgivable sin.


So we're on the way to establishing a hierarchy of virtues and vices by which can judge whether a composer is beyond the pale or not. Should Wagner be found guilty of some things, he can be forgiven and his music still enjoyed. Should he be guilty of other things, he can't, and his music not enjoyed.

I'm not going to ask where you personally would draw the line, but pose the problem more generally to TCers: assuming a set of vices could be agreed upon that are 'unforgivable', is it right that any composer (or other artist?) should have his work proscribed for those 'unforgivables'?


----------



## Ingélou

I think not. But many people would not be able to bring themselves to listen. However, if the work itself is not 'unforgivably vicious', it should be allowed to stand the test of time.


----------



## Guest

Ingenue said:


> However, if the work itself is not 'unforgivably vicious', it should be allowed to stand the test of time.


That introduces another dimension: the extent to which the work reflects the 'unforgivables'. An extreme hypothetical example might be a sweet melody, driving rhythms, deliriously complex yet satisfying orchestration that promotes the 'virtues' of the commission of murder by the composer herself.


----------



## Ramako

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Where did you read that Haydn was jealous of Beethoven? This is very debatable - at this point in his career, I don't think he could be jealous of anyone.


It's more than debatable, it's utter nonsense!

The notion that the composer of a significant number of works which are generally considered equal (not to say superior) than the trio in question would be jealous would surely have stood out as laughable, however Haydn was not well appreciated during the 19th and much of the 20th centuries during which time this idea was speculated by scholars and regrettably manages to hold on in some places.

The person he could be jealous of at that time was Mozart, to whom he conceded superiority, but he noticeably was not (at least in any correspondence that survives).


----------



## Nereffid

Couchie said:


> Frankly I do not find Wagner's antisemitism particularly shocking or even eyebrow-raising. Like most everybody else, he was proud of his country and ethnocentric about it. Like most everybody else, he held his own cultural in the highest regard as something to be cherished and preserved. Like most everybody else, he was concerned about the erosion of his own culture by the influx of foreigners who do not share the traditional cultural values. This is no different from today:
> 
> 1. The West is wary of the erosion of their "enlightened" values by the immigration of Muslims and the spread of their "medieval" values.
> 2. Islamic countries are wary of the westernization of their "moral" societies by "immoral" secular values.
> 
> Even the most ardent western multiculturalists will start drawing the line at honor killings and execution of apostates. The prejudiced sons-of-b*tches.
> 
> In Wagner's day it wasn't Muslims, but Jews. And so you have "Das Judenthum in der Musik", Wagner's diatribe about how the Jews' insistence of maintaining their own culture in Germany is a threat to Germany's own culture and they must assimilate into German culture or leave. Rather "standard issue" xenophobia, I think.
> 
> Coming back to the OP, I do think Wagner's antisemitism was indeed personally motivated. He nearly starved to death in France with such masterpieces as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser in his pocket while Meyerbeer's hackneyed spectacles enjoyed tremendous popularity and Meyerbeer himself great fame and fortune. Mendelssohn was quickly adopted at a very young age as the lovechild to the elite and lived comfortably while Wagner was entirely ignored.
> 
> I like to think people should be "above" prejudice to a group based on their personal experiences with a few, but in humans rational thought will bow to powerful emotional personal experiences EVERY TIME. And we can agree Wagner was far more in tune with writing deeply emotional music than in espousing rational insight.
> 
> I would like to label Wagner as some out-of-the-ordinary monster, but I can't. Not when even in my own country, often heralded as one of the most tolerant and progressive in the world, gays have to risk their personal safety to show their affection for each other in public. Not when there is an officially unspoken of but all-to-obvious deeply held prejudice against Native Americans (or "savages" as my Dad calls them). Not when French-Canadian-bashing is one of the great pastimes of Anglophones. Not when racism against blacks is still all too alive and well.
> Again, this is Canada I'm talking about. In most of the rest of the world, the picture is far grimmer.
> 
> We can quote-mine awful things from the unprecedented abundance of info we have on Wagner's private utterances, but there is really little there that should raise eyebrows as anything other than a "typical" off-color joke of the day. Schumann and Chopin were known to make such remarks. I still hear such off-color jokes all the time, be it about blacks, Jews, women, homosexuals, Muslims, Natives, Mexicans... Wagner maintained many friends, even Jewish ones. If his views were so out-of-line and appalling by the day's standards, why did they maintain the friendship? Why didn't they rebuke him? Would you maintain a friendship with a hard-core white-supremacist today? This points to Wagner's views not really being so extraordinary by the standards of the day.
> 
> The irony is in DavidA and others judging Wagner by the standards of our own post-holocaust western culture. That is a display of ethnocentricity ultimately torn from the same cloth fueling Wagner's own antisemitism.


I'm guess I'm one of the ones "judging Wagner by the standards of our own post-holocaust western culture".
Frankly I don't find Wagner's views particularly shocking or eyebrow-raising either, or consider him an out-of-the-ordinary monster. Doesn't mean I don't find his views unpleasant or worth criticising.
Dismissing modern judgement of Wagner as "ethnocentricity" is about as "multiculturalist" as you can get. The implication is that, because anti-Semitism wasn't so unusual 150 years ago, it wasn't as wrong as it is regarded today and therefore cannot be condemned, or it least if we are going to condemn it we have to be a little sensitive towards the anti-Semites, acknowledge that it was a different time with different values. Well, part of the reason we still have today's prejudices is because of the centuries of prejudicies supporting them. Wagner's anti-Semitic writings are still around for the more crazed anti-Semites to point at and say "See? That's what I'm talking about!". 
So while I'll happily agree that Wagner's social views shouldn't affect one's appreciation of his music, and that Wagner's views weren't unusual for his times (though his publishing his views in essay form did raise him above the common bigot), I'll still get a bit tetchy if Wagner's anti-Semitism is raised and there's a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss it. Given how alive bigotry of all forms still is, airing Wagner's dirty laundry is a "teachable moment".


----------



## Aries

Nereffid said:


> The implication is that, because anti-Semitism wasn't so unusual 150 years ago, it wasn't as wrong as it is regarded today


Why is Anti-semitism worng as it is regarded today?

Instead of respect Wagner for his engagement for democracy, todays democrats dislike him for his antisemitism. But antisemitism is still a problem. Sure! 



Nereffid said:


> The implication is that, because anti-Semitism wasn't so unusual 150 years ago, it wasn't as wrong as it is regarded today and therefore cannot be condemned


But, that is just the truth. Everything has to be judged in the context of the time.

Lincoln isn't condemned as racist today, but he was.

Maybe Wagner is a different case, because Jews are in the game. 



Nereffid said:


> Well, part of the reason we still have today's prejudices is because of the centuries of prejudicies supporting them.


You die without prejudieces.


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> You die without prejudieces.


You die anyway, but are you saying it's preferable to have prejudices?


----------



## Couchie

Petwhac said:


> The practices you use as examples are against the law.
> I'm not aware of any German laws that Jews of Wagner's time were breaking. So your comparison doesn't hold up.


Laws are just an encoded set of behaviors the populace _must _obey. They don't write themselves, they are encoded cultural values. The difference between laws and norms is that norms are not institutionally enforced by the justice system. That doesn't mean living outside of norms doesn't have severe social consequences.

Changing norms can dictate passing new laws or discarding old ones. Laws can also dictate new norms if the political process is less democratic. I'm sure you're aware that it wasn't too long after Wagner that being a free Jew in Germany was breaking the law.


----------



## KenOC

Wagner's views seem pretty tame compared with those of another composer, a man far more widely known and admired than Wagner, and whose writings seem to have been better known to the leadership of the Nazi party. This composer wrote extensively on the Jewish issue; his views are summarized by Wiki as follows:
-------------------------------------

[He] argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people", and referred to them with violent, vile language. [He] advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "envenomed worms" would be forced into labor or expelled "for all time".

-------------------------------------
And this composer, of course, was.....


----------



## Kieran

KenOC said:


> Wagner's views seem pretty tame compared with those of another composer, a man far more widely known and admired than Wagner, and whose writings seem to have been better known to the leadership of the Nazi party. This composer wrote extensively on the Jewish issue; his views are summarized by Wiki as follows:
> -------------------------------------
> 
> [He] argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people", and referred to them with violent, vile language. [He] advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "envenomed worms" would be forced into labor or expelled "for all time".
> 
> -------------------------------------
> And this composer, of course, was.....


Who!? Don't leave us hanging on!


----------



## Nereffid

Aries said:


> Why is Anti-semitism worng as it is regarded today?
> 
> Instead of respect Wagner for his engagement for democracy, todays democrats dislike him for his antisemitism. But antisemitism is still a problem. Sure!
> 
> But, that is just the truth. Everything has to be judged in the context of the time.


Yes, of course everything should be judged in the context of the time. But this doesn't mean we live in a world where basic values are ephemeral. There is anti-Semitism today. There was anti-Semitism 150 years ago. Just because the anti-Semitism of 150 years ago happened at a time when anti-Semitism was more socially acceptable doesn't make it right. Unless I'm very much mistaken, 19th century Europe was a Christian place, and didn't Jesus tell his followers to love everyone? So by Christian values, i.e. _the values of the time_, anti-Semitism was wrong then too.



> Lincoln isn't condemned as racist today, but he was.


Well, I for one wince when I read some of his views. Again, a teachable moment.



> Maybe Wagner is a different case, because Jews are in the game.


Oh, you so want to go there, don't you? 



> You die without prejudieces.


Whatever that means. Other people's prejudices can kill you, though.


----------



## Nereffid

Kieran said:


> Who!? Don't leave us hanging on!


Google it. It's Martin Luther.


----------



## Couchie

Nereffid said:


> I'm guess I'm one of the ones "judging Wagner by the standards of our own post-holocaust western culture".
> Frankly I don't find Wagner's views particularly shocking or eyebrow-raising either, or consider him an out-of-the-ordinary monster. Doesn't mean I don't find his views unpleasant or worth criticising.
> Dismissing modern judgement of Wagner as "ethnocentricity" is about as "multiculturalist" as you can get. The implication is that, because anti-Semitism wasn't so unusual 150 years ago, it wasn't as wrong as it is regarded today and therefore cannot be condemned, or it least if we are going to condemn it we have to be a little sensitive towards the anti-Semites, acknowledge that it was a different time with different values. Well, part of the reason we still have today's prejudices is because of the centuries of prejudicies supporting them. Wagner's anti-Semitic writings are still around for the more crazed anti-Semites to point at and say "See? That's what I'm talking about!".
> So while I'll happily agree that Wagner's social views shouldn't affect one's appreciation of his music, and that Wagner's views weren't unusual for his times (though his publishing his views in essay form did raise him above the common bigot), I'll still get a bit tetchy if Wagner's anti-Semitism is raised and there's a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss it. Given how alive bigotry of all forms still is, airing Wagner's dirty laundry is a "teachable moment".


Cultural relativism does not imply that culture cannot be criticized. We have witnessed for example the consequences of unmitigated antisemitism and should "know better". But to hold people in the past to the same standard based on future information we have gleaned (the holocaust) that wasn't available to them is disingenuous.

Perhaps Germans in Wagner's day should have "seen it coming". As they say, however, hindsight is 20/20. Genetic racism was rampant in many countries. Example: America, where miscegenation was illegal in some parts as late as 1967. But America never got its Hitler to carry out holocaust-scale atrocities (was limited to acts of lynching, etc.) Most attribute Hitler's rise to the unique conditions in Germany after WWI, another event the Germans of Wagner's day could not have possibly anticipated.

It's more than likely that future generations will ask how _we _could not have seen the severe consequences of our constant-growth debt-ridden economic systems, myopic environmental devastation, taking clean running water for granted, our wastefully consumerist oil-addicted society, etc... The sad fact is that humans live in the "now" and generally do not think about their impact very far into the future.


----------



## Kieran

Nereffid said:


> Google it. It's Martin Luther.


Martin Luther wasn't a composer: Ken said it was a composer...


----------



## KenOC

Kieran said:


> Martin Luther wasn't a composer: Ken said it was a composer...


Martin Luther was certainly a composer, and a tremendously influential one. In fact, I guarantee you know some of the music he wrote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther#Hymns


----------



## Kieran

KenOC said:


> Martin Luther was certainly a composer, and a tremendously influential one. In fact, I guarantee you know some of the music he wrote.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_luther#Hymns


Ah! Didn't know that... :tiphat:


----------



## deggial

just to be the devil's advocate, ML lived even longer ago than Wagner. The farther back in history we go the more unsavory beliefs and practices we find. So what is really the point of this never ending, one chord bitchfest against Wagner?


----------



## KenOC

deggial said:


> just to be the devil's advocate, ML lived even longer ago than Wagner. The farther back in history we go the more unsavory beliefs and practices we find. So what is really the point of this never ending, one chord bitchfest against Wagner?


Yeah, that's kind of my point. Martin Luther probably had far more influence on German anti-Semitism than Wagner, yet we're happy to sing his music in our churches with nary a grimace. That naughty Wagner, though...


----------



## Arsakes

That is why I prefer Orthodox Christianity!


----------



## EricABQ

deggial said:


> So what is really the point of this never ending, one chord bitchfest against Wagner?


To kill time on the internet would be my guess.


----------



## Aries

Kieran said:


> You die anyway, but are you saying it's preferable to have prejudices?


What is a prejudice? It is a preliminary judgment because of incomplete informations. You need such preliminary judgments, as long as you have incomplete informations.


----------



## Vesteralen

Aries said:


> What is a prejudice? It is a preliminary judgment because of incomplete informations. You need such preliminary judgments, as long as you have incomplete informations.


If you don't have the "informations", why do you have to make a judgment at all?


----------



## KenOC

Vesteralen said:


> If you don't have the "informations", why do you have to make a judgment at all?


Making judgments without sufficient information is necessary to staying alive.


----------



## deggial

^ or you can delay making a decision before you gather enough information.

(the last two posts got in before I had time to send mine. Anyway, of course you're going to make snap decisions if it's a matter of life or death, but most of the time it isn't).


----------



## sharik

Sid James said:


> obviously Wagner wasn't the only racist with a high profile around then


such thing as 'racism' does not exist, as well as any other '-ism'.


----------



## Vesteralen

KenOC said:


> Making judgments without sufficient information is necessary to staying alive.


but not in the context of this discussion


----------



## Aries

Nereffid said:


> Yes, of course everything should be judged in the context of the time. But this doesn't mean we live in a world where basic values are ephemeral.


Values are virtual. You have your values, and you can judge everyone as you like.



Nereffid said:


> There is anti-Semitism today.


Where? In islamic states? Wagner has no influence in islamic states. Where Wagner has an influence today, Jews are in a good, secure and powerful position today. Do you think the jewish lobby has too little influence?



Nereffid said:


> Unless I'm very much mistaken, 19th century Europe was a Christian place, and didn't Jesus tell his followers to love everyone? So by Christian values, i.e. _the values of the time_, anti-Semitism was wrong then too.


Nietzsche criticized Wagner for his Christianity. That is a much better criticism than this philo-semitic criticism.


----------



## Nereffid

Aries said:


> Values are virtual. You have your values, and you can judge everyone as you like.


Oh, I'm doing some judging right now, believe me.


----------



## Aries

Vesteralen said:


> If you don't have the "informations", why do you have to make a judgment at all?


A terrorist could kill millions of people before the last valid judgment of a court, if there would be no remand because of a preliminary judgment.

If there is someone you do not know, you need a prejudice to decide, what ever there is to decide. If you trust everyone you don't know, you trust enimies too.


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> What is a prejudice? It is a preliminary judgment because of incomplete informations. You need such preliminary judgments, as long as you have incomplete informations.


And without this, we would die?

Why?


----------



## Vesteralen

Aries said:


> A terrorist could kill millions of people before the last valid judgment of a court, if there would be no remand because of a preliminary judgment.
> 
> If there is someone you do not know, you need a prejudice to decide, what ever there is to decide. If you trust everyone you don't know, you trust enimies too.


There's a difference between being cautious about strangers and forming and publishing a blanket negative categorization of a whole group of people based solely on circumstantial considerations.


----------



## Aries

Kieran said:


> And without this, we would die?
> 
> Why?


Cars on the street would kill us. It is a prejudice that the cars won't stop, when we go careless over the street.


----------



## KenOC

Kieran said:


> And without this, we would die? Why?


Simple example. You're walking in the woods, somewhat hungry. You see a plant with red berries on it. Do you eat them? No, you "play the odds" and assume that they may be dangerous.

So you're making a judgment ("I should not eat those berries") based on no specific information about the plant or its berries at all. Almost all of life is playing the odds without sufficient information.

You avoid walking near that pit bull/mastiff. Yet you walk up and pet the collie. Again, you certainly lack complete information... You are, in fact, "prejudiced" against certain types of dogs. Is this unwise?


----------



## Kieran

KenOC said:


> Simple example. You're walking in the woods, somewhat hungry. You see a plant with red berries on it. Do you eat them? No, you "play the odds" and assume that they may be dangerous.
> 
> So you're making a judgment ("I should not eat those berries") based on no specific information about the plant or its berries at all. Almost all of life is playing the odds without sufficient information.
> 
> You avoid walking near that pit bull/mastiff. Yet you walk up and pet the collie. Again, you certainly lack complete information... You are, in fact, "prejudiced" against certain types of dogs. Is this unwise?


It's a stretch to equate this with anti-semitism, or am I wrong? I mean, an objective prejudice against a group or race of people is different to not knowing your good mushrooms or berries from your bad, no?

By the way, thanks for explaining it, I realise you're only the messenger!


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> Cars on the street would kill us. It is a prejudice that the cars won't stop, when we go careless over the street.


And this fits in with anti-semitism, how? You're just playing (badly) with words...


----------



## deggial

prej·u·dice 
/ˈprejədəs/
Noun
Preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience.

the cars and the berries don't suit this definition.


----------



## Aries

Kieran said:


> And this fits in with anti-semitism, how? You're just playing (badly) with words...


My point is, that a prejudice is not wrong or bad by the fact that it is a prejudice. This implication is wrong. Someone who says, that a prejudice is wrong, has to explain it.


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> My point is, that a prejudice is not wrong or bad by the fact that it is a prejudice. This implication is wrong. Someone who says, that a prejudice is wrong, has to explain it.


Really? You think it has to be explained why anti-semitism is wrong?

Why are you bringing the conversation this direction?


----------



## Aries

deggial said:


> prej·u·dice
> /ˈprejədəs/
> Noun
> Preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience.
> 
> the cars and the berries don't suit this definition.


This definition is questionable.

If this definition is right, you have to explain, why something is a prejudice.

That all kinds of anti-semitism are only a "prejudice" is maybe only a "prejudice".


----------



## KenOC

We are, every one of us, a bundle of prejudices. Our prejudices are based on incomplete observations, isolated experiences, what our parents or others have told us, what we have seen in the movies or on TV, etc. And our prejudices help us get through life with very minimal knowledge of our situations or what is "logically" the best course of action in any specific case.

Our so-called values are really nothing more than our prejudices. In any era, some prejudices (and thus values) are acceptable and some are not. The prejudices that we find unacceptable today are unique to our time, and it seems less than useful to judge people of other times based on them. But of course we will, just as people in the future will judge us based on their own prejudices -- and likely find us wanting.


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> This definition is questionable.
> 
> If this definition is right, you have to explain, why something is a prejudice.
> 
> That all kinds of anti-semitism are only a "prejudice" is maybe only a "prejudice".


Might even be prejudice to call a racist prejudiced!

I see how this works now...


----------



## Aries

Kieran said:


> Why are you bringing the conversation this direction?


Because the philo-semitic highhandedness here disturbs me.


----------



## deggial

Aries said:


> This definition is questionable.
> 
> If this definition is right, you have to explain, why something is a prejudice.


a definition is by its nature an explanation.

Ken, partial judgment is not prejudice. Don't get sucked into this silly game.


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> Because the philo-semitic highhandedness here disturbs me.


You would be less disturbed by anti-semitism?

And to oppose anti-semitism is philo-semitism?

And there's something wrong with philo-semitism?


----------



## Aries

deggial said:


> a definition is by its nature an explanation.


You need to look at the properties of both, to see, if it fits.


----------



## Celloman

We're all guilty of a certain degree of racism, whether we think so or not.

Just some food for thought!


----------



## Vesteralen

KenOC said:


> We are, every one of us, a bundle of prejudices. Our prejudices are based on incomplete observations, isolated experiences, what our parents or others have told us, what we have seen in the movies or on TV, etc. And our prejudices help us get through life with very minimal knowledge of our situations or what is "logically" the best course of action in any specific case.


In the strictest of senses this is probably true. But, I think that brutal logic in this case can obscure reality.

Here's what I'm struggling with here: Let's say I take an unreasoning dislike to you and your family. This may lead to my keeping myself and my family away from you and yours. I might even cross to the other side of the street when I see you coming. This may be very uncomfortable for all of us, especially if I'm stubbornly resistant to any type of rapprochement. But, you and yours are unlikely to lose any sleep over it.

But, this is on an entirely different level than it would be if I were to make up posters and hang them on all the buildings in our neighborhood encouraging everyone else to treat you as outcasts and get you out of the neighborhood. How would that make you or your children feel? Safe? Happy?

Whether we're talking about today or the nineteenth century, others (not me, personally, but many people) may take scenario one as a common human situation, maybe regrettable, but not a big deal. But, the latter course would by it's very nature be out of the ordinary or exceptional conduct. There may have been many who felt like him in Wagner's day, but not many who would take it to the point of preaching it to others in such a public way.

I don't think any of this has anything to do with Wagner the musician. I'm just not comfortable with this -'it's-okay-to-foment-hatred-because-we're-all-prejudiced-to-some-degree' thinking. It's like trying to find an excuse to take human relationships and conduct to the lowest possible level.


----------



## Aries

Kieran said:


> You would be less disturbed by anti-semitism?


Anti-semitism is usually thus far-reaching, that it disturbs me.



Kieran said:


> And to oppose anti-semitism is philo-semitism?


To oppose anti-semitism at a time and a place, where Jews are in a very strong position is phlio-semitism.



Kieran said:


> And there's something wrong with philo-semitism?


What I can say is, that there is something wrong about the balance of philo- and anti-semitism either way. That is easy to figure out.


----------



## Kieran

Aries said:


> To oppose anti-semitism at a time and a place, where Jews are in a very strong position is phlio-semitism.


And there's nothing wrong with that. Philo-semitism is fine with me. Do you think that to oppose anti-semitism when Jews are being massacred is somehow different in quality? In that case, it's not classified as _philo-semitism,_ but something else?

Aren't you just playing with words to hide something here?


----------



## KenOC

Vesteralen said:


> I'm just not comfortable with this -'it's-okay-to-foment-hatred-because-we're-all-prejudiced-to-some-degree' thinking. It's like trying to find an excuse to take human relationships and conduct to the lowest possible level.


I'm certainly not arguing that. I'm merely pointing out that we're quite ready to criticize the now-unfashionable prejudices of others while being blind to our own prejudices. Condemning somebody who's quite dead is easy. But is it as useful as examining our own beliefs and values, our own intolerances?


----------



## Vesteralen

KenOC said:


> I'm certainly not arguing that. I'm merely pointing out that we're quite ready to criticize the now-unfashionable prejudices of others while being blind to our own prejudices. Condemning somebody who's quite dead is easy. But is it as useful as examining our own beliefs and values, our own intolerances?


I'm with you on that. No argument.


----------



## Petwhac

Aries said:


> My point is, that a prejudice is not wrong or bad by the fact that it is a prejudice. This implication is wrong. Someone who says, that a prejudice is wrong, has to explain it.


I cannot fathom how something so basic is beyond some people's understanding.

Let me explain prejudice.

A brain surgeon is sitting in the passenger seat of a car waiting for a fellow surgeon to come out of an appointment. It's a very nice car because brain surgery is a highly paid profession. The surgeon is quite young and a snazzy dresser when not at work. Someone taps on the car window, it's a policeman who asks the surgeon to step out of the car and produce ID. etc etc. 
Oh, by the way the brain surgeon happens to be a black woman.

Do you get it now?
She's obviously a hooker waiting for her pimp.

Do _you_ want to be prejudged because you conform to a STEREO-TYPE! Do you want to be turned down for a job, picked up by the police, refused membership of a golf club?

The whole point about prejudice and bigotry is that it is a product of ignorance and stereo-typing.

Y'know, the scout-master is gay and therefore he must be a pederast. The Jew is going to rip you off. The black guy is going to mug you. The muslim is going to blow you up.............

_That_ is prejudice.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> I'm certainly not arguing that. I'm merely pointing out that we're quite ready to criticize the now-unfashionable prejudices of others while being blind to our own prejudices. Condemning somebody who's quite dead is easy. But is it as useful as examining our own beliefs and values, our own intolerances?


Of course! Agreed! But that does not excuse the prejudices of history, and near- history.


----------



## DavidA

Aries said:


> Anti-semitism is usually thus far-reaching, that it disturbs me.
> 
> To oppose anti-semitism at a time and a place, where Jews are in a very strong position is phlio-semitism.
> 
> What I can say is, that there is something wrong about the balance of philo- and anti-semitism either way. That is easy to figure out.


Are you giving an argument or trying to play a game of mental chess?

I think you are in danger of check-mating yourself with your own arguments!


----------



## DavidA

Aries said:


> My point is, that a prejudice is not wrong or bad by the fact that it is a prejudice. This implication is wrong. Someone who says, that a prejudice is wrong, has to explain it.


Prejudice is by definition a word with negative overtones. You might just as well say hate is not wrong and bad by the fact is it hate or poison is not bad for you just because it is a poison.
You misjudge your semantics.


----------



## Mahlerian

The faults of people in the past should not be condoned, even if they were common. All the same, the implication that someone is a horrible person because they shared some of the faults of their contemporaries is mistaken. One's character should be judged in relation to one's environment and situation. Granted, Wagner's anti-Semitism was in some ways at least more prominent than his contemporaries and he had a platform from which to publish his views. It is true that it does not reflect well on his character.

But none of this really affects the way I listen to Wagner's music, which, while it may be (possibly) informed by his prejudice, does not have that prejudice as an essential component. That's the difference I think people are trying to get at here and elsewhere. If one didn't know that Wagner was especially anti-Semitic, I doubt one (especially now, so far removed from 19th century culture) would be able to tell from his operas.

And it's not as if we need his virulent anti-Semitism to find flaws in Wagner as a person...


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Wagner's views seem pretty tame compared with those of another composer, a man far more widely known and admired than Wagner, and whose writings seem to have been better known to the leadership of the Nazi party. This composer wrote extensively on the Jewish issue; his views are summarized by Wiki as follows:
> -------------------------------------
> 
> [He] argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people", and referred to them with violent, vile language. [He] advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "envenomed worms" would be forced into labor or expelled "for all time".
> 
> -------------------------------------
> And this composer, of course, was.....


Luther was a composer, of course. He is one of my great heroes, a towering genius who changed history. I do wish, however, that he had died before some of the bitter statements of his later years were uttered.


----------



## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> The difference is that whilst my neighbour could, in theory, become the next PM/President and carry a great deal of influence, it is more likely that they are anon. Wagner's opinions (at that time) mattered more.


Oh, that's interesting. I'm now much more comfortable that I can sleep better now that my average neighbour who is anti-semitic carries less weight as far as my daily life is concerned compared with Wagner's. Cheers to that.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Prejudice is by definition a word with negative overtones. You might just as well say hate is not wrong and bad by the fact is it hate or poison is not bad for you just because it is a poison.
> You misjudge your semantics.


Your own semantics fail to account for the broad range of meanings "prejudice" may have -- certainly not all negative or having to do with hate. To quote Wiki:
----------------------------------
The word prejudice refers to prejudgment: i.e. making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. In recent times, the word has come to be most often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality or other personal characteristics. In this case it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their group membership. Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence." Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience."


----------



## Nereffid

Celloman said:


> We're all guilty of a certain degree of racism, whether we think so or not.
> 
> Just some food for thought!


I find your food for thought... unnourishing.


----------



## Nereffid

Mahlerian said:


> The faults of people in the past should not be condoned, even if they were common. All the same, the implication that someone is a horrible person because they shared some of the faults of their contemporaries is mistaken. *One's character should be judged in relation to one's environment and situation*. Granted, Wagner's anti-Semitism was in some ways at least more prominent than his contemporaries and he had a platform from which to publish his views. It is true that it does not reflect well on his character.


Well, yes, but aside from "a lot of people at that time were anti-Semitic", what exactly are the significant aspects of Wagner's environment and situation? What was it about the Jews or the non-Jews of that time and place that allow us to say that Wagner and his contemporaries were (specifically in relation to their anti-Semitism) not horrible people? What parts of Wagner's (and his contemporaries') views on Jews were logically, philosophically, or morally sound by the logical, philosophical, or moral standards of the day?


----------



## Aries

Kieran said:


> And there's nothing wrong with that. Philo-semitism is fine with me. Do you think that to oppose anti-semitism when Jews are being massacred is somehow different in quality? In that case, it's not classified as _philo-semitism,_ but something else?


Is an anti-semit, who is against massacres, an philo-semite, when he prevent massacres? I don't think so.



Petwhac said:


> Let me explain prejudice.
> 
> A brain surgeon is sitting in the passenger seat of a car waiting for a fellow surgeon to come out of an appointment. It's a very nice car because brain surgery is a highly paid profession. The surgeon is quite young and a snazzy dresser when not at work. Someone taps on the car window, it's a policeman who asks the surgeon to step out of the car and produce ID. etc etc.
> Oh, by the way the brain surgeon happens to be a black woman.
> 
> Do you get it now?
> She's obviously a hooker waiting for her pimp.
> 
> Do _you_ want to be prejudged because you conform to a STEREO-TYPE!


I see the problem, but I see also, that it is necessary to a certain degree. If you would be a policeman, and you have to search after drugs, and there is an old man, and mother with a child, and four 20 year old guys, would you examine after a random generator?

It has to be a compromise.

If race play a role, it is a question of the ownership of the country. If the state is declared as owned by an ethnicity, i think it is no problam to examine others more. They could go to their own countrys, if they are unhappy about it. In the case of the US is difficult, because the ownership isn't clarified.



Petwhac said:


> Y'know, the scout-master is gay and therefore he must be a pederast. The Jew is going to rip you off. The black guy is going to mug you. The muslim is going to blow you up.............
> 
> _That_ is prejudice.


But it is a fact, that blacks mug more. As long as you havn't more specific informations it is appropriate to use the statistic informations. That does not mean that a black guy mug you, but just that the probability is higher.



DavidA said:


> Prejudice is by definition a word with negative overtones.


The problem is, that the word has in the one hand a neutral meaning (preliminary judgment), and in the other hand it has a negative overtone. So it can be used to manipulate the people. The negative overtone can be given everything with the neutral meaning.


----------



## Mahlerian

Nereffid said:


> Well, yes, but aside from "a lot of people at that time were anti-Semitic", what exactly are the significant aspects of Wagner's environment and situation? What was it about the Jews or the non-Jews of that time and place that allow us to say that Wagner and his contemporaries were (specifically in relation to their anti-Semitism) not horrible people? What parts of Wagner's (and his contemporaries') views on Jews were logically, philosophically, or morally sound by the logical, philosophical, or moral standards of the day?


I was not saying that Wagner's anti-Semitism is justifiable by the standards of his day. I am saying that the fact that he is an anti-Semite is understandable given those standards, when anti-Semitic attitudes were commonplace and pervasive. Any arguments either way should, taking this as background, use more specifics in any argument on the subject.

My opinion?

_Das Judenthum in Musik_ is a nasty little diatribe that he cared enough about to publish it twice, once anonymously and once under his own name. It is mean-spirited, and, given the relevant history between himself and Meyerbeer, quite petty in character. Humanity would lose nothing whatsoever if it were to be lost.

As for the stereotypes and racial attitudes some find in certain characters (Mime, Beckmesser), they are, if correctly identified, in poor taste, like the blackface caricatures one finds in so many American cartoons of the 40s and 50s. They do not invalidate the works' artistic value, but their potential presence is something to be aware of.

Beyond that, what is there? These things reflect poorly on Wagner, true, but they are not central to either his life or work. I don't see why they have to dominate so many conversations about those things.


----------



## Sid James

Nereffid said:


> I'm guess I'm one of the ones "judging Wagner by the standards of our own post-holocaust western culture".


Me too. The fact is I am alive now in 2013, not in 1913 or 1813. Some things in history are unique, others have connections (or arguable connections) between them. I was talking of the collapse of the ancien regime after World War I, which Wagner so hated (contradictorily of course to him garnering support from Ludwig II). The thing is, it may have been just as much a bad thing as a good thing. After WWI, a number of psychopaths came to power. We're talking Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, all replacing the vestiges of the ancien regime in their respective lands.

I am scathing of the ancien regime, I mean these where poor excuses for government. They where corrupt and decayed monarchies run along neo-feudalist lines. But my point is that no matter how screwed up they where, they kept things like Wagner's and others rassenkunde type theories as just that, just theories. Well, largely, as there was discrimination against Jews (eg. as I talked to - the need to convert to Christianity to get a government job, or the Dreyfus Affair in France, exposing anti-Semitism in the French justice system).

So basically what you got is in the 19th century, a series of failed revolutions to unseat the ancien regime. In Paris alone there where three, 1830, 1848, 1871. Of course, 1848 was across all of Europe. But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't dislodge the ancien regime, they wouldn't go a way like some bad smell.

During this time you had the emergence of another ideology that went toxic in the 20th century, Marxism.

So basically what happened in the 19th century was a series of missed opportunities. & once change actually happend after World War I, well you got a bunch of nutbags grabbing power and applying these ideologies in the most horrific ways that where never before imagined.

So yeah, I wouldn't pin all this on Wagner, but the fact is that what was going on there, well it all has a history, it all goes back to something. & he was part of it, part of these nasty things parading as noble things, just like the court opera houses built at the time which Wagner didn't copy at Bayreuth, as I mentioned before. These buildings where symbols of the ancien regime, embodiments of feudalism parading as noble things lifting the whole society.

In many ways maybe it is better not to know this, easier just to listen to the music and not be perplexed by all this. In any case, most if not all respondents to this thread would know about these sorts of facts. The difference between the opinions here is what _gloss_ one puts on these facts. How one interprets them, in other words.


----------



## KenOC

One thing to think about. If you or I had lived in Wagner's time, we might very well have been anti-Semites with never a second thought. Similarly, if we had been born in Pakistan in our own time, we would doubtless be practicing Muslims. You can extend this point of view as far as you like.

There's no great sin in adhering to the values of our own time and place, but casting stones at the past is a cheap game.


----------



## Guest

This moral relativism is not convincing. We can judge any prejudice at any time against the golden rule. If it fails that test, it was inappropriate then, it is inappropriate now, and it will be inappropriate in the future.

Morality is not rocket science folks, and morality does not change much from century to century.


----------



## KenOC

BPS said:


> Morality is not rocket science folks, and morality does not change much from century to century.


Actually it does, and radically. Read the old testament, for example. Read the writings of fairly recent religious scholars who wrote with evident satisfaction of the joy the blessed would feel as they watched their families and friends frying in the fires of Hell. These writings (and many more) were received as pinnacles of morality in their own times.

Often morality follows profit. The 19th century, for example, was full of books and pamphlets justifying slavery on purely moral grounds, and similarly the import of vast quantities of opium into China. A significant portion of the American and European populations found these arguments quite compelling.


----------



## science

Aries said:


> If the state is declared as owned by an ethnicity, i think it is no problam to examine others more. They could go to their own countrys, if they are unhappy about it. In the case of the US is difficult, because the ownership isn't clarified.


But it is clarified! And officially so: the USA "belongs to" all of its citizens regardless of race, color, creed, or anything else.

Of course there are people who believe the USA is (or is supposed to be) a white Evangelical Christian state, but those guys are technically wrong (in light of our founding documents and subsequent history) and a minority (albeit a powerful one).

Not every state has to be a nation-state - if it did, woe to humanity.


----------



## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> Read the old testament, for example.


I must say that I think that you are very sly, KenOC.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Actually it does, and radically. Read the old testament, for example. Read the writings of fairly recent religious scholars who wrote with evident satisfaction of the joy the blessed would feel as they watched their families and friends frying in the fires of Hell. These writings (and many more) were received as pinnacles of morality in their own times.
> 
> Often morality follows profit. The 19th century, for example, was full of books and pamphlets justifying slavery on purely moral grounds, and similarly the import of vast quantities of opium into China. A significant portion of the American and European populations found these arguments quite compelling.


All this shows is that immorality changes from century to century. Good sensible people in their better moments do not condone such things. Even monkeys understand fairness.


----------



## Sonata

SiegendesLicht said:


> I think the right attitude is also very important, as with any new music. If you come to Wagner expecting to hear excellent moments and tedious half-hours, or whatever that famous quote is, that's what you will hear. But if you come expecting to hear lots of beauty and lots of magic, then it will happen.


Not exactly. I agree the right attitude is important, but it's not going to just magically make you like Wagner. Just not everyone's cup of tea. I went into Tristan & Isolde expecting to be knocked out. Didn't happen, and I gave it many tries. With and without libretto, video, audio. Just doesn't do it for me. I do like the Ring Without Words and a handful of overtures, interludes, etc


----------



## KenOC

BPS said:


> All this shows is that immorality changes from century to century. Good sensible people in their better moments do not condone such things. Even monkeys understand fairness.


The values of "good sensible people" vary widely from time to time and from place to place. If you were to search history for a time when "good sensible people" agreed with current blue-state liberal morality, I fear it would be a long and fruitless search. Not to say there's anything wrong with that morality, but it seems quite unique to our here and now, and by no means shared by all even so.


----------



## Guest

Aries said:


> Anti-semitism is usually thus far-reaching, that it disturbs me.
> 
> To oppose anti-semitism at a time and a place, where Jews are in a very strong position is phlio-semitism.
> 
> What I can say is, that there is something wrong about the balance of philo- and anti-semitism either way. That is easy to figure out.


First, perhaps you'd like to quote what anyone has written here that evidences your assertion of 'philo-Semitism'? Second, perhaps you'd like to quote what anyone has written here that evidences your assertion of 'anti-Semitism'? Third, what is it about the 'balance' of views that disturbs you? Do you believe that the argument should be balanced, or that it should weigh more on one side?

Speaking personally, I've not met enough Jews to form anything like a rounded opinion about their entire race. If such an opinion is worth anything, it would likely be a prejudiced one. Actually, I'm not sure that having an opinion on a race of people is of much value at all.



Rapide said:


> Oh, that's interesting. I'm now much more comfortable that I can sleep better now that my average neighbour who is anti-semitic carries less weight as far as my daily life is concerned compared with Wagner's. Cheers to that.


You implied in your earlier post that Wagner attracted an unwarranted degree of criticism. I offered a reason why that is so, but it does not condone the anti-Semitism of your neighbour. Please don't pretend that it does.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> Luther was a composer, of course. He is one of my great heroes, a towering genius who changed history. I do wish, however, that he had died before some of the bitter statements of his later years were uttered.


That you should also understand us Wagnerians.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Celloman said:


> We're all guilty of a certain degree of racism, whether we think so or not.
> 
> Just some food for thought!


Yeah, right, anyone who is white is automatically racist. How can you prove it then?


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> Yeah, right, anyone who is white is automatically racist. How can you prove it then?


Whether celloman means 'everyone on the planet' or 'everyone at TC', why would you assume that he refers only to whites?


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> The values of "good sensible people" vary widely from time to time and from place to place. If you were to search history for a time when "good sensible people" agreed with current blue-state liberal morality, I fear it would be a long and fruitless search. Not to say there's anything wrong with that morality, but it seems quite unique to our here and now, and by no means shared by all even so.


But I'm not generalizing from blue-state morality, I'm generalizing from the golden rule. I'm quite sure we can find people in all ages and cultures who understand instinctively the principle of reciprocity. Specific applications of the golden rule may vary from place to place, but not that much - everyone likes food, hates pain, wants to be respected, etc.

My general point is that morality is not such a volatile and culturally-specific concept that we cannot legitimately pass moral judgement on people who lived in different centuries. If we feel we have reason to conclude that Wagner was a jerk (or worse) no doubt many of his contemporaries reached the same conclusion.


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## Nereffid

BPS said:


> But I'm not generalizing from blue-state morality, I'm generalizing from the golden rule. I'm quite sure we can find people in all ages and cultures who understand instinctively the principle of reciprocity. Specific applications of the golden rule may vary from place to place, but not that much - everyone likes food, hates pain, wants to be respected, etc.


Yes, I'd say it's not morality that changes over the centuries, it's the application of that morality, or the relative size of the ingroup and outgroup
God tells us that killing is wrong... except of course if we're killing in his name.
There are sound moral arguments for slavery... which evaporate if we and our family are about to be enslaved.
Jews are evil... except for the most famous one of all. And his mother. And his disciples. And his friends.
And so on.
Prevailing cultural winds may generally dictate the size/content of the ingroup but in many cases it comes down to individual choice.
"Hath not a Jew eyes" etc.


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## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Your own semantics fail to account for the broad range of meanings "prejudice" may have -- certainly not all negative or having to do with hate. To quote Wiki:
> ----------------------------------
> The word prejudice refers to prejudgment: i.e. making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. In recent times, the word has come to be most often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality or other personal characteristics. In this case it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their group membership. Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence." Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience."


Semantics is based on how a word is generally used in contemporary society. Prejudice today is invariably used with negative overtones whatever Mr Allport might say. Your quote from Wiki confirms this:
'In recent times, the word has come to be most often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality or other personal characteristics. In this case it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their group membership. Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence." '


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> "Hath not a Jew eyes" etc.


This quote prompts me to point out a tendency to assume that 'we all know that in the olden days people thought and did things that are unacceptable now' and that our superior modern morality is so much more widespread.

If Shakesepeare had been preaching tolerance of Jews to a largely anti-Semitic audience, I doubt he would have survived as a playwright. As BPS says, the golden rule of morality has much wider currency than it is given credit.



DavidA said:


> Semantics is based on how a word is generally used in contemporary society. Prejudice today is invariably used with negative overtones whatever your mr Allport might say.


Semantics is _partly _based on its current usage. Ken makes a fair point. We often add in 'against' to ensure that our intent to use 'prejudiced' in a negative way is clear.


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## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Semantics is based on how a word is generally used in contemporary society. Prejudice today is invariably used with negative overtones whatever your mr Allport might say.


Ah, but I cleave to a more classical interpretation of the word. And do I not bleed?


----------



## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> That you should also understand us Wagnerians.


Yes, but I do not seek to justify what Luther said.


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Actually it does, and radically. Read the old testament, for example. Read the writings of fairly recent religious scholars who wrote with evident satisfaction of the joy the blessed would feel as they watched their families and friends frying in the fires of Hell. These writings (and many more) were received as pinnacles of morality in their own times.
> 
> Often morality follows profit. The 19th century, for example, was full of books and pamphlets justifying slavery on purely moral grounds, and similarly the import of vast quantities of opium into China. A significant portion of the American and European populations found these arguments quite compelling.


If you read history, Ken, you will find it was generally people with a morality outside the accepted norm that stood out against, eg, the slave trade.


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## Nereffid

KenOC said:


> Ah, but I cleave to a more classical interpretation of the word. And do I not bleed?


Oh, please let us prick you so we can find out!


----------



## KenOC

Nereffid said:


> Oh, please let us prick you so we can find out!


Sorry, I'm diabetic and have to do that far too often already. But I assure you that I *do* bleed if pricked properly.


----------



## Guest

Celloman said,



Celloman said:


> We're all guilty of a certain degree of racism, whether we think so or not.


"No, I'm not," I thought to myself. "But clearly others are, if unconsciously," as this exchange illustrates...



SiegendesLicht said:


> Yeah, right, anyone who is white is automatically racist. How can you prove it then?





MacLeod said:


> Whether celloman means 'everyone on the planet' or 'everyone at TC', why would you assume that he refers only to whites?


Then it occurred to me that, when I sit here talking to strangers, it never crossed my mind that I might be talking music with a 'black'. I confess that all the pictures that come into my head when thinking about other TCers are of white, male, middle-aged (unless avatar or profile determine otherwise - I'm not that obtuse!)

In other words, my virtual world is inhabited by reflections of me. That certainly makes me guilty of egocentrism - but racism? If I were to talk differently (and negatively) to a female, or a black, or a Jew, perhaps. For me, the race, creed, age, gender of the person I'm talking to is irrelevant, but it's worth pausing to check every now and again whether one's immediate assumptions are the right ones, and that they do not lead to prejudice.

[edit] Inevitably, these days, we must make complete pronouncements to ensure that any omission is not interpreted. So, just this once, I will add that the sexual orientation of TCers is also irrelevant. Now, who've I forgotten?


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Ah, but I cleave to a more classical interpretation of the word. And do I not bleed?


No, you cleave to a more convenient interpretation - one that fits your argument.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> No, you cleave to a more convenient interpretation - one that fits your argument.


Not at all. KenOC's interpretation is supported by at least one dictionary, not just Wikipedia, and Wiki takes account of your concern that current useage is important. It may be inconvenient to you, but 'prejudice' does not _automatically _mean 'negative prejudice'.


----------



## Nereffid

MacLeod said:


> Celloman said,
> 
> "No, I'm not," I thought to myself. "But clearly others are, if unconsciously," as this exchange illustrates...
> 
> Then it occurred to me that, when I sit here talking to strangers, it never crossed my mind that I might be talking music with a 'black'. I confess that all the pictures that come into my head when thinking about other TCers are of white, male, middle-aged (unless avatar or profile determine otherwise - I'm not that obtuse!)
> 
> In other words, my virtual world is inhabited by reflections of me. That certainly makes me guilty of egocentrism - but racism? If I were to talk differently (and negatively) to a female, or a black, or a Jew, perhaps. For me, the race, creed, age, gender of the person I'm talking to is irrelevant, but it's worth pausing to check every now and again whether one's immediate assumptions are the right ones, and that they do not lead to prejudice.
> 
> [edit] Inevitably, these days, we must make complete pronouncements to ensure that any omission is not interpreted. So, just this once, I will add that the sexual orientation of TCers is also irrelevant. Now, who've I forgotten?


Too true. Also, I've noticed that this entire discussion seems to be proceeding under the assumption that no one here is Jewish.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

MacLeod said:


> Whether celloman means 'everyone on the planet' or 'everyone at TC', why would you assume that he refers only to whites?


You have already answered your own question. The majority of people here are white, and his post is not the only source I heard such claims from: all white people are racist, privileged, etc.


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## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> You have already answered your own question. The majority of people here are white, and his post is not the only source I heard such claims from: all white people are racist, privileged, etc.


I don't think I have. In any case, I've owned to potential prejudice in doing so. Presumably, you'll admit the same?

Who here has posted that 'all white people are racist, privileged etc'? Since celloman has not returned to elaborate, or to respond to the only challenge (nereffid's, I think) to his post, it's a little difficult to understand fully what he meant.


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## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> You implied in your earlier post that Wagner attracted an unwarranted degree of criticism. I offered a reason why that is so, but it does not condone the anti-Semitism of your neighbour. Please don't pretend that it does.


I'm not pretending. An anti-semite; from Hitler to my neighbour (latter as an example) with old Wagner in between are worthy of not condoning on any level. When I see smoke in a forrest, I put it out immediately before it developes into a fire and burns down the entire forrest, whether from a cigarette butt or remnants of a large camp fire. My analogy with Wagner and contrasting with polite "minding of one's business" if one's neighbour is an anti-semite is equivalent.


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## Guest

Rapide said:


> I'm not pretending. An anti-semite; from Hitler to my neighbour (latter as an example) with old Wagner in between are worthy of not condoning on any level. When I see smoke in a forrest, I put it out immediately before it developes into a fire and burns down the entire forrest, whether from a cigarette butt or remnants of a large camp fire. My analogy with Wagner and contrasting with polite "minding of one's business" if one's neighbour is an anti-semite is equivalent.


This is irrelevant. I was offering an explanation as to why Wagner is being picked on. Your response was to avoid my point and focus instead on whether your neighbour's anti-Semitism shouldn't also attract condemnation: of course it should.


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Not at all. KenOC's interpretation is supported by at least one dictionary, not just Wikipedia, and Wiki takes account of your concern that current useage is important. It may be inconvenient to you, but 'prejudice' does not _automatically _mean 'negative prejudice'.


Sorry. Wiki contradicts you! Read what it says. Words change meanings and emphasis and today 'prejudice' is almost always used in speech, in the media, in the press, etch, with negative connotations.


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## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> You have already answered your own question. The majority of people here are white, and his post is not the only source I heard such claims from: all white people are racist, privileged, etc.


I think we all have a certain racism built into us from our breeding and society. You see a form of 'racism' even in football matches among supporters.
The thing we have to do is to recognise it and then order our thinking to overcome it.


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## SiegendesLicht

deggial said:


> prej·u·dice
> /ˈprejədəs/
> Noun
> Preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience.


Not necessarily. Sometimes prejudice arises exactly out of negative experience with a certain group of people. Someone, say, whose loved ones died in the Twin Towers, and who is since then not exactly friendly towards Arabs or Muslims, can hardly be accused of prejudice based on lack of experience. I am not saying this prejudice is good, but it is pretty much to be expected.


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## Guest

DavidA said:


> Sorry. Wiki contradicts you! Read what it says. Words change meanings and emphasis and today 'prejudice' is almost always used in speech, in the media, in the press, etch, with negative connotations.


First, Wiki doesn't contradict me, it supports me. The fact that Wiki says 'usually unfavourable' and you yourself say 'almost always' allows at least a little room for KenOC's interpretation.

Second, Oxford supports the possibility of a non-negative interpretation.



> *1*preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience:
> _English *prejudice against* foreigners_


http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/prejudice?q=prejudice

It is perfectly possible to be prejudiced 'in favour', not just 'against'. However, it is clear that what is being discussed in this thread, despite the possibility of a positive or neutral meaning being applied to the term, is unfavourable prejudice.


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## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> I think we all have a certain racism built into us from our breeding and society. You see a form of 'racism' even in football matches among supporters.
> The thing we have to do is to recognise it and then order our thinking to overcome it.


People have a natural tendency to prefer their kin to all others: the family and close relatives first, then friends and other people they feel an inner kinship to, then their fellow countrymen, who speak the same language, who were brought up in the same culture and mores as themselves, who are "on the same page". A Swede in a foreign county is more likely to hang out with other Swedes than with the Spanish, Chinese etc and to trust them, should he need help of any kind. It is a perfectly healthy and normal attitude and should not be equated with racism, not is it something to be overcome. Quite the opposite, it is the globalization and the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties that should be resisted.


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> People have a natural tendency to prefer their kin to all others: the family and close relatives first, then friends and other people they feel an inner kinship to, then their fellow countrymen, who speak the same language, who were brought up in the same culture and mores as themselves, who are "on the same page". A Swede in a foreign county is more likely to hang out with other Swedes than with the Spanish, Chinese etc and to trust them, should he need help of any kind. It is a perfectly healthy and normal attitude and should not be equated with racism, not is it something to be overcome. Quite the opposite, it is the globalization and the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties that should be resisted.


We can agree that humans are tribal. People tend to look after their 'own' first. The problem is realising that the definition of our 'own' with the exception of immediate close family members, is a matter of who we identify with and why.

To use your example, a Swede in a foreign country who hangs out with other Swedes is not in the same position as a Swede who resists the influx of foreigners to Sweden. The first is in a minority in a strange land, the second is at home in the majority.

We do not live in a bubble where time stands still. I live in London, one of the greatest multi-ethnic cities in the world and I believe most of us celebrate the diversity and find it an enrichment. Why on earth should I view that as "the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties". 
What is it exactly that you are hoping to preserve? 
Once upon a time to be English meant to be white and Christian. So what? Was the world a better place? There was crime, poverty, war, cruelty just as much then. Now one can be white, black, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, , etc etc and still be viewed and view oneself as English. One can still go to church, play cricket, have a pint of beer in one's local pub, eat sticky toffee pudding and all the rest of those good old English cultural activities.

Human integration is a fact and should be welcomed.


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## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> This is irrelevant. I was offering an explanation as to why Wagner is being picked on. Your response was to avoid my point and focus instead on whether your neighbour's anti-Semitism shouldn't also attract condemnation: of course it should.


Thank you very much. We are now in agreement.


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## Rapide

There is a brand new version of _Rienzi_, which is a great opera. But its rather unfortunate musicological history has rendered productions likely to be a touch far from Wagner's original or "authorised" versions. Still, it's always freshing to see a bold new take on this masterpiece.

Blu-ray/DVD out now on Opus Arte label.


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## Nereffid

SiegendesLicht said:


> People have a natural tendency to prefer their kin to all others: the family and close relatives first, then friends and other people they feel an inner kinship to, then their fellow countrymen, who speak the same language, who were brought up in the same culture and mores as themselves, who are "on the same page". A Swede in a foreign county is more likely to hang out with other Swedes than with the Spanish, Chinese etc and to trust them, should he need help of any kind. It is a perfectly healthy and normal attitude and should not be equated with racism, not is it something to be overcome. Quite the opposite, it is the globalization and the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties that should be resisted.


Nothing wrong with hanging out with your own people in a foreign country, certainly. But if both groups are worried about "the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties" then won't this encourage the groups to remain apart, potentially leading to, oh what's the term... ghettoization?


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## smari89

Haven't read all the posts here but as has been pointed out, Wagner's anti-semitism was truly obsessive, so even though anti-semitic attitudes were quite common in the society of his time, I think he'd still be considered extreme by many of his contemporaries. that he was Hitler's favorite composer has made it even more difficult to "forget" these attitudes of his.

then again, at least Wagner also happened to be Charlie Chaplin's favorite composer (according to his son C.Chaplin Jr).


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## Pennypacker

He was also Theodor Herzl's (the dude who put zionism on the map pretty much) favorite composer, and his music was played in zionist congresses. That was 40 years before the Nazis.


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## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> it is the globalization and the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties that should be resisted.


There are two issues here. "Globalisation" is a problem if it means that any citizen of the world has no local access (or only exorbitantly priced and restrictive access) to services - food, water, shelter, energy etc - and to quality of life - justice, culture etc. It's not a problem if "globalisation" means that I can travel to other parts of the world, live where I wish, take an interest in the rest of the global village, help those less fortunate than me, enjoy world cultures etc. Neither of these come without compromise.

The other issue is that of 'cultural ties'. There are no static cultures, whatever some purists might wish for. There never has been. To wish for a static culture is to resist both the potential benefits and potential disadvantages of cultural intercourse.

You are entitled to your views about resisting cultural change, but it is not a universal matter, like access to clean water!


----------



## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> There are two issues here. "Globalisation" is a problem if it means that any citizen of the world has no local access (or only exorbitantly priced and restrictive access) to services - food, water, shelter, energy etc - and to quality of life - justice, culture etc. It's not a problem if "globalisation" means that I can travel to other parts of the world, live where I wish, take an interest in the rest of the global village, help those less fortunate than me, enjoy world cultures etc. Neither of these come without compromise.
> 
> The other issue is that of 'cultural ties'. There are no static cultures, whatever some purists might wish for. There never has been. To wish for a static culture is to resist both the potential benefits and potential disadvantages of cultural intercourse.
> 
> You are entitled to your views about resisting cultural change, but it is not a universal matter, like access to clean water!


How does this tie in with Wagner's music and Wagner the man?


----------



## Guest

Rapide said:


> How does this tie in with Wagner's music and Wagner the man?


It ties in inasmuch as one line of debate here has been to define what 'racism' is and whether its manifestation in Wagner's time is comparable to what might be defined as 'racism' now. Personally, I don't think racism was acceptable then, nor do I think it was 'understandable by the values of the time' either.


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> You are entitled to your views about resisting cultural change, but it is not a universal matter, like access to clean water!


A major digression (since this is a specialty of mine): Access to clean water is a universal matter? A clean drinking water connection in the US costs $10-20 thousand per household up front, including treatment capacity, pipes, pumping stations, PRVs, and all the rest. On top of this is the monthly cost of source water, treatment and disinfection, pumping, and so forth. If this is some kind of universal right, who pays for it? What does the term "universal matter" mean?


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> A major digression (since this is a specialty of mine): Access to clean water is a universal matter? A clean drinking water connection in the US costs $10-20 thousand per household up front, including treatment capacity, pipes, pumping stations, PRVs, and all the rest. On top of this is the monthly cost of source water, treatment and disinfection, pumping, and so forth. If this is some kind of universal right, who pays for it? What does the term "universal matter" mean?


As you say, a digression. I merely used what seemed to me to be self-evident as an example of the difference between basic needs and options. Man needs water to survive. It's a basic for personal and social survival, not a privilege, or an option. It's therefore a 'universal matter' in that we have the means to ensure that everyone can have access to it.

Cultural identity - particularly where it means cultural purity - on the other hand, is not, IMO a universal matter. A defence against charges of racism is to say that people must be allowed to defend their cultural identity from 'creeping destruction', as if cultural identity is, like access to water, a universal right.


----------



## Petwhac

Aries said:


> But it is a fact, that blacks mug more. As long as you havn't more specific informations it is appropriate to use the statistic informations. That does not mean that a black guy mug you, but just that the probability is higher.


Well we can choose how to interpret statistics and choose which statistics to ignore to bolster a view can't we?
I don't know which statistics you are using and from which country. 
I guess in Uganda most muggers are black. In the Ukraine most rapists are white. In China most car thieves have black hair.
Perhaps you are referring to the fact that there is a disproportionate number of people incarcerated for various crimes in the U.S. who are from historically disadvantaged groups. From groups who have had a hard time being accepted as equals by the majority host population. Groups who have lived in the poorest areas with the worst schooling and opportunities. There are many factors that determine these things but _none of them have to do with skin colour_. 
If you want to eradicate mugging- tackle poverty and discrimination.
No-one but the most rabid and stupid bigot could possibly believe that along with the gene that codes for black skin sits a companion gene that codes for a propensity to mug! And I'm sure you are intelligent enough to not be saying that .

Not all black people are the same, nor all Jews nor all left handed or blonde haired people.

I'll let Wagner have the last words and let you decide if apart from being a wonderful composer he was also a stupid (now proven) bigot. I still love his music though!
This is just one of many passages from that enlightened essay of his.

_"In particular does the purely physical aspect of the Jewish mode of speech repel us. 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. The first thing that strikes our ear as quite outlandish and unpleasant, in the Jew's production of the voice-sounds, is a creaking, squeaking, buzzing snuffle: add thereto an employment of words in a sense quite foreign to our nation's tongue, and an arbitrary twisting of the structure of our phrases-and this mode of speaking acquires at once the character of an intolerably jumbled blabber (eines unertraglich verwirrten Geplappers); so that when we hear this Jewish talk, our attention dwells involuntarily on its repulsive how, rather than on any meaning of its intrinsic what."_

PS: List of Jews who must have spoken like that (German speaking ones): S. Freud, A. Einstein, A Schoenberg, G.Mahler................


----------



## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> Man needs water to survive. It's a basic for personal and social survival, not a privilege, or an option. It's therefore a 'universal matter' in that we have the means to ensure that everyone can have access to it.
> 
> Cultural identity - particularly where it means cultural purity - on the other hand, is not, IMO a universal matter.


I really think this is an interesting comparison. Certainly we do not, in reality, treat access to safe drinking water as a universal right. There are plenty of people around the world who die every day of water-borne illness due to lack of safe water. "Cultural purity," like safe water, is always available to those who can pay for it, and not to the rest.


----------



## science

KenOC said:


> I really think this is an interesting comparison. Certainly we do not, in reality, treat access to safe drinking water as a universal right. There are plenty of people around the world who die every day of water-borne illness due to lack of safe water. "Cultural purity," like safe water, is always available to those who can pay for it, and not to the rest.


It is probably also true that something like "cultural purity" is available to a lot of people who prefer or would prefer diversity - but it has to be paid for too! Rent in these diverse, hedonistic cities doesn't pay itself.


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> Well we can choose how to interpret statistics and choose which statistics to ignore to bolster a view can't we?
> I don't know which statistics you are using and from which country.
> I guess in Uganda most muggers are black. In the Ukraine most rapists are white. In China most car thieves have black hair.
> Perhaps you are referring to the fact that there is a disproportionate number of people incarcerated for various crimes in the U.S. who are from historically disadvantaged groups. From groups who have had a hard time being accepted as equals by the majority host population. Groups who have lived in the poorest areas with the worst schooling and opportunities. There are many factors that determine these things but _none of them have to do with skin colour_.
> If you want to eradicate mugging- tackle poverty and discrimination.
> No-one but the most rabid and stupid bigot could possibly believe that along with the gene that codes for black skin sits a companion gene that codes for a propensity to mug! And I'm sure you are intelligent enough to not be saying that .


I can't 'like' this enough!


----------



## DavidA

KenOC said:


> A major digression (since this is a specialty of mine): Access to clean water is a universal matter? A clean drinking water connection in the US costs $10-20 thousand per household up front, including treatment capacity, pipes, pumping stations, PRVs, and all the rest. On top of this is the monthly cost of source water, treatment and disinfection, pumping, and so forth. If this is some kind of universal right, who pays for it? What does the term "universal matter" mean?


A friend invited me to have a meal at his house in an African village. He offered us water to wash our hands. I realised his children had walked about half a mile to fetch it from the nearest borehole.


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## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> This is just one of many passages from that enlightened essay of his.
> 
> _"In particular does the purely physical aspect of the Jewish mode of speech repel us. 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. The first thing that strikes our ear as quite outlandish and unpleasant, in the Jew's production of the voice-sounds, is a creaking, squeaking, buzzing snuffle: add thereto an employment of words in a sense quite foreign to our nation's tongue, and an arbitrary twisting of the structure of our phrases-and this mode of speaking acquires at once the character of an intolerably jumbled blabber (eines unertraglich verwirrten Geplappers); so that when we hear this Jewish talk, our attention dwells involuntarily on its repulsive how, rather than on any meaning of its intrinsic what."_
> 
> PS: List of Jews who must have spoken like that (German speaking ones): S. Freud, A. Einstein, A Schoenberg, G.Mahler................


I guess he was talking about Yiddish - the language of German Jews which does indeed look and sound like a very distorted form of German (having developed from it with added elements of Hebrew and other languages), not different enough to be recognized by the hearer as a totally foreign language, but also not similar enough to German to be recognized as its dialect. Wagner probably had the same frustrating experiences with Yiddish that I had with Polish and Swiss German: "Darn! This sounds so familiar I can almost understand it, but I still don't get any of it!", except that I don't find either of them repulsive. In the same way many Russian speakers consider the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages just an ugly, distorted form of Russian (only they'd better not say it directly to Belarusians and Ukrainians  )


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## Pip

I've often wondered just how deep Wagner's anti-semetic feelings ran, when he personally chose Hermann Levi as the conductor for the premier of Parsifal in 1882. Also that during one of the later performances during that month when Levi was suffering from
illness, Wagner slipped into the pit and unobtrusively took over the conducting in act 3.
Wagner was not a good man, but he was genius of the theatre and would throw his beliefs out of the window to help or enhance his own success. He was a chancer, a scoundrel , a seducer, and, and, and....... and probably the greatest exponent of musical theatre of all time. He was also anti-semetic, or not, when it suited him.
I'm afraid that a great many of our Heroes had feet of clay. Their lives would not stand up to the kind of microscopic examination that we subject them to today.


----------



## Oreb

KenOC said:


> A serious question (hopefully not a stupid one). Wagner's anti-Semitism was well-known in his lifetime. So why do there seem to be quite a few Jews in the late-19th early-20th centuries named "Sigmund" or "Siegfried"? Were these simply common German given names pre-Wagner, or were they inspired by Wagner's operas? If the latter, that would seem strange.


 One of the tragedies of late 19th C. Europe was the awful self-loathing that swept through many bourgeois Jews - a tendency almost to adopt the language of racists and to regard with horror the 'Jewishness' of older generations and Jews from eastern Europe in an effort to be accepted. (Peter Gay's _Freud, Jews and Other Germans _is my source for this. Very much worth reading if you can find a copy. Fritz Stern's _The Politics of Cultural Despair _is similarly revealing, albeit from a different angle.)

I suspect the naming convention may, in some cases at least, relate to that.

Which is why I think it's a bit dubious to defend Wagner on the grounds that he loved Germans. Jews were Germans as well.


----------



## DavidA

Pip said:


> I've often wondered just how deep Wagner's anti-semetic feelings ran, when he personally chose Hermann Levi as the conductor for the premier of Parsifal in 1882. Also that during one of the later performances during that month when Levi was suffering from
> illness, Wagner slipped into the pit and unobtrusively took over the conducting in act 3.
> Wagner was not a good man, but he was genius of the theatre and would throw his beliefs out of the window to help or enhance his own success. He was a chancer, a scoundrel , a seducer, and, and, and....... and probably the greatest exponent of musical theatre of all time. He was also anti-semetic, or not, when it suited him.
> I'm afraid that a great many of our Heroes had feet of clay. Their lives would not stand up to the kind of microscopic examination that we subject them to today.


Wagner wanted Levi to be baptised as a Christian before he conducted Parsifal because he didn't want it conducted by a Jew. Levi refused and conducted it anyway.


----------



## Pip

Quite right David. Which amplifies my point. He dropped his opposition when necessary. He would accept no other conductor so Levi became acceptable Jew or not. Wagner's principles only stretched so far, until they began to disadvantage his work.


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## ssdei

ethanjamesescano said:


> I like Wagner's music, he's a great composer, everyone knows that, and we know he hates Jews.
> I think, his not just a racist, probably he envies Mendelssohn, just like Haydn's jealousy to Beethoven.
> 
> What do you think?


About the personal envy you mention - This is completely out of the question.

Wagner has got good music, but at the same time unfortunately he is quite often a scamper.


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## Celloman

I find it strange that we tend to pick on Wagner's personality so much, when many other composers had character traits that were just as lousy (or nearly so). Composers with less-than-perfect relationships with other people...it seems to be a pretty common malady, don't you think?


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## Petwhac

Celloman said:


> I find it strange that we tend to pick on Wagner's personality so much, when many other composers had character traits that were just as lousy (or nearly so). Composers with less-than-perfect relationships with other people...it seems to be a pretty common malady, don't you think?


It _would_ be strange if other composers had published articles such as Wagner's infamous one. We are not picking on his personality, we are objecting to his views. Views which, while in no way lessening our appreciation of his musical genius , have had a very detrimental effect on the spread of his work. It puts some people off which is a shame for them and a shame for his legacy.


----------



## DavidA

Celloman said:


> I find it strange that we tend to pick on Wagner's personality so much, when many other composers had character traits that were just as lousy (or nearly so). Composers with less-than-perfect relationships with other people...it seems to be a pretty common malady, don't you think?


But Wagner's views went far beyond his petsonal relationships with other people. Beethoven could be exceedingly unpleasant even to his friends but Wagner went far beyond this. He published diatribes against a whole race of people. This goes far beyond defects in personality. There was something very calculated about it.


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## starry

I suppose he was a self-publicist (relates to Romanticism maybe) and that counted against him compared to most other composers who just concentrated on publishing their music and keeping other thoughts to themselves.



Oreb said:


> One of the tragedies of late 19th C. Europe was the awful self-loathing that swept through many bourgeois Jews - a tendency almost to adopt the language of racists and to regard with horror the 'Jewishness' of older generations and Jews from eastern Europe in an effort to be accepted. (Peter Gay's _Freud, Jews and Other Germans _is my source for this. Very much worth reading if you can find a copy. Fritz Stern's _The Politics of Cultural Despair _is similarly revealing, albeit from a different angle.)
> 
> I suspect the naming convention may, in some cases at least, relate to that.
> 
> Which is why I think it's a bit dubious to defend Wagner on the grounds that he loved Germans. Jews were Germans as well.


He apparently wanted them to assimilate. Which relates to your point, except that it could be said that many people from other cultures have eventually assimilated into the dominant culture of their location by choice, so why would some Jewish people not do that as well? And of course not all did, which also goes against your point.


----------



## KenOC

starry said:


> He apparently wanted them [the Jews] to assimilate.


So he implied. But that didn't stop him from criticizing Mendelssohn for being Jewish, even though Mendelssohn was born without religion, was uncircumcised, never had religious instruction, and was baptized a Reformed Christian at seven years old. So one has to wonder...


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> We do not live in a bubble where time stands still. I live in London, one of the greatest multi-ethnic cities in the world and I believe most of us celebrate the diversity and find it an enrichment. Why on earth should I view that as "the creeping destruction of identities and cultural ties".
> What is it exactly that you are hoping to preserve?


I'm sorry it took me so long to answer that question and it's only now I got around to answering it. What I want to preserve is all the cultural, linguistic, racial and other characteristics that make for example, the English different from the French, the French different from the Germans, the Germans different from the Egyptians etc, the true diversity of various nations living in their respective territories with their respective ways, not every single nation and language crammed into a relatively small space like London. I want to be able to come to England and experience the English culture, not the Arab-African-Jamaican-Chinese-whatever culture (which is also why London would not be my first choice).

Just so that you do not think I look at things from a tourist perspective, I am planning to move to Germany within the next few years (depending on how my long-distance romance turns out  ). And when I do that, I expect to hear the German language and see German faces in the streets, encounter more Catholic and Lutheran churches than mosques, have German music dominate the concert halls, over, say, rap, or Jamaican raggae - to be surrounded by all those things which I have come to love (which is also why I feel an inner kinship to Wagner with his warm sentiments towards his fellow countrymen). Not to mention of course, the luxury of living without fear of being hunted if you publish pictures someone does not like, or just plain getting murdered in broad daylight, like it happened in one of the greatest multi-ethnic cities not so long ago.

So far it seems that in the future it will be those African villages that DavidA mentioned, that will preserve their cultural identity the most, since hardly anybody is interested in moving there. The European and other "first world" nations, however, are particularly attractive for immigration from all over the world, and it is exactly them whose unique cultures are being replaced with a multicultural mix. This raises another question: how long will they remain "first world" in this case? Maybe for a hundred years or so?

A couple days ago one of my customers told me the following about his German suppliers: "They function like a clock. If they say they will do something, it will get done, and right on time". Now, what about those other nations that form the multicultural mix? Can they function like a clock? Can they maintain such a high standard of producing everything, from beer to high-tech machinery that one can advertise with it, the way many of my customers advertise with "German quality" slogans? Can they rebuild their country from a heap of smoldering ruins to Europe's economical leader in just ten years the way Germans did after the war? Can they compose "Der Ring des Nibelungen" or Beethoven's 9th? We know Germans can. And surely the people who are capable of all that and more, do have a right to preserve their identity and their culture in the country that their forefathers have built for them.


----------



## Oreb

starry said:


> I suppose he was a self-publicist (relates to Romanticism maybe) and that counted against him compared to most other composers who just concentrated on publishing their music and keeping other thoughts to themselves.
> 
> He apparently wanted them to assimilate. Which relates to your point, except that it could be said that many people from other cultures have eventually assimilated into the dominant culture of their location by choice, so why would some Jewish people not do that as well? And of course not all did, which also goes against your point.


While there was, I agree, a self-publicist lurking within Wagner, I think that more to the point was his sense of himself as a polymath (the fact that in many ways he *was* one is beside the point )

As for the assimilation issue, my post was really responding to the question of naming children from KenOC. I don't think Wagner wanted Jews to assimilate, because I don't think he believed it was possible.


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## deggial

SiegendesLicht said:


> I want to be able to come to England and experience the English culture, not the Arab-African-Jamaican-Chinese-whatever culture (which is also why London would not be my first choice).
> 
> Just so that you do not think I look at things from a tourist perspective, I am planning to move to Germany within the next few years (depending on how my long-distance romance turns out  ). And when I do that, I expect to hear the German language and see German faces in the streets, encounter more Catholic and Lutheran churches than mosques, have German music dominate the concert halls, over, say, rap, or Jamaican raggae - to be surrounded by all those things which I have come to love (which is also why I feel an inner kinship to Wagner with his warm sentiments towards his fellow countrymen). Not to mention of course, the luxury of living without fear of being hunted if you publish pictures someone does not like, or just plain getting murdered in broad daylight, like it happened in one of the greatest multi-ethnic cities not so long ago.


whilst I do agree with you that every people should work towards preserving their cultural identity, we don't - for better or worse - live in the 19th century anymore. The world is, as it were, smaller and people relocate more. It's part of our society and it's come with the rest of it. I think classical European music - which is part of our cultural identity - should be subsidised by the state as it can't compete on the pop charts. It's not commercially viable yet we need it. That being said, there is a place for reggae, rap, Hindi music etc. What we need is respect between cultures living together.


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## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> And surely the people who are capable of all that and more, do have a right to preserve their identity and their culture in the country that their forefathers have built for them.


Why? Where does that 'right' come from?

An accident of birth means I happen to live in the UK, where I happen to enjoy the benefits (and disbenefits) of the society I've been born into. This does not mean I have a right to those benefits, any more than a child currently born in Syria, Palestine, or Egypt has the right to "enjoy" the "benefits" of the turmoil those countries are going through.

We live in a horribly unequal world, so I see no reason why a 'right' to uncontaminated cultures and traditions trumps others rights to travel, to live where they wish, to enjoy the same standard of living that I enjoy.


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## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht -
I will respond to your long post when I have time.
I'll just ask, until then, if you think the identity of Wagner's (or Beethoven's) music is contaminated by their use of cymbals?


----------



## SiegendesLicht

MacLeod said:


> Why? Where does that 'right' come from?
> 
> An accident of birth means I happen to live in the UK, where I happen to enjoy the benefits (and disbenefits) of the society I've been born into. This does not mean I have a right to those benefits, any more than a child currently born in Syria, Palestine, or Egypt has the right to "enjoy" the "benefits" of the turmoil those countries are going through.
> 
> We live in a horribly unequal world, so I see no reason why a 'right' to uncontaminated cultures and traditions trumps others rights to travel, to live where they wish, to enjoy the same standard of living that I enjoy.


Suppose you were born into a wealthy family that lives in a big and beautiful house which the previous generations worked hard to build and maintain. That is also an accident of birth, but does that mean you would invite just about anybody from the streets to come live in that house, simply because they have no means or are unable to build a house of their own? No, you would consider it your property that you have a full right to and responsibility for keeping it in order, and you would allow only friends inside. And in case you did invite just anybody, people who do not know you or have any respect towards you, but are only interested in your house, how long do you think that house will remain clean and beautiful?

If the world was equal, it would not be equality on the level of the Western living standard, but rather on the level of the "third world", everybody being equally poor. The world is "horribly unequal" as you say, but that is precisely why those cultures and ethnicities who without outside help, through their own strength, ingenuity and work ethic have managed to do better than the others, to build a (relatively) nice house for themselves, figuratively speaking, that should be preserved the most carefully. I am not sure what it is in the German culture and mentality that allowed Germany to give so many great masters of music to the world, or what it is in the English culture that made a whole host of great writers and poets arise from England, but as long as those nations exist as separate, distinct ethnicities, sharing a distinct culture and way of life, we have hope to see more of them. Shortly, as long as we have the Germans and the English, we can still see another Wagner or another Lord Byron some day. Without that - I don't think so.


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## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> Suppose you were born into a wealthy family that lives in a big and beautiful house which the previous generations worked hard to build and maintain. That is also an accident of birth, but does that mean you would invite just about anybody from the streets to come live in that house, simply because they have no means or are unable to build a house of their own? No, you would consider it your property that you have a full right to and responsibility for keeping it in order, and you would allow only friends inside. And in case you did invite just anybody, people who do not know you or have any respect towards you, but are only interested in your house, how long do you think that house will remain clean and beautiful?
> 
> If the world was equal, it would not be equality on the level of the Western living standard, but rather on the level of the "third world", everybody being equally poor. The world is "horribly unequal" as you say, but that is precisely why those cultures and ethnicities who without outside help, through their own strength, ingenuity and work ethic have managed to do better than the others, to build a (relatively) nice house for themselves, figuratively speaking, that should be preserved the most carefully. I am not sure what it is in the German culture and mentality that allowed Germany to give so many great masters of music to the world, or what it is in the English culture that made a whole host of great writers and poets arise from England, but as long as those nations exist as separate, distinct ethnicities, sharing a distinct culture and way of life, we have hope to see more of them. Shortly, as long as we have the Germans and the English, we can still see another Wagner or another Lord Byron some day. Without that - I don't think so.


And I thought you believed in 'Christian' values! You need to get your head out of your ar*e and read some history.
We'll never live in an idealised past that never existed.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> And I thought you believed in 'Christian' values! You need to get your head out of your ar*e and read some history.
> We'll never live in an idealised past that never existed.


If you imply that Christian values mean inviting every single person who ever wants to get into your house in, then you are wrong. Being Christian does not cancel the necessity to use common sense.

Not to mention that in the future ideal world without borders and nations, and with international McCulture instead of national cultures, Christianity will most likely be a marginalized and persecuted minority religion, the way it is now in a lot of Muslim countries. So, multiculturalism is not in Christians' best interests either.


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## Pennypacker

SiegendesLicht said:


> We know Germans can. And surely the people who are capable of all that and more, do have a right to preserve their identity and their culture in the country that their forefathers have built for them.


If you like taking credit for all the good things (which counts only in your little white elitist bubble, 90% of people, if not more, don't give a **** about it), how about taking credit for the atrocities too? Here's an idea: People who are capable of bringing such destruction upon the world should be killed. Had I been in 1945, I'd probably go for it, just erase the whole country from the map. So why not today? First of all, these are not the same people, plain and simple. They had nothing to do with it, and they don't carry some genetic code that will make them repeat it. Another thing is, I don't see the German soldiers who marched on Europe as any different than people today (especially those in my country who just automatically hate Germans, they would have been the first to follow). All nations are equal in their potential creativity, as in their potential evil. Everything else is just circumstances and chance. National pride is bulls**it.


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## SiegendesLicht

Wow! I've never said anything insulting, but you seem pretty mad at me. I wonder, why is that?


----------



## science

SiegendesLicht said:


> Wow! I've never said anything insulting, but you seem pretty mad at me. I wonder, why is that?


If you meant this as a response to pennypacker, I think you misunderstood him/her.


----------



## science

SiegendesLicht said:


> If you imply that Christian values mean inviting every single person who ever wants to get into your house in, then you are wrong. Being Christian does not cancel the necessity to use common sense.
> 
> Not to mention that in the future ideal world without borders and nations, and with international McCulture instead of national cultures, Christianity will most likely be a marginalized and persecuted minority religion, the way it is now in a lot of Muslim countries. So, multiculturalism is not in Christians' best interests either.


McCulture is not going to persecute any religions that are as accommodating to the status quo as Christianity is!

Bringing the topic back to Wagner - I was interested in his religion and found this on wiki:

_Wagner wrote a number of articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views. These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in the journal Bayreuther Blätter, published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen. Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal, was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism, and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals. Many of these later articles, including "What is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations._


----------



## Pennypacker

SiegendesLicht said:


> Wow! I've never said anything insulting, but you seem pretty mad at me. I wonder, why is that?


Because I'm a jew with persecution issues. Seriously though, are my comments more insulting than yours just because I have a bunch of these ** in them? Perhaps my style is a bit aggressive, but it's pointed towards the idea you present (however carefully and politely expressed) and its fallacies, not you personally. We could be best friends and the same words would come out. I assure you, my friends get their share for their excessive zionism. Then we drink beer and enjoy life. Also, I'm never mad on the internet, except when I listen to a beautiful piece on youtube and the internet goes down.


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> I'm sorry it took me so long to answer that question and it's only now I got around to answering it. What I want to preserve is all the cultural, linguistic, racial and other characteristics that make for example, the English different from the French, the French different from the Germans, the Germans different from the Egyptians etc, the true diversity of various nations living in their respective territories with their respective ways, not every single nation and language crammed into a relatively small space like London. I want to be able to come to England and experience the English culture, not the Arab-African-Jamaican-Chinese-whatever culture (which is also why London would not be my first choice).


When I last looked St Paul's was still here (although the Germans had a damn good go at flattening it during the Blitz) They still Change The Guard at Buckingham Palace, the West End Theatres are hard to get tickets for, The Royal Shakespeare Company perform the Bard's stuff at the recently re-constructed Globe Theatre, the busses are still red, the taxis black. You can still get beer in the pubs or eat fish and chips, go to a football or cricket match. If the fact that some of the people who work in or visit and enjoy all these places have a different skin colour from yours is a problem for you then I feel sorry for you.
Not only can you experience the history and heritage of centuries, but you can enjoy cuisine from probably every nation on earth. Sounds awful eh.
Some of the things you can no-longer do in London: Choke on smog, burn witches, trade in slaves, send orphans to the work-house, walk ankle deep in horse-***** or tip your excrement out of the window. Ah, those good old days!



SiegendesLicht said:


> Just so that you do not think I look at things from a tourist perspective, I am planning to move to Germany within the next few years (depending on how my long-distance romance turns out  ). And when I do that, I expect to hear the German language and see German faces in the streets, encounter more Catholic and Lutheran churches than mosques, have German music dominate the concert halls, over, say, rap, or Jamaican raggae - to be surrounded by all those things which I have come to love (which is also why I feel an inner kinship to Wagner with his warm sentiments towards his fellow countrymen). Not to mention of course, the luxury of living without fear of being hunted if you publish pictures someone does not like, or just plain getting murdered in broad daylight, like it happened in one of the greatest multi-ethnic cities not so long ago.


How about being happy that there is a choice? You don't like Rap so don't go to a Rap concert. Is it Ok if people who do like it get to go? Shall we tie them to a chair and pin their ears open until they have memorised the whole of Act II of Parsifal?
What happened to that off duty soldier was a disgusting act by a warped, indoctrinated and fanatical person. As opposed to the rational, freethinking and moderate people who loaded up fellow citizens into freight trains destined for gas chambers.
Have you heard of Anders Behring Breivik? A terribly nice chap with a warm feeling for his country men. Trying to help in his little way, to preserve Norway's white, Christian heritage. 77 times worse than what happened in London, do you agree?



SiegendesLicht said:


> So far it seems that in the future it will be those African villages that DavidA mentioned, that will preserve their cultural identity the most, since hardly anybody is interested in moving there. The European and other "first world" nations, however, are particularly attractive for immigration from all over the world, and it is exactly them whose unique cultures are being replaced with a multicultural mix. This raises another question: how long will they remain "first world" in this case? Maybe for a hundred years or so?


Well as the saying goes, "you had your fun (colonisation, imperialism expansion and war) now pays your money!
Aren't you lucky that you have a passport that allows you to live in a country that everyone 's trying to get into as opposed to one from a country that everyone's trying to get out of?



SiegendesLicht said:


> A couple days ago one of my customers told me the following about his German suppliers: "They function like a clock. If they say they will do something, it will get done, and right on time". Now, what about those other nations that form the multicultural mix? Can they function like a clock? Can they maintain such a high standard of producing everything, from beer to high-tech machinery that one can advertise with it, the way many of my customers advertise with "German quality" slogans?* Can they rebuild their country from a heap of smoldering ruins to Europe's economical leader in just ten years the way Germans did after the war? *


They can if they get all that American money to help them eh?



SiegendesLicht said:


> Can they compose "Der Ring des Nibelungen" or Beethoven's 9th? We know Germans can. And surely the people who are capable of all that and more, do have a right to preserve their identity and their culture in the country that their forefathers have built for them.


Unfortunately no one can compose those because they're already composed.
Henze? Stockhausen? Lachenmann? Do you love that German music?

I'm afraid there is no point wanting what you can't have. You can't turn the clock back.

PS: I hope your long distance romance works out well for you.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> McCulture is not going to persecute any religions that are as accommodating to the status quo as Christianity is!
> 
> Bringing the topic back to Wagner - I was interested in his religion and found this on wiki:
> 
> _Wagner wrote a number of articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views. These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in the journal Bayreuther Blätter, published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen. Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal, was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism, and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals. Many of these later articles, including "What is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations._


Let me say that although Parsifal uses Christian symbols it is not at all Christian in its message and philosophy.


----------



## ericdxx

It happens all the time.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...ments-jon-stewart-jews-media-article-1.186240


> CNN fired anchor Rick Sanchez on Friday after a radio rant that took aim at Jon Stewart, Jews and his bosses at the cable network.
> 
> He also called Comedy Central's Jon Stewart a "bigot," eventually deciding that he is just "prejudicial."
> Sanchez said Stewart - who grew up in New Jersey - couldn't understand Sanchez' hardscrabble upbringing.
> 
> Dominick challenged Sanchez comments, suggesting Jews have also experienced discrimination.
> 
> "Yeah, very powerless people," Sanchez said, laughing. "He's such a minority. I mean, you know, please. What are you kidding? I'm telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart. And to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority?"


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> Suppose you were born into a wealthy family that lives in a big and beautiful house which the previous generations worked hard to build and maintain. That is also an accident of birth, but does that mean you would invite just about anybody from the streets to come live in that house, simply because they have no means or are unable to build a house of their own? No, you would consider it your property that you have a full right to and responsibility for keeping it in order, and you would allow only friends inside. And in case you did invite just anybody, people who do not know you or have any respect towards you, but are only interested in your house, how long do you think that house will remain clean and beautiful?
> 
> If the world was equal, it would not be equality on the level of the Western living standard, but rather on the level of the "third world", everybody being equally poor. The world is "horribly unequal" as you say, but that is precisely why those cultures and ethnicities who without outside help, through their own strength, ingenuity and work ethic have managed to do better than the others, to build a (relatively) nice house for themselves, figuratively speaking, that should be preserved the most carefully. I am not sure what it is in the German culture and mentality that allowed Germany to give so many great masters of music to the world, or what it is in the English culture that made a whole host of great writers and poets arise from England, but as long as those nations exist as separate, distinct ethnicities, sharing a distinct culture and way of life, we have hope to see more of them. Shortly, as long as we have the Germans and the English, we can still see another Wagner or another Lord Byron some day. Without that - I don't think so.


You didn't actually answer my question.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

MacLeod said:


> You didn't actually answer my question.


I did. Just like someone who has built a house, together with his family and his children have the right of ownership to that house, the responsibility to maintain it, and the right to decide who to put up for the night in it, a nation that has lived on a certain territory for and has built a country and culture there, also has a right of ownership to that country, the responsibility to take care of it in many ways, from its nature to its government, and the right to extend or deny a welcome. And neither a house owner, nor a people are obligated to welcome absolutely everyone who has a wish to live in that particular house/country on the basis of their mere wish.


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> I did. Just like someone who has built a house, [etc]


I asked where the 'right' comes from. You simply restated and explained what you believe that right to be, though what you've subtly moved across to is the issue of immigration (who can come and go in the house/country), not the issue of an uncontaminated culture.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out some of these things, but the UDHR was written in the context of the reality that countries, nationhood already exists, and that a mechanism was needed to reduce conflict between them. Even so, such rights exist only because nations and societies agree that they should (whether they implement them or not): they are not actually pre-existing laws like gravity. If you read the UDHR, you'll see that each right is set out for 'everyone' or 'no-one', not for a state or for a nation. Whilst the existence of nations is presumed, it gives no nation (or individual) the right to infringe the rights of other individuals.

As we all know, what this leads to is a constant state of tension between the rights of individuals and the rights of those whose will is exercised through national democratic processes - and that's before you consider the problem of countries that do not operate democracies, or where conflict makes it impossible to exercise any democratic will.

What you argue for is not a right but a wish. You may wish to visit another country and see it functioning in all its traditional glory, but you have no right to such a thing. You may also wish your own country to have a certain character but you have no right to it, unless what you wish for is similarly shared and expressed as a majority view by your countrymen, and then provided only that such a character is not achieved by the infringement of the universal rights of others.


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## Guest

Ooops..........

In life one has to choose one's battles carefully.

This thread reminds me of the joke where one protestor shouts "Russia is for Russians", after which one wit quips "Fine but stay in Russia!".


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> Not to mention that in the future ideal world without borders and nations, and with international McCulture instead of national cultures, Christianity will most likely be a marginalized and persecuted minority religion, the way it is now in a lot of Muslim countries. So, multiculturalism is not in Christians' best interests either.


There is no reason to suppose that an ideal world without borders and nations, we end up with McCulture - it wouldn't be an ideal world then, would it? No-one here is interested in persecution, but if you're in a minority, Christian or otherwise, you may have to live with that fact: so what? Most of us find ourselves in a minority in one way or another - the minority that listens to classical being just one example.

Multiculturalism - assuming we mean that in any one nation, there are a number of cultures seeking room to express themselves - may seem a 'bad thing' if there is a real risk that your culture is heading for imminent extinction. However, the increase in travel, migration, cultural exchange does lead to a greater variety within a culture - and it's only those who fear the spice of life that regard variety as a bad thing.

In the meantime, Wagner seems to be in no imminent danger of extinction....


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> If you imply that Christian values mean inviting every single person who ever wants to get into your house in, then you are wrong. Being Christian does not cancel the necessity to use common sense.
> 
> Not to mention that in the future ideal world without borders and nations, and with international McCulture instead of national cultures, Christianity will most likely be a marginalized and persecuted minority religion, the way it is now in a lot of Muslim countries. So, multiculturalism is not in Christians' best interests either.


I am not a Christian but my understanding of the real message of Jesus is that it's values _absolutely _ cancel the necessity to use 'common sense' if what is taken as 'common sense' contradicts the teachings. 
What you use is the word of your Lord and from what I gather that means: (In no particular order)

Be very nice to people especially those less fortunate than yourself. Give them the clothes off your back if necessary. Invite them in from the cold: Treat criminals and wrong-doers with love and compassion: Turn the other cheek: Love your enemy: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

How does all of that sit with your philosophy of the HAVES pulling up the drawbridge and letting the HAVE-NOTS fend for themselves?

It doesn't sit at all does it? Those who have your attitude to foreigners are by definition _not _Christian.

Now, it's perfectly OK to be not Christian but it is not OK to claim to be Christian and to be a xenophobe, homophobe or a 'racist'. To me that is hypocrisy.

Of course I may have entirely misunderstood what Christian values are in which case I suggest you put me straight.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

MacLeod said:


> In the meantime, Wagner seems to be in no imminent danger of extinction....


Wagner as a _Gesamtkunstwerk_ is already half extinct, judging by the newest reports. Now they have only to figure out ways to take a stab at the music and the libretto... you know, maybe update the latter to the newest teenager slang or maybe add some rap or African tam tams somewhere, to make it more _multicultural_, and the task of the Wagner-haters will be completed.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> I am not a Christian but my understanding of the real message of Jesus is that it's values _absolutely _ cancel the necessity to use 'common sense' if what is taken as 'common sense' contradicts the teachings.
> What you use is the word of your Lord and from what I gather that means: (In no particular order)
> 
> Be very nice to people especially those less fortunate than yourself. Give them the clothes off your back if necessary. Invite them in from the cold: Treat criminals and wrong-doers with love and compassion: Turn the other cheek: Love your enemy: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
> 
> How does all of that sit with your philosophy of the HAVES pulling up the drawbridge and letting the HAVE-NOTS fend for themselves?
> 
> It doesn't sit at all does it? Those who have your attitude to foreigners are by definition _not _Christian.
> 
> Now, it's perfectly OK to be not Christian but it is not OK to claim to be Christian and to be a xenophobe, homophobe or a 'racist'. To me that is hypocrisy.
> 
> Of course I may have entirely misunderstood what Christian values are in which case I suggest you put me straight.


But Christians, just like all other people, also wish for a better future for themselves and their children. Some of them might be ready to die for their faith, but they would still rather practise it freely and without fear, the way it is still possible in the Western countries, as opposed to Saudi Arabia, where Christians can worship safely only on Western embassy compounds, or Nigeria where Christians are regularly murdered, or some other Muslim nations where renouncing Islam and embracing Christianity is punishable with death. And meanwhile, both Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and all those other nations are coming to us in ever-increasing numbers. How much longer then, before their laws and traditions also take effect in Europe? In fact, they already do in places, and there are districts in European cities, where native citizens feel like strangers and not safe any more. Is it really so much to ask - the right to live peacefully in the lands our fathers have built, making our own laws and deciding our own future? And yet you would deprive Christians and Europeans of that right for the sake of some idealistic notions, which may seem good and just to us Europeans, but are nothing but laughable nonsense to those other nations.


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> But Christians, just like all other people, also wish for a better future for themselves and their children. Some of them might be ready to die for their faith, but they would still rather practise it freely and without fear, the way it is still possible in the Western countries, as opposed to Saudi Arabia, where Christians can worship safely only on Western embassy compounds, or Nigeria where Christians are regularly murdered, or some other Muslim nations where renouncing Islam and embracing Christianity is punishable with death. And meanwhile, both Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and all those other nations are coming to us in ever-increasing numbers. How much longer then, before their laws and traditions also take effect in Europe? In fact, they already do in places, and there are districts in European cities, where native citizens feel like strangers and not safe any more. Is it really so much to ask - the right to live peacefully in the lands our fathers have built, making our own laws and deciding our own future? And yet you would deprive Christians and Europeans of that right for the sake of some idealistic notions, which may seem good and just to us Europeans, but are nothing but laughable nonsense to those other nations.


I would fight Islamism as much as you. I would also fight any Christian fundamentalism too. I would fight against any religious involvement in affairs of the state or in education or in law.
There are many muslims who do not want to live under Sharia Law just as there are many Christians who want to live under secular law.
Both religions, all religions, have the power and potential to oppress the non-believer. Does the Spanish Inquisition ring any bells? The big trouble with religion is that it claims it's authority from an all powerful, supernatural and unquestionable being who's law trumps all others.
Free-thinkers, Atheists, Gays and many other groups have much to fear from any Theocracy, of whatever denomination.

Anyway, the true Christian would never fight anyone. Would rather die defiantly upholding their (non-violent) beliefs.


----------



## DavidA

Petwhac said:


> I would fight Islamism as much as you. I would also fight any Christian fundamentalism too. I would fight against any religious involvement in affairs of the state or in education or in law.
> There are many muslims who do not want to live under Sharia Law just as there are many Christians who want to live under secular law.
> Both religions, all religions, have the power and potential to oppress the non-believer. Does the Spanish Inquisition ring any bells? The big trouble with religion is that it claims it's authority from an all powerful, supernatural and unquestionable being who's law trumps all others.
> Free-thinkers, Atheists, Gays and many other groups have much to fear from any Theocracy, of whatever denomination.
> 
> Anyway, the true Christian would never fight anyone. Would rather die defiantly upholding their (non-violent) beliefs.


I think you miss out the point that the secular state also has power to oppress the believer.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Petwhac said:


> Anyway, the true Christian would never fight anyone. Would rather die defiantly upholding their (non-violent) beliefs.


When it is only his own life that is threatened, then maybe. But when it is about other people, I believe the Christian has no right to sacrifice another man's (or a whole nation's) life to his own non-violent beliefs. Just the opposite, it is his duty to protect that life, even using violence if necessary.

I hear that arguments used against Christians quite often, by the way: "You can do anything to them, because they are not supposed to resist or stand up for their rights anyway, and if they do, they are not real Christians".


----------



## Petwhac

DavidA said:


> I think you miss out the point that the secular state also has power to oppress the believer.


Yes you're quite right. Any totalitarian regime will suppress what it doesn't like. But at least the secular one will oppress most religions equally.
And anyway states like N.Korea and the old USSR just replace one type of religion for another.


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> When it is only his own life that is threatened, then maybe. But when it is about other people, I believe the Christian has no right to sacrifice another man's (or a whole nation's) life to his own non-violent beliefs. Just the opposite, it is his duty to protect that life, even using violence if necessary.
> 
> I hear that arguments used against Christians quite often, by the way: "You can do anything to them, because they are not supposed to resist or stand up for their rights anyway, and if they do, they are not real Christians".


I don't know Christian scripture or the Gospels but would be very surprised if anywhere in them Jesus said it would be OK to kill another human under any circumstance. Perhaps I'm wrong.
All religious people who I've encountered seem to interpret their particular holy books as suits their needs. They cherry pick which 'laws' to adhere to and disregard the others. Jews, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists all do it.
I'm only making the point that you wanting to defend your own religion's 'values' is more about the 'us' and 'them' mentality than about absolute morality.


----------



## science

Petwhac said:


> I don't know Christian scripture or the Gospels but would be very surprised if anywhere in them Jesus said it would be OK to kill another human under any circumstance. Perhaps I'm wrong.
> All religious people who I've encountered seem to interpret their particular holy books as suits their needs. They cherry pick which 'laws' to adhere to and disregard the others. Jews, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists all do it.
> I'm only making the point that you wanting to defend your own religion's 'values' is more about the 'us' and 'them' mentality than about absolute morality.


I think your mistake is in thinking that Christians ought to follow the teachings of Jesus.

It's an identity, not a philosophy. Were it a philosophy, wow, would history be different.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> I think your mistake is in thinking that Christians ought to follow the teachings of Jesus.
> 
> .


I just don't know where you are coming from in saying that. 'Christian' in its original form, first used in Antioch, means 'Christ-like ones'. The first command Jesus gave to his disciples was 'Follow me'. The whole of the New Testament is a development of this.


----------



## Petwhac

DavidA said:


> I just don't know where you are coming from in saying that. 'Christian' in its original form, first used in Antioch, means 'Christ-like ones'. The first command Jesus gave to his disciples was 'Follow me'. The whole of the New Testament is a development of this.


I thought science's comment was made with irony! That's how I took it anyway.


----------



## DavidA

Petwhac said:


> I thought science's comment was made with irony! That's how I took it anyway.


Sorry 
x! Quite right. Parts of my reply relevant still though


----------



## SiegendesLicht

In any case, if you think Christ wanted his followers to be the sort of weaklings and cowards who would look the other way when _someone else's_ life is threatened in their presence, and justify it by their Christian beliefs, then you are mistaken.


----------



## Petwhac

SiegendesLicht said:


> In any case, if you think Christ wanted his followers to be the sort of weaklings and cowards who would look the other way when _someone else's_ life is threatened in their presence, and justify it by their Christian beliefs, then you are mistaken.


Might he have put himself in harm's way and sacrifice his own life to protect others? I rather think so.

If Jesus was not a pacifist and an absolute egalitarian then what is his legacy worth?


----------



## science

SiegendesLicht said:


> In any case, if you think Christ wanted his followers to be the sort of weaklings and cowards who would look the other way when _someone else's_ life is threatened in their presence, and justify it by their Christian beliefs, then you are mistaken.


I see nothing in the Gospels themselves, or any of the New Testament writings, that leads me to believe that Jesus expected his followers to do anything but die trusting God to raise them again.

The most neglected line in the entire Bible might be, "Take up your cross and follow me." Not sword, cross. This was in a society where a cross was for torturous execution, not for jewelry or religious symbolism.

Nor did he say, "Just have trust in what I will do on my cross." He said to each of his followers to take up their own cross. Even if you decide this has to be merely symbolic or metaphorical, it is not a metaphorical reference to inflicting violence in order to create justice, but to suffering.

Admittedly, as Paul explained, without a resurrection it would be suicidal nonsense, no matter how idealistic. But if there is a resurrection...

However, I do not believe in a resurrection, and I do believe that we must oppose injustice in this world, and the only thing that has a chance to prevent injustice is superior force. There will be no vindication in the afterlife for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and therefore Hitler had to be stopped by force. If Jesus' teachings are the definition of Christianity, this makes me anti-Christian. But since most Christians conveniently ignore those teachings, I suppose I should too - and I should encourage them to do so, because this life matters.


----------



## jekluc

starry said:


> There are many prejudices out there but the only hip one to point out against people seems to be race. Anyone who uses race isn't just making an insult against an individual, isn't just ignorant but is someone with a universal racial agenda (ie a 'Nazi' who wants to send people to gas chambers). But isn't this making the same blanket simplification that extreme racists themselves use? And is the agenda as much from the person pointing out the race issue as the person mentioning it in the first place?


I would say this much. The concept of being aware of racism, of fighting against racism, was originally developed to protect the weak and the downtrodden, and as such is inherently a valuable, indispensable idea. Unfortunately, the concept has gotten so corrupted over the years that it is now as often used to further oppress the weak as it is to help them. The most blatant case is when a strong minority group feigns victimhood and successfully uses this as a fig leaf to oppress another minority group, while an oblivious public stands by and condones the travesty. This is what happens when any important concept in society becomes subject to the whims of "hipness."


----------



## KenOC

science said:


> I see nothing in the Gospels themselves, or any of the New Testament writings, that leads me to believe that Jesus expected his followers to do anything but die trusting God to raise them again.


Well, there are some pretty specific instructions in the sermon on the mount. But they may not count since nobody seems to have paid them any attention.


----------



## science

KenOC said:


> Well, there are some pretty specific instructions in the sermon on the mount. But they may not count since nobody seems to have paid them any attention.


My comment was with regard to violence; some of the relevant passages I had in mind were from the Sermon on the Mount.


----------



## KenOC

science said:


> My comment was with regard to violence; some of the relevant passages I had in mind were from the Sermon on the Mount.


Re violence, the seventh verse of the Sermon on the Mount says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." While this isn't, strictly speaking, an advice or instruction, it at least implies that preventing violence has a good spiritual ROI. And it will probably get you a lot of "likes" on that great Facebook in the sky.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> .
> 
> However, I do not believe in a resurrection, and I do believe that we must oppose injustice in this world, and the only thing that has a chance to prevent injustice is superior force. There will be no vindication in the afterlife for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and therefore Hitler had to be stopped by force. If Jesus' teachings are the definition of Christianity, this makes me anti-Christian. But since most Christians conveniently ignore those teachings, I suppose I should too - and I should encourage them to do so, because this life matters.


I think you are making some ill-informed and sweeping statements here.
First, If everyone obeyed the teachings of Jesus there would be no need for wars. 
Then to say that 'most Christians conveniently ignore those teachings' makes me wonder how many committed (as opposed to nominal) Christians you know.


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> I think you are making some ill-informed and sweeping statements here.
> First, If everyone obeyed the teachings of Jesus there would be no need for wars.
> Then to say that 'most Christians conveniently ignore those teachings' makes me wonder how many committed (as opposed to nominal) Christians you know.


Well, I've known Quakers and Unitarians, who it seems to me follow Jesus' teachings on violence most closely.

But you see SiegendesLicht here, disregarding everything Jesus actually said about violence in favor of his own theory about just violence. That's much more common. It's not a matter of "committed vs. nominal" Christians - it's just that few Christians of any sort have ever taken Jesus' teachings as essential to Christianity. A billion Christians in the world: not so many of them turning cheeks, visiting prisons, feeding the hungry, looking after the widows and orphans in their distress, loving their enemies; quite a few of them (not SiegendesLicht, but others) advocating the indiscriminate killing of people in northern Africa and western Asia and central Asia. Again, it makes sense to me: Christianity is an identity, not a philosophy. It's not what Jesus seems to have had in mind, but really, that's what happens to every movement or tradition.

That, by the way, is salvation for Wagner's music. We don't have to adopt his philosophy to enjoy his music, any more than we have to follow Jesus' teachings to be a Christian or own slaves to be Americans. The tradition is alive, we change it, make it our own, pass it on thus changed, for better or worse.


----------



## KenOC

Saint Augustine argued that "peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could only be stopped by violence would be a sin. Defense of one's self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority." (Wiki)

A quote: "The commandment forbidding killing was not broken by those who have waged wars on the authority of God, or those who have imposed the death-penalty on criminals when representing the authority of the state, the justest and most reasonable source of power."

Man is the animal who rationalizes.


----------



## Petwhac

DavidA said:


> I think you are making some ill-informed and sweeping statements here.
> First, If everyone obeyed the teachings of Jesus there would be no need for wars.
> Then to say that 'most Christians conveniently ignore those teachings' makes me wonder how many committed (as opposed to nominal) Christians you know.


Committed v. nominal - that is the crux of the point I was making. It was originally in relation to people displaying fairly un-christian attitudes to foreigners. These are not foreigners who are hell bent on rape and pillage but migrants and refugees looking for a better life. These migrants often follow a different religion but to display xenophobic and chauvinist attitudes towards a minority in one's country on the grounds that it is a Christian country, is to my mind, a contradiction.


----------



## Nereffid

Petwhac said:


> Committed v. nominal - that is the crux of the point I was making. It was originally in relation to people displaying fairly un-christian attitudes to foreigners. These are not foreigners who are hell bent on rape and pillage but migrants and refugees looking for a better life. These migrants often follow a different religion but to display xenophobic and chauvinist attitudes towards a minority in one's country on the grounds that it is a Christian country, is to my mind, a contradiction.


... and of course, Christians were once a despised minority that the Europeans allowed in...


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## Aries

Nereffid said:


> ... and of course, Christians were once a despised minority that the Europeans allowed in...


A big mistake. __________


----------



## DavidA

Nereffid said:


> ... and of course, Christians were once a despised minority that the Europeans allowed in...


Not strictly true, of course. Christianity spread to this country brought initially by missionaries like Cuthbert.


----------



## DavidA

Aries said:


> A big mistake. __________


No doubt you would have preferred a society based on Wagner's ideals! As Hitler wanted!


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> No doubt you would have preferred a society based on Wagner's ideals! As Hitler wanted!


Well, he had a lot going for him, did Wagner...I mean, there was his music...and, er...


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## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Well, he had a lot going for him, did Wagner...I mean, there was his music...and, er...


Although there are some who would even disagree on that point!


----------



## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> No doubt you would have preferred a society based on Wagner's ideals!


Wagner may have had a lot of love for his fellow Germans, but he was far too idealistic (especially in his views on money and ownership of it) to take his ideas seriously as guidelines for running a country. A good statesman should be both very patriotic and very practical.


----------



## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> Wagner may have had a lot of love for his fellow Germans, but he was far too idealistic (especially in his views on money and ownership of it) to take his ideas seriously as guidelines for running a country. A good statesman should be both very patriotic and very practical.


I thought the only view Wagner had on money was spending it - preferably other people's!


----------



## Blancrocher

DavidA said:


> I thought the only view Wagner had on money was spending it - preferably other people's!


Huh--maybe he'd be just the person to lead Germany today after all.


----------



## Xaltotun

For Wagner's views on money, check out this little thing called _Der Ring des Nibelungen._


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## DavidA

Xaltotun said:


> For Wagner's views on money, check out this little thing called _Der Ring des Nibelungen._


But did Wagner believe it in practice?


----------



## science

DavidA said:


> Not strictly true, of course. Christianity spread to this country brought initially by missionaries like Cuthbert.


And of course, outside of some large cities, it was adopted from the top down rather than from the bottom up.


----------



## Xaltotun

DavidA said:


> But did Wagner believe it in practice?


Well, if he didn't, there would be one less Wagner fan in the world then. But I quite believe that he did; he participated in the Dresden uprising in 1848 and all. I do believe that he was out to change the world.


----------



## DavidA

science said:


> And of course, outside of some large cities, it was adopted from the top down rather than from the bottom up.


No. Historically it was spread among the people by the people until Constantine's politicisation of it made it a state religion and imposed a form of it from the top.


----------



## DavidA

Xaltotun said:


> Well, if he didn't, there would be one less Wagner fan in the world then. But I quite believe that he did; he participated in the Dresden uprising in 1848 and all. I do believe that he was out to change the world.


Lenin also participated in an uprising to change the world. It proves nothing of his intentions.


----------



## Xaltotun

DavidA said:


> Lenin also participated in an uprising to change the world. It proves nothing of his intentions.


Very much true; I should have added that from what I know of Wagner's political affiliations and intentions, I approve of them. The same about Lenin, too, but maybe we shouldn't stray that much into the territory of politics.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

I must admit that out of all Wagner's biography, his 1848 activities used to seem the most suspicious to me. You know, a left-winger with a bent towards socialism - from a modern point of view those things are hardly compatible with the kind of deeply rooted in native history and national soul music dramas he created. The modern lefties hate the idea of both nation-state and national soul and despise their own history. But Wagner's own views and activities were about nation-building, not nation-destroying.


----------



## DavidA

SiegendesLicht said:


> I must admit that out of all Wagner's biography, his 1848 activities used to seem the most suspicious to me. You know, a left-winger with a bent towards socialism - from a modern point of view those things are hardly compatible with the kind of deeply rooted in native history and national soul music dramas he created. The modern lefties hate the idea of both nation-state and national soul and despise their own history. But Wagner's own views and activities were about nation-building, not nation-destroying.


I wouldn't let that worry you. I went to an ultra-left university in the days of student unrest. Most of the left-wing activists soon succumbed to the lure of capitalism in the real world. As did RW with a crazy king as his patron. What can be less left-wing than that?


----------



## DavidA

Xaltotun said:


> Very much true; I should have added that from what I know of Wagner's political affiliations and intentions, I approve of them. The same about Lenin, too, but maybe we shouldn't stray that much into the territory of politics.


One thing about Lenin. He makes Wagner look quite saintly by comparison!


----------



## SiegendesLicht

DavidA said:


> One thing about Lenin. He makes Wagner look quite saintly by comparison!


Lenin was a murderous scumbag who brought nothing but grief, disaster and ruin to his country. Wagner was a great music master who has brought joy and inspiration to countless people with his music. How can anyone even compare the two?


----------



## Aries

SiegendesLicht said:


> I must admit that out of all Wagner's biography, his 1848 activities used to seem the most suspicious to me. You know, a left-winger with a bent towards socialism - from a modern point of view those things are hardly compatible with the kind of deeply rooted in native history and national soul music dramas he created.


Modern viewers are usually stupid. Look at what music they like. In this time the conservatives were "right", because their seats were placed at the right in the parliaments. The conservatives were against nationalism, socialism and liberalism and pro aristocracy and the sectionalistic status quo.



SiegendesLicht said:


> The modern lefties hate the idea of both nation-state and national soul and despise their own history.


Das ist ein deutsches Phänomen. In Frankreich z. B. bringt man die französische Seele eher mit linken Sachen aus der französischen Revolution in Verbindung. Völkischer sind die allerdings keineswegs, denn da kriegt auch jeder Neger mit der Geburt eine französische Staatsbürgerschaft. Besser als in Deutschland sieht es da keineswegs aus.



SiegendesLicht said:


> But Wagner's own views and activities were about nation-building, not nation-destroying.


Hitlers intention was not nation-destroying. But his actions were just too risky.


----------



## Guest

SiegendesLicht said:


> The modern lefties hate the idea of both nation-state and national soul and despise their own history.


By all means express your political opinions (though TC probably frowns upon such things in excess). But there's no need to resort to exaggeration ('hate'), generalisation and misrepresentation (_all _modern lefties 'hate' and 'despise'?) and abuse by diminution ('lefties').

Thank you.


----------



## Musician

Wagner did more then say a few anti semitic words, he actually wrote a book called 'The Jews and their Music' where he racially attacks the Jews, very terribly, and everyone knows today that this book was a total diatribe....his assertion that Jews don't have talent...Mendelssohn , Mahler, Alkan, have no talent? you have to be a hateful person to suggest that, and that's exactly what he was, hateful.


----------



## Petwhac

Aries said:


> Hitlers intention was not nation-destroying. But his actions were just too risky.


Yeah, not much fun in Stalingrad. Shame! :lol::lol:


----------



## Aries

Musician said:


> his assertion that Jews don't have talent...Mendelssohn , Mahler, Alkan, have no talent?


Mendelssohn? Yes! I don't see where Mendelsson showed talent.


----------



## Mahlerian

Musician said:


> Wagner did more then say a few anti semitic words, he actually wrote a book called 'The Jews and their Music' where he racially attacks the Jews, very terribly, and everyone knows today that this book was a total diatribe....his assertion that Jews don't have talent...Mendelssohn , Mahler, Alkan, have no talent? you have to be a hateful person to suggest that, and that's exactly what he was, hateful.


Wagner never met Mahler (although it was a close thing) and certainly never heard any of his music.

And it was a hateful pamphlet, not a hateful book.


----------



## Petwhac

Aries said:


> Mendelssohn? Yes! I don't see where Mendelsson showed talent.


The octet for a start.

............


----------



## Vesteralen

This anti-Mendelssohn stuff always reminds me of the scene from "The Miracle of the White Stallions" where Kurt Jurgens is playing the piano in the house and Lilli Palmer thanks him for the beautiful piece.

Jurgens: Thank you..it's not often I get to play anymore....You know, we've just broken the law. The music of Mendelssohn is forbidden

Palmer: I'd forgotten

Jurgens: Of course you have. Who can remember.....such things


----------



## DavidA

Aries said:


> Mendelssohn? Yes! I don't see where Mendelsson showed talent.


Oh dear! .


----------



## Musician

Mendelssohn had no talent?

Well Wagner disagrees with your assertion, while in his anti semitic book 'The Jews in Music' he does try to tarnish all the creative abilities of Jewish composers, in secret we know of a completely different Wagner, as he relayed to the famous German conductor Han Von Below in a private conversation :" Mendelssohn is the greatest musical genius Since Mozart'. So Wagner knew perfectly the greatness of Mendelssohn, but what can he do, he was sick with anti semitism, and his hate made him say things that he even didnt really believe, he understood that he was speaking nonsense, but such is the nature of hate, its irrational.

Another famous quote is from Brahms, where he said of Mendelssohn : "I will be ready to give up all my works, if I could have composed a work such as Mendelssohn's Hebrides'...

So does anyone believe that Brahms would have been ready to give up all his works just for the ability to compose one great work of the 'untalented' Mendelssohn?

The simple truth is that there was never in the history of Western classical music a Greater musical genius then Mendelssohn. His Octet and Mid summer's overture written at 16, and 17 have dominated the very top of human musical achievement, and until this very day the world has never had another Felix Mendelssohn.

No composer had anything of this greatness to offer at that age, this is a simple fact.


----------



## Blancrocher

Musician said:


> Another famous quote is from Brahms, where he said of Mendelssohn : "I will be ready to give up all my works, if I could have composed a work such as Mendelssohn's Hebrides'...
> 
> So does anyone believe that Brahms would have been ready to give up all his works just for the ability to compose one great work of the 'untalented' Mendelssohn?


No--but I don't think Brahms _really_ thought that either!

(Interesting quote nonetheless.)


----------



## DavidA

Blancrocher said:


> No--but I don't think Brahms _really_ thought that either!
> 
> (Interesting quote nonetheless.)


What grounds have you got for this statement? A special insight into the mind of Brahms?


----------



## Blancrocher

DavidA said:


> What grounds have you got for this statement? A special insight into the mind of Brahms?


I apologize to everyone for offering an ungrounded opinion about a historical matter in this thread. It was really only a hunch--I don't pretend to have special knowledge of Brahms' mind.


----------



## mmsbls

This thread is about Wagner (a musician) and whether his views on Jews constitute racism, jealousy, or both. The thread has veered off topic to discuss subjects that often lead to infractions or closing threads. Please refrain from that discussion and get back to the OP. Many recent posts have been deleted in an effort to lessen the chance that the thread will be closed and/or infractions are issued.


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## Musician

Well Brahms really said and believed that.


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## Musician

As for the opinion that one can separate the artist from his art, I can't think of a more offensive thing to say to an artist, hey I like your art but not you. I can't separate the art from the artist, I believe its impossible, and if one would say that I like Wagner's music but not his views and ideas, and world outlook, then he should really think deeply if he does agree or disagree with Wagner's views.


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## Guest

Musician said:


> I can't think of a more offensive thing to say to an artist, hey I like your art but not you. I can't separate the art from the artist,


I'm sure there's plenty of worse things...but in any case, what are the chances of meeting the artist and telling him so? At a distance, I think it's quite easy to enjoy an artist's creative output without enjoying their politics.


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## Petwhac

Musician said:


> As for the opinion that one can separate the artist from his art, I can't think of a more offensive thing to say to an artist, hey I like your art but not you. I can't separate the art from the artist, I believe its impossible, and if one would say that I like Wagner's music but not his views and ideas, and world outlook, then he should really think deeply if he does agree or disagree with Wagner's views.


Surely you can't be serious. 
A composer's social, political, religious, sexual, culinary or sartorial preferences, opinions or leanings have no affect on my enjoyment of their music. Thankfully.
Whatever the composer did or said in their life, the music is the music. It moves me or it doesn't. Personally I find Wagner's music compellingly wonderful and intensely emotional (most of the time) and I couldn't care less that he was a flawed person with ignorant and bigoted views. Though it would be nice if he could also have been a stand up guy.

Unlike some members in this thread I don't feel the need to defend the indefensible and hero worship the _man_.
I believe my appreciation of his music is greater than those who just 'buy-in' to his whole persona and ideology.

And for the record, Beethoven who was thrice the composer of Wagner and ten times the man, has more than one question mark against his personality.


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## Musician

To say these things are simple when you don't have an emotional connection to the situation. But ask someone who's entire family was butchered by the Nazis, whether he like Wagner's music or not, and you'll get a totally different perspective. I know, why should you care what Wagner said in his writings about the Jews, all you can do is say that you don't agree with him, but why not 'enjoy' his music? well, that's easy for you to say, cause what is your emotional attachment to this whole thing? next to nothing. But those who have felt on their bodies and souls the awesome power of hate speeches and hateful rhetoric have a different take on these matters, and will tell you that they can't separate the artist from his art, and who are you to judge them for taking this position? Almost everything in this world is judged through the subjective experience of the individual. And some because of their experiences in life, and how those events have influenced them one way or another, will have strong opinions on these issues. I personally have stated clearly that I can't separate Wagner the Anti Semite from Wagner the Composer. If you can, then you really 'can', but for me its impossible.



Petwhac said:


> Surely you can't be serious.
> A composer's social, political, religious, sexual, culinary or sartorial preferences, opinions or leanings have no affect on my enjoyment of their music. Thankfully.
> Whatever the composer did or said in their life, the music is the music. It moves me or it doesn't. Personally I find Wagner's music compellingly wonderful and intensely emotional (most of the time) and I couldn't care less that he was a flawed person with ignorant and bigoted views. Though it would be nice if he could also have been a stand up guy.
> 
> Unlike some members in this thread I don't feel the need to defend the indefensible and hero worship the _man_.
> I believe my appreciation of his music is greater than those who just 'buy-in' to his whole persona and ideology.
> 
> And for the record, Beethoven who was thrice the composer of Wagner and ten times the man, has more than one question mark against his personality.


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## Petwhac

Musician said:


> To say these things are simple when you don't have an emotional connection to the situation. But ask someone who's entire family was butchered by the Nazis, whether he like Wagner's music or not, and you'll get a totally different perspective. I know, why should you care what Wagner said in his writings about the Jews, all you can do is say that you don't agree with him, but why not 'enjoy' his music? well, that's easy for you to say, cause what is your emotional attachment to this whole thing? next to nothing. But those who have felt on their bodies and souls the awesome power of hate speeches and hateful rhetoric have a different take on these matters, and will tell you that they can't separate the artist from his art, and who are you to judge them for taking this position? Almost everything in this world is judged through the subjective experience of the individual. And some because of their experiences in life, and how those events have influenced them one way or another, will have strong opinions on these issues. I personally have stated clearly that I can't separate Wagner the Anti Semite from Wagner the Composer. If you can, then you really 'can', but for me its impossible.


How do you know I don't have an emotional connection to the situation. I have not told you of my personal family background because I am approaching the subject philosophically and as a mater of general principal. As it has been pointed out many times in this thread and others, Wagner was not responsible for the atrocities of the Nazi's though he displayed the same bigotry and prejudice which the Nazi's preyed on and exploited. These were not attitudes exclusive to him. Wagner was championed by the Nazis but so were all great German/Austrian composers though to a lesser extent. 
I am not judging those who can't listen to Wagner without their knowledge of his writings getting in the way but I do feel they are the ones who are missing out. Many Jews love his music, that is plain to see.


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## KenOC

This issue of not listening to a composer's music because you don't like his views suggests a question: Where do you draw the line? If you refuse entirely to listen to the anti-Semite Wagner, then how do you listen to Beethoven? With the volume turned down real low?


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## Ondine

A general question for a thread that is not of my taste:

How is it possible to compose instrumental music that 'sounds' anti-Semite? We need to do methaphysics.

If we play a Wagner's CD to somebody that do not know that Wagner even existed nor anti-Semitism, but we just play the CD, will that person become anti-Semite?


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## ArtMusic

Ondine said:


> A general question for a thread that is not of my taste:
> 
> How is it possible to compose instrumental music that 'sounds' anti-Semite? We need to do methaphysics.
> 
> If we play a Wagner's CD to somebody that do not know that Wagner even existed nor anti-Semitism, but we just play the CD, will that person become anti-Semite?


I first listened to some Wagner when I was 6 or 7 years old. Knew nothing about Wagner the person. Went through school, and made lots of friends with Jews, Africans, Asians, South Americans, Europeans etc.

Short answer is a simple no.


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## Musician

Well, Beethoven had a Jewish girlfriend, some say his 'immortal beloved' was dedicated to that secret Jewess...
http://www.badeagle.com/2011/12/19/rahel-levin-beethovens-jewish-girlfriend/

And said all this, if Beethoven was anti semitic, he was rather a passive one, and his classical anti semitism never became some kind of a national objective, he was just a victim of propaganda, and he never let his ignorance of the Jewish people form any clear policy or movement, as Wagner did. Wagner made it his mission to speak nonsense on the Jews, I mean can you imagine how hateful you have to be to write books on the Jews vilifying them for no good reason, especially when everything he said were total lies, Wagner knew he was telling lies, but again he couldnt control his sickness...



KenOC said:


> This issue of not listening to a composer's music because you don't like his views suggests a question: Where do you draw the line? If you refuse entirely to listen to the anti-Semite Wagner, then how do you listen to Beethoven? With the volume turned down real low?


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## Musician

But said all this, this whole subject is rather a very deep one, and we are touching just the tip of the iceberg, much more needs to be said and explained, but I'm afraid that these things would lead us to other destinations, but without explaining those things that may seem marginal at first, we would never fully get the entire picture of why Wagner did what he did, and the root causes of the entire anti semitic movement in Germany (hint the Lutheran Reform Movement, and Martin Luther)


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## Musician

Read my reply to KenOC on the bottom...



Petwhac said:


> How do you know I don't have an emotional connection to the situation. I have not told you of my personal family background because I am approaching the subject philosophically and as a mater of general principal. As it has been pointed out many times in this thread and others, Wagner was not responsible for the atrocities of the Nazi's though he displayed the same bigotry and prejudice which the Nazi's preyed on and exploited. These were not attitudes exclusive to him. Wagner was championed by the Nazis but so were all great German/Austrian composers though to a lesser extent.
> I am not judging those who can't listen to Wagner without their knowledge of his writings getting in the way but I do feel they are the ones who are missing out. Many Jews love his music, that is plain to see.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I can't think of a more offensive thing to say to an artist, hey I like your art but not you. I can't separate the art from the artist, I believe its impossible...

That is a shortcoming on your part. The art and the artist are not one and the same, but many have been seduced by what has been termed the "cult of personality" in which the achievements of an individual are confused with his or her biography. This is owed largely to the thinking of the Romantics, which placed the artist and his or her feelings at the center of the art, as well as Sigmund Freud, who wrongly assumed that all art is autobiographical... even if these autobiographical elements are wholly subconscious. This is especially dangerous in the realm of politics... but in art it has led, for example to an inability to look at paintings of Van Gogh or listen to the music of Wagner and Beethoven... without taking into consideration their biographies. This has resulted in a prejudice for or against certain artists based not upon their art, but rather upon how it is imagined this art is revelatory of their personal biography.


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## StlukesguildOhio

And for the record, Beethoven who was thrice the composer of Wagner...

I wouldn't go that far.


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## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> This issue of not listening to a composer's music because you don't like his views suggests a question: Where do you draw the line? If you refuse entirely to listen to the anti-Semite Wagner, then how do you listen to Beethoven? With the volume turned down real low?


Well, Beethoven of all people should understand people listening to music at low volume.


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## StlukesguildOhio

To say these things are simple when you don't have an emotional connection to the situation. But ask someone who's entire family was butchered by the Nazis, whether he like Wagner's music or not, and you'll get a totally different perspective.

What you are speaking of is the interpretation of the audience... not something inherent in Wagner's music. Oscar Wilde... who was never wrong about anything ... certainly not Art... wrote:

_The artist is the creator of beautiful things. 
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. 
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography...

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. 
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all...

The artist can express everything. 
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. 
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art...

All art is at once surface and symbol. 
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. 
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. 
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors._

For you or another to interpret Wagner's music in light of his personal shortcomings... let alone historical events that occurred some 50 years after his death... has nothing to do with the music... but rather mirrors your thinking as the spectator.

But those who have felt on their bodies and souls the awesome power of hate speeches and hateful rhetoric have a different take on these matters, and will tell you that they can't separate the artist from his art, and who are you to judge them for taking this position? Almost everything in this world is judged through the subjective experience of the individual. And some because of their experiences in life, and how those events have influenced them one way or another, will have strong opinions on these issues.

And what is the difference between those who cannot separate the artist from the art due to their personal experiences as victims of antisemitism... and those who could not separate the artist from the art due to their racist and antisemitic beliefs? In both instances, the individual is imposing their personal feelings upon an inanimate work of art based upon their interpretation of the artist's biography... based upon the "cult of personality."


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## Musician

This is just a world play, the bottom line is the people are making their own personal choices regarding many issues, and based on their own objective interpretations and experiences, this is just the way it is, and this is perfectly understandable and legitimate and is based on common sense.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> To say these things are simple when you don't have an emotional connection to the situation. But ask someone who's entire family was butchered by the Nazis, whether he like Wagner's music or not, and you'll get a totally different perspective.
> 
> What you are speaking of is the interpretation of the audience... not something inherent in Wagner's music. Oscar Wilde... who was never wrong about anything ... certainly not Art... wrote:
> 
> _The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
> To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
> The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
> The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography...
> 
> There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
> Books are well written, or badly written. That is all...
> 
> The artist can express everything.
> Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
> Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art...
> 
> All art is at once surface and symbol.
> Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
> Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
> It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors._
> 
> For you or another to interpret Wagner's music in light of his personal shortcomings... let alone historical events that occurred some 50 years after his death... has nothing to do with the music... but rather mirrors your thinking as the spectator.
> 
> But those who have felt on their bodies and souls the awesome power of hate speeches and hateful rhetoric have a different take on these matters, and will tell you that they can't separate the artist from his art, and who are you to judge them for taking this position? Almost everything in this world is judged through the subjective experience of the individual. And some because of their experiences in life, and how those events have influenced them one way or another, will have strong opinions on these issues.
> 
> And what is the difference between those who cannot separate the artist from the art due to their personal experiences as victims of antisemitism... and those who could not separate the artist from the art due to their racist and antisemitic beliefs? In both instances, the individual is imposing their personal feelings upon an inanimate work of art based upon their interpretation of the artist's biography... based upon the "cult of personality."


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## Sid James

Musician said:


> To say these things are simple when you don't have an emotional connection to the situation. But ask someone who's entire family was butchered by the Nazis, whether he like Wagner's music or not, and you'll get a totally different perspective. ...


I know what you mean, but you look at someone like Sir Georg Solti, who was the first to do Wagner in stereo, his family where all murdered by the Nazis. Solti didn't hold back on expressing what he thought where the less than desirable aspects of those cultures of Mitteleuropa - not only Austria, which he said was the most anti-Semitic place on the planet - but also his native Hungary where the most Jews where killed in terms of numbers, around 600,000. Of course he wasn't happy about that, but ultimately he as an individual at least had to separate from the music the fact that Wagner's views (rassenkunde) where pretty much precursors of Nazi racialist ideology.

Another struggle Solti went through was Shostakovich. Hungarians where never fans of Russians, and after the 1956 uprising was so brutally crushed by Soviet troops, Solti did all he could to avoid Shostakovich's music. But at the end of his life, Solti realised that the Russian people where victims of Stalinism, same as Hungarians and others under Soviet control where. So he made some acclaimed Shostakovich recordings right at the end of his career, Baby Yar being one, which he said was the composer's finest symphony. Of course that work confronts anti-Semitism pretty much head on. Solti realised that a lot of Shostakovich's music had double meaning, on one front it was seemingly going along with the regime, on other levels it was very subversive.

And look, I as a listener have gone through similar questionings of classical music as a whole The fact, for one thing, that not only Wagner but many composers where politically and morally repulsive to me. But I had to deal with this, and I think many listeners and musicians do that, when you are confronted with the Western classical tradition it is part of history, and some very unpleasant things happened during that history, no doubt about it.

The other thing is that Wagner at the end was near atonal (in Parsifal, for example). He streched tonality to the limit and others - eg. Schoenberg - would continue that trend in the 20th century. These where the very people the Nazis called degenerate. It is ironic that, in terms of the Nazis being largely against Modern and particularly atonal music, who was the daddy or grand-daddy of that music? Who did the Second Viennese School revere most? Wagner! But in any case, trying to bring logic into things such as Nazi cultural policy is fruitless. It was of course corrupt like the whole regime and riddled with contradictions.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Well, Beethoven had a Jewish girlfriend, some say his 'immortal beloved' was dedicated to that secret Jewess...

And Wagner had at least two Jewish mistresses and several close friends/acquaintances who were Jewish, including Hermann Levi, who Wagner personally chose to conduct the premier of _Parsifal_.

Beethoven and Wagner... and Chopin, and quite likely most composers prior to the 20th century were all antisemitic. Most would also have been xenophobic, racist, and sexist by today's standards.

And said all this, if Beethoven was anti semitic, he was rather a passive one, and his classical anti semitism never became some kind of a national objective, he was just a victim of propaganda, and he never let his ignorance of the Jewish people form any clear policy or movement...

How did Wagner's antisemitic rants form any policy of movement? Are you suggesting that antisemitism wasn't already rampant throughout Europe... Russia, Poland, France, Italy, Spain, and England... as well as Germany? You seem willing to forgive Beethoven's antisemitism as the result of propaganda... How is Wagner different?

Wagner made it his mission to speak nonsense on the Jews, I mean can you imagine how hateful you have to be to write books on the Jews vilifying them for no good reason...

Obviously Wagner thought he had good reasons. He was frustrated over his personal failures and the continued success of what he deemed "shallow" music. He was outraged over the continued negative criticism put forth by Eduoard Hanslick, the most powerful critic of the day... who happened to be Jewish. He was angered over the political turmoil in Germany that he blamed upon "outsiders"... the French as well as Jewish industrialists... and this took on a personal tone when he was banned from Germany for a period of ten years.

None of this forgives Wagner. Even if he hadn't been antisemitic, he would have remained a jerk... and quite likely not someone I'd like to meet. But he also composed some of the most brilliant music ever.


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## StlukesguildOhio

This is just a world play, the bottom line is the people are making their own personal choices regarding many issues, and based on their own objective interpretations and experiences, this is just the way it is, and this is perfectly understandable and legitimate and is based on common sense.

Wordplay? All debates involve the use of words. If you fear the power of words and cannot offer a good rebuttal to another' arguments perhaps you shouldn't become embroiled in such debates.


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## Musician

Regrettably, there is no shortage of major Jewish Musicians who love and perform Wagner, but that's the choice they made, I personally disagree strongly with that choice, cause I have a different perspective. Solti and Barenboim are two Jewish champions of Wagner's music, but lets get this straight, how exactly Jewish are they? Both are secular, both have liberal world views, both are more European then Jewish, and who's even talking about the pressure of not getting the limelight if they missed out on performing Wagner?

Just look at Barenboim for example, he is Israeli and I'm Israeli too, we both have totally different perspectives about the Middle East conflict, this perspective cuts through all the way to Wagner and other issues. His opinions are his own, he made his decisions and I believe that he is totally wrong, and I could go into the details of why he is wrong, but that's again a very detailed analysis, that could bore you.

Its nice for him to live a luxurious life in Berlin and criticize Israelis who have to live with the brutal reality of living under the constant terrorist threat. Everyone becomes a liberal when the gun is pointing at a different direction then themselves.

The Vast majority of the Jews in the world, understand what Wagner did and not listen to him. The action of a number of intellectuals who are not so Jewish to begin with, doesnt make a difference.



Sid James said:


> I know what you mean, but you look at someone like Sir Georg Solti, who was the first to do Wagner in stereo, his family where all murdered by the Nazis. Solti didn't hold back on expressing what he thought where the less than desirable aspects of those cultures of Mitteleuropa - not only Austria, which he said was the most anti-Semitic place on the planet - but also his native Hungary where the most Jews where killed in terms of numbers, around 600,000. Of course he wasn't happy about that, but ultimately he as an individual at least had to separate from the music the fact that Wagner's views (rassenkunde) where pretty much precursors of Nazi racialist ideology.
> 
> Another struggle Solti went through was Shostakovich. Hungarians where never fans of Russians, and after the 1956 uprising was so brutally crushed by Soviet troops, Solti did all he could to avoid Shostakovich's music. But at the end of his life, Solti realised that the Russian people where victims of Stalinism, same as Hungarians and others under Soviet control where. So he made some acclaimed Shostakovich recordings right at the end of his career, Baby Yar being one, which he said was the composer's finest symphony. Of course that work confronts anti-Semitism pretty much head on. Solti realised that a lot of Shostakovich's music had double meaning, on one front it was seemingly going along with the regime, on other levels it was very subversive.
> 
> And look, I as a listener have gone through similar questionings of classical music as a whole The fact, for one thing, that not only Wagner but many composers where politically and morally repulsive to me. But I had to deal with this, and I think many listeners and musicians do that, when you are confronted with the Western classical tradition it is part of history, and some very unpleasant things happened during that history, no doubt about it.
> 
> The other thing is that Wagner at the end was near atonal (in Parsifal, for example). He streched tonality to the limit and others - eg. Schoenberg - would continue that trend in the 20th century. These where the very people the Nazis called degenerate. It is ironic that, in terms of the Nazis being largely against Modern and particularly atonal music, who was the daddy or grand-daddy of that music? Who did the Second Viennese School revere most? Wagner! But in any case, trying to bring logic into things such as Nazi cultural policy is fruitless. It was of course corrupt like the whole regime and riddled with contradictions.


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## Musician

I'm not forgiving anti semitism but explaining a major difference. Wagner wrote an essay , book what ever you wanna call it where he spewed vicious vituperations against the Jews, blaming them for every ill under the sun. Is this someone I would listen to? no.

Beethoven on the other hand, was not a Jew hater, he simply was not busy with hating Jews. But one can say that the general anti semitic mood that was prevalent in europe had rubbed on him too, and may have poisoned his mind to a degree, but that's not anywhere near to Wagner's Bellicose rants...



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Well, Beethoven had a Jewish girlfriend, some say his 'immortal beloved' was dedicated to that secret Jewess...
> 
> And Wagner had at least two Jewish mistresses and several close friends/acquaintances who were Jewish, including Hermann Levi, who Wagner personally chose to conduct the premier of _Parsifal_.
> 
> Beethoven and Wagner... and Chopin, and quite likely most composers prior to the 20th century were all antisemitic. Most would also have been xenophobic, racist, and sexist by today's standards.
> 
> And said all this, if Beethoven was anti semitic, he was rather a passive one, and his classical anti semitism never became some kind of a national objective, he was just a victim of propaganda, and he never let his ignorance of the Jewish people form any clear policy or movement...
> 
> How did Wagner's antisemitic rants form any policy of movement? Are you suggesting that antisemitism wasn't already rampant throughout Europe... Russia, Poland, France, Italy, Spain, and England... as well as Germany? You seem willing to forgive Beethoven's antisemitism as the result of propaganda... How is Wagner different?
> 
> Wagner made it his mission to speak nonsense on the Jews, I mean can you imagine how hateful you have to be to write books on the Jews vilifying them for no good reason...
> 
> Obviously Wagner thought he had good reasons. He was frustrated over his personal failures and the continued success of what he deemed "shallow" music. He was outraged over the continued negative criticism put forth by Eduoard Hanslick, the most powerful critic of the day... who happened to be Jewish. He was angered over the political turmoil in Germany that he blamed upon "outsiders"... the French as well as Jewish industrialists... and this took on a personal tone when he was banned from Germany for a period of ten years.
> 
> None of this forgives Wagner. Even if he hadn't been antisemitic, he would have remained a jerk... and quite likely not someone I'd like to meet. But he also composed some of the most brilliant music ever.


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## StlukesguildOhio

The Vast majority of the Jews in the world, understand what Wagner did and not listen to him. The action of a number of intellectuals who are not so Jewish to begin with...

So those Jews who are of a different viewpoint than yourself are simply "not Jewish enough"...?

Rather like the composers who Wagner disliked weren't "German enough?"

As for the "vast majority of Jews in the world..." ??? You do realize that there are nearly as many Jews in the United States as in Israel... a great many of whom are quite liberal in many ways... including their thoughts on Wagner.


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## Musician

Where did I say that if a Jew doesnt agree with me he is not a Jew enough?

I said that their 'assertions' do not reflect the mainstream Jewish position on this issue, there are a number of reasons.

Firstly because they are not really what I would call mainstream Jews. Look at Barenboim, what's so Jewish about him? he lives in Berlin, totally secular, has no knowledge of basic Jewish theology and history, his entire Jewishness can be summed up to the fact that he was born to Jewish parents, that's about it. So why should his opinion be considered the mainstream Jewish position?

As for atheist liberal Jews who have no connection to Judaism, their opinion doesnt have any power or merit, when it comes to Jewish matters of this significance. When you don't know a word of hebrew, and don't believe in your history, or religion, when you always support the enemies of your people and couldnt care less if Israel disappeared , then your Jewishness is extremely weak, and been born to Jewish parents is just not enough. Jesus was also Jewish for example, but trust me his opinion has zero influence on Jewish life and Jewish point of view.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> The Vast majority of the Jews in the world, understand what Wagner did and not listen to him. The action of a number of intellectuals who are not so Jewish to begin with...
> 
> So those Jews who are of a different viewpoint than yourself are simply "not Jewish enough"...?
> 
> Rather like the composers who Wagner disliked weren't "German enough?"
> 
> As for the "vast majority of Jews in the world..." ??? You do realize that there are nearly as many Jews in the United States as in Israel... a great many of whom are quite liberal in many ways... including their thoughts on Wagner.


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## KenOC

Musician said:


> I'm not forgiving anti semitism but explaining a major difference. Wagner wrote an essay , book what ever you wanna call it where he spewed vicious vituperations against the Jews, blaming them for every ill under the sun. Is this someone I would listen to? no.


You may want to read Wagner's writing before making such comments on it, to clarify your views if nothing else. The original is difficult going, but you can find a pretty accurate paraphrase here:

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/wagner-on-judaism-in-music


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## Musician

Well, that's what he believed, anti semites believe that the Jews are responsible for all the worlds problems. Or are you trying to say that Wagner was not anti semitic, or even better, are you trying to give a new definition to the word antisemitism?


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## Sid James

Musician said:


> Regrettably, there is no shortage of major Jewish Musicians who love and perform Wagner, but that's the choice they made, I personally disagree strongly with that choice, cause I have a different perspective. Solti and Barenboim are two Jewish champions of Wagner's music, but lets get this straight, how exactly Jewish are they? Both are secular, both have liberal world views, both are more European then Jewish, and who's even talking about the pressure of not getting the limelight if they missed out on performing Wagner?...


Well what you are addressing there, I think, is that issue of the Jews of the diaspora having differences with those who live in Israel and who have lived there for many generations, going way back. There is that tension between those who are cosmopolitan and those more kind of nationalist, for want of a better word. I know there are many divisions in Israel along all sorts of lines, and not only among Israelis and Palestinians, but also within those communities, between Israelis there are big debates about many things. The role of religion in society for example. Of course you would know this more than I living there.

I think these are interesting issues, but they kind of go outside this thread. I can talk with more knowledge of Solti than Barenboim. Solti, like other Hungarian Jews, was pretty much integrated into the wider culture. Many Jews there would not have known how to speak Hebrew, for example, or not that much of it. Some would have practised the religion but not rigorously, others would have been non-practicioners. Many Jews in Central and Eastern Europe before 1945 patronised the opera houses, and they heard all operas, including those of Wagner. There was also a good deal of intermarriage, for example Bartok was partially Jewish. What I'm saying is that Jews where part of Europe, so of course Solti would have seen Wagner's music to be part of classical music like any other composer. Nazism would have tested his view of Wagner, and I know that he said that even in the decade or so after the war, there was still a lot of anti-Semitism around. But even his generation had to kind of get over things to move on with thier lives, with their careers. Solti worked closely in the immediate post-war years with Richard Strauss, for example, who had been quite close to the Nazi regime, serving under them in an official capacity and conducting at Bayreuth. However, Strauss was never a member of the Nazi party.

This whole area is riddled with questions and I don't think these will go away or be resolved. It is important to have these conversations though, I think. I must emphasise though that I have little time for Wagner and his music, however I do acknowledge him as a great innovator and as a great composer of opera. I am trying to look at this issue from different perspectives. I can tell you I am pretty scathing of many composers, however ultimately I come back to their music and am in many ways fascinated by their lives and the times in which they lived. Its a matter of looking at things holistically, not doing whitewash of composers or indeed the cultures from which they came, and sometimes these things bring up more questions than answers. That's the way it is, and I have come to accept these types of contradictions. Probably people like Solti, who was personally affected by the Shoah, they where forced to do the same to get on with making music. Ultimately thats what counts, I suppose.


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## Musician

But to explain this even further, the absurdity of this entire affair with Wagner and his attacks on Mendelssohn is that its entirely possible, that Felix Mendelssohn was more German then Wagner to begin with, so it should have been Mendelssohn writing books against Wagner and not the other way around. Why?

The Jewish community of Germany is extremely ancient and dates back to the arrival of a portion of the Tribe of Benjamin to Germany some 3000 years ago. Furthermore, German Jews, were 'local residents' meaning they pretty much stayed in Germany for that long. On the other hand where is the record of Wagner's family been German for that long? it could be that he was really a flying dutchman, or a frenchman to begin with? who knows, maybe he had a frenchman in his ancestry who emigrated to germany 500 years ago? can anyone prove the pureness of the Germanic roots of Wagner?

But Mendelssohn's family was a local member of the German Jewish community for 3000 years, in my book that's more German then Wagner's claims of Germanic racial pureness...


----------



## KenOC

Musician said:


> Well, that's what he believed, anti semites believe that the Jews are responsible for all the worlds problems. Or are you trying to say that Wagner was not anti semitic, or even better, are you trying to give a new definition to the word antisemitism?


I'm trying to say that you should read what he wrote. But if that's too much trouble, then never mind.


----------



## Musician

I read it, and he is still an anti semite



KenOC said:


> I'm trying to say that you should read what he wrote. But if that's too much trouble, then never mind.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Where did I say that if a Jew doesnt agree with me he is not a Jew enough?

It doesn't seem to difficult to see how your comments dismissing the opinions of Jews not fitting your concept of what a proper Jew is might be deemed as suggesting as much.

I said that their 'assertions' do not reflect the mainstream Jewish position on this issue...

What is the "mainstream Jewish position?" There are more Jews living in Europe, the United States, and Canada than there are in Israel. By sheer numbers, they may just represent the mainstream.

they are not really what I would call mainstream Jews.

And of course you determine just who or what are the mainstream Jews.

Look at Barenboim, what's so Jewish about him? he lives in Berlin, totally secular, has no knowledge of basic Jewish theology and history, his entire Jewishness can be summed up to the fact that he was born to Jewish parents, that's about it. So why should his opinion be considered the mainstream Jewish position?

Or might it be possible that you are not part of the mainstream, but rather the far Orthodox reactionary right, while Barenboim represents a far more mainstream idea of Jewishness today?

As for atheist liberal Jews who have no connection to Judaism, their opinion doesnt have any power or merit, when it comes to Jewish matters of this significance.

Well... isn't that convenient. And I guess all the Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, etc... in the US should not have any say whatsoever regarding significant questions of the separation of Church and State.

When you don't know a word of hebrew, and don't believe in your history, or religion, when you always support the enemies of your people and couldnt care less if Israel disappeared , then your Jewishness is extremely weak...

So again... only those who take an Orthodox or Conservative view of Religion, Hebrew culture and language, and the political disputes involving Israel are "Jewish enough" so that their opinion holds any worth?


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## Musician

Wikipedia: Wagner

"There is evidence that music of Wagner was used at the Dachau concentration camp in 1933/4 to 'reeducate' political prisoners by exposure to 'national music"...

Foot note 35, read up


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## KenOC

Musician said:


> I read it, and he is still an anti semite


Well, I'm glad you read it. And yes, he was very anti-Semitic, if that was ever in question.


----------



## Musician

Yea, Barenboim doesnt keep one single Jewish commandment and he is more mainstream then the Jews who actually keep Judaism?

Interesting outlook on life, that's like saying that those who eat sweets are more worried about the health of their teeth then dentists...



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Where did I say that if a Jew doesnt agree with me he is not a Jew enough?
> 
> It doesn't seem to difficult to see how your comments dismissing the opinions of Jews not fitting your concept of what a proper Jew is might be deemed as suggesting as much.
> 
> I said that their 'assertions' do not reflect the mainstream Jewish position on this issue...
> 
> What is the "mainstream Jewish position?" There are more Jews living in Europe, the United States, and Canada than there are in Israel. By sheer numbers, they may just represent the mainstream.
> 
> they are not really what I would call mainstream Jews.
> 
> And of course you determine just who or what are the mainstream Jews.
> 
> Look at Barenboim, what's so Jewish about him? he lives in Berlin, totally secular, has no knowledge of basic Jewish theology and history, his entire Jewishness can be summed up to the fact that he was born to Jewish parents, that's about it. So why should his opinion be considered the mainstream Jewish position?
> 
> Or might it be possible that you are not part of the mainstream, but rather the far Orthodox reactionary right, while Barenboim represents a far more mainstream idea of Jewishness today?
> 
> As for atheist liberal Jews who have no connection to Judaism, their opinion doesnt have any power or merit, when it comes to Jewish matters of this significance.
> 
> Well... isn't that convenient. And I guess all the Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, etc... in the US should not have any say whatsoever regarding significant questions of the separation of Church and State.
> 
> When you don't know a word of hebrew, and don't believe in your history, or religion, when you always support the enemies of your people and couldnt care less if Israel disappeared , then your Jewishness is extremely weak...
> 
> So again... only those who take an Orthodox or Conservative view of Religion, Hebrew culture and language, and the political disputes involving Israel are "Jewish enough" so that their opinion holds any worth?


----------



## samurai

As a so called "secular Jew"--a title I am proud to call myself--I wish to point out to my fellow member Musician that I am well aware of anti-semitism and all its loathsome aspects. I have found it in my civilian life as well as in the military. I have nothing but respect and admiration for Israel and her people, and I believe she is our best ally in the Middle East, 
Having said this, however, I must say that I resent the implication that I am somehow "less Jewish" because I never had a Bar Mitzvah and can't read/speak Hebrew or Yiddish. I believe that it is a person's moral values and he/she treats other people in the real world which determines whether they are truly a good person or not. Whether one believes that there is a God or not should not be a criterion on judging whether a person is ethical or not; he/she still has to interact with his fellow human beings in a moral and honorable way, to the fullest extent possible. 
Some other points on this topic: The fact that I was only a "secular Jew" who didn't wear a yarmulke or go to Hebrew school never stopped--not for a New York minute--the fact that I still had to fight my share of ignoramuses who called my best friend and me{who was religious} "dirty *****". Also, I am quite sure if this country were ever to be taken over by a Nazi-like government, people like me will be amongst the first to be rounded up, as well as the Orthodox Jews of Williamsburg, the Lower East Side and other heavily Jewish parts of NYC. You see, just as much as their mothers, my mother is also Jewish--though she was not religious--and , in the end, that is all that really counts.


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## Musician

Samurai, there is no such a thing as 'lesser Jew' I have never said or insinuated that, but when one doesnt keep the Jewish faith, and is not practicing it, and doesn't believe in Jewish history, things like the Exodus and the parting of the sea, are the foundations of Jewish civilization, and if you refuse to believe your own history, then how exactly are you Jewish? having Jewish parents is an ethnical thing, but that doesnt mean that your opinion is a Jewish opinion. Just like someone would claim that he knows math and everyone should take his assertions on mathematics seriously just because his mom teaches algebra at the local college and his dad writes thesis work on mathematics. With all due respect, but you cant be taken seriously on matters of mathematics if you dont believe in mathematics and view its foundations as a bluff...

You want to be counted? no problem, enroll in your mother's class, and take some courses in mathematics, accept her teachings and get a degree, and then your assertions on mathematics will become the mainstream thought on this subject...



samurai said:


> As a so called "secular Jew"--a title I am proud to call myself--I wish to point out to my fellow member Musician that I am well aware of anti-semitism and all its loathsome aspects. I have found it in my civilian life as well as in the military. I have nothing but respect and admiration for Israel and her people, and I believe she is our best ally in the Middle East,
> Having said this, however, I must say that I resent the implication that I am somehow "less Jewish" because I never had a Bar Mitzvah and can't read/speak Hebrew or Yiddish. I believe that it is a person's moral values and he/she treats other people in the real world which determines whether they are truly a good person or not. Whether one believes that there is a God or not should not be a criterion on judging whether a person is ethical or not; he/she still has to interact with his fellow human beings in a moral and honorable way, to the fullest extent possible.
> Some other points on this topic: The fact that I was only a "secular Jew" who didn't wear a yarmulke or go to Hebrew school never stopped--not for a New York minute--the fact that I still had to fight my share of ignoramuses who called my best friend and me{who was religious} "dirty *****". Also, I am quite sure if this country were ever to be taken over by a Nazi-like government, people like me will be amongst the first to be rounded up, as well as the Orthodox Jews of Williamsburg, the Lower East Side and other heavily Jewish parts of NYC. You see, just as much as their mothers, my mother is also Jewish--though she was not religious--and , in the end, that is all that really counts.


----------



## Guest

Musician said:


> The Jewish community of Germany is extremely ancient and dates back to the arrival of a portion of the Tribe of Benjamin to Germany some 3000 years ago. Furthermore, German Jews, were 'local residents' meaning they pretty much stayed in Germany for that long. On the other hand where is the record of Wagner's family been German for that long? it could be that he was really a flying dutchman, or a frenchman to begin with? who knows, maybe he had a frenchman in his ancestry who emigrated to germany 500 years ago? can anyone prove the pureness of the Germanic roots of Wagner?
> 
> But Mendelssohn's family was a local member of the German Jewish community for 3000 years, in my book that's more German then Wagner's claims of Germanic racial pureness...


Your assertions about the ethnic lineage of German Jews are fascinating: how do you come by them? Is there an authoritative source that can provide convincing evidence of the ethnic origin of two individuals?


----------



## DavidA

Musician said:


> But said all this, this whole subject is rather a very deep one, and we are touching just the tip of the iceberg, much more needs to be said and explained, but I'm afraid that these things would lead us to other destinations, but without explaining those things that may seem marginal at first, we would never fully get the entire picture of why Wagner did what he did, and the root causes of the entire anti semitic movement in Germany (hint the Lutheran Reform Movement, and Martin Luther)


European anti- semitism was rife long before Luther came along.


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## DavidA

StlukesguildOhio said:


> [
> 
> There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
> Books are well written, or badly written. That is all...
> 
> ."


Might just as well say there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action. Just whether or not it is well done.


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Might just as well say there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action. Just whether or not it is well done.


No, not at all .


----------



## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> No, not at all .


Absolutely, if your morality is as relative as that.


----------



## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Might just as well say there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action. Just whether or not it is well done.


Much as I find Wilde amusing and intelligent, I do believe he was a deeply amoral person. But we need a few of those. For instance:


----------



## Guest

DavidA said:


> Absolutely, if your morality is as relative as that.


I'm sorry. I don't understand. Would you explain?


----------



## Petwhac

Musician said:


> Where did I say that if a Jew doesnt agree with me he is not a Jew enough?
> 
> I said that their 'assertions' do not reflect the mainstream Jewish position on this issue, there are a number of reasons.
> 
> Firstly because they are not really what I would call mainstream Jews. Look at Barenboim, what's so Jewish about him? he lives in Berlin, totally secular, has no knowledge of basic Jewish theology and history, his entire Jewishness can be summed up to the fact that he was born to Jewish parents, that's about it. So why should his opinion be considered the mainstream Jewish position?
> 
> As for atheist liberal Jews who have no connection to Judaism, their opinion doesnt have any power or merit, when it comes to Jewish matters of this significance. When you don't know a word of hebrew, and don't believe in your history, or religion, when you always support the enemies of your people and couldnt care less if Israel disappeared , then your Jewishness is extremely weak, and been born to Jewish parents is just not enough. Jesus was also Jewish for example, but trust me his opinion has zero influence on Jewish life and Jewish point of view.


I would like to ask you, Musician , how you come your view that there are degrees of Jewishness? And from what source does your knowledge of what 'mainstream Jews' believe, spring?

How can you say that Barenboim is not _so_ Jewish, that "his Jewishness can be summed up to the fact that he was born to Jewish parents"? Perhaps Barenboim's parents were not _very Jewish_ either or they would have done a better job instilling a love of Judaism greater than a love of music in their son.

You see perhaps you yourself are not a 'mainstream' musician. Perhaps we who consider ourselves to be orthodox music lovers consider you're dismissal of Wagner as proof that you are not _very musical_.

If mainstream Jewishness is a matter of accepting a particular interpretation of history, knowing Hebrew and living in Israel then there are very few mainstream Jews in the world. In fact there isn't much of a stream at all so the mainstream Jewish view of Wagner is fairly inconsequential.
The Taliban in Afghanistan banned music altogether so we don't really care about their opinion on a Chopin prelude. I'm sure if they had their way no Muslims would live in a secular society and enjoy the art of those who were descended from the murderous crusaders. 
If Judaism is first and foremost a set of beliefs like Islam then a convert is just as Jewish as someone whose parents brought them up in the faith, agreed?
If Judaism is to do with ethnicity then an atheist Jew is as Jewish as an observant Jew, agreed?
There are some observant Jews who do not agree with Israel's actions and there are some ultra-orthodox Jews who do not even believe in the state of Israel at all.
What shall we make of all these shades of opinion and blurred delineations?

I am sorry to say that your position on who is 'Jewish enough' to warrant your acceptance is no different from who is 'German' enough to be accepted by Wagner and his fellow nationalists.
It is based on subjective, personal opinion and cannot be proved.

If you choose to view Wagner from a Jewish perspective instead of a musical one that is up to you.
How about viewing Judaism or many other religions from a feminist perspective or a gay rights perspective? 
Imagine if women refused to listen to all the sexist and womanising male composers of the past. What would you say to them. Well unless you're a woman your opinion is worthless anyway agreed?


----------



## SiegendesLicht

Now, that is truly hilarious: a bunch of Jews fighting over who is the more Jewish. Wagner would have laughed so hard... :lol:


----------



## science

SiegendesLicht said:


> Now, that is truly hilarious: a bunch of Jews fighting over who is the more Jewish. Wagner would have laughed so hard... :lol:


Not with a pure heart, either.

I wonder whether Peter Walsh and Joseph Breitkopf went on in exactly this fashion?


----------



## Musician

DavidA said:


> European anti- semitism was rife long before Luther came along.


Note, that I was not speaking of European but rather German anti semitism, who by the way did exist even before Martin Luther, but he was responsible for adding all the gasoline and fumes to a hate that was terrible as it is. His diatribe 'The Jews and their lies' was pretty much responsible for turning casual anti semitism into an eliminatory antisemitism, his actions are tantamount to the charter of Hamas who virtually calls for the wholesale mass murder of every single Jew on earth. No wonder that Wagner and many others who were raised with Luther's diabolic ideas and teachings, have developed a world outlook where they saw the Jews without it. In fact those who were exposed in any way to Luther's venomous lies about the Jews, have first of all found a scapegoat to blame all their problems, and developed an extreme form of anti semitism where the notion of murdering Jews was not such an immoral or strange thing to do. Luther blamed the rise and fall of Germany on the existence of the Jews, suggesting that Germany's problems will never end as long as Jews lived there. How did he reconcile the fact that he worshiped a Jew? well simply, he and his fellow clergymen have simply changed history and facts and claimed that Jesus wasnt a Jew to begin with, how convenient...

What has the peaceful, and talented , successful Ancient Jewish community done to him? a community that did only good, who benefited Germany and contributed to it in every possible way, what did it do to deserve this treatment from Martin?

There goes the saying that no good deed goes unpunished...

But the real question is where did Luther get his inspiration of hating Jews? Simple, when the Christian religion/ bible blames the Jews with murdering God, so its not a wonder that Martin Luther considered the Jews to be devils.

Thank Goodness that in modern times the Catholic Church had absolved the Jews from these lies, and many Christians today are supporters of Israel and the Jews, they have come a long way. But those first teachings in the Christian Bible have inspired many to hate Jews, and had a direct responsibility for spreading anti semitism to the 4 corners of the world.

Again, I'm only touching very briefly on the context of Wagner's anti semitism, this needs much more elaboration....


----------



## Musician

Jewish history teaches for example that only a fifth of all Jews were saved in the Exodus from Egypt, the rest died in the plague of darkness, because they were so engrossed with Egyptian Culture, that to a degree they ceased been Jews all together. You have a situation where you are slave, and then you see a miraculous intervention on your behalf, open miracles are been performed in front of your very eyes and you and your people are been saved, is there any hope for someone that refuses to join the salvation and refuses to accept freedom and rather stay stuck under the yolk of the brutal Egyptian dictatorship?

Yet, that's what exactly happened, when someone is so engrossed in exile, and refuses to do anything that his religion says, refuses to accept his history, and refuses to march towards freedom, then to a degree that person ceases to be a Jew, in the practicing sense, and the only thing that is left in him is his biological connection to the Jews, but as I explained, Jesus for example was also biologically Jewish, but his actions and his teachings when they went contrary to Jewish principals and beliefs, ceased been Jewish completely, and that's why his movement departed from Judaism, and became something else all together.



Petwhac said:


> I would like to ask you, Musician , how you come your view that there are degrees of Jewishness? And from what source does your knowledge of what 'mainstream Jews' believe, spring?
> 
> How can you say that Barenboim is not _so_ Jewish, that "his Jewishness can be summed up to the fact that he was born to Jewish parents"? Perhaps Barenboim's parents were not _very Jewish_ either or they would have done a better job instilling a love of Judaism greater than a love of music in their son.
> 
> You see perhaps you yourself are not a 'mainstream' musician. Perhaps we who consider ourselves to be orthodox music lovers consider you're dismissal of Wagner as proof that you are not _very musical_.
> 
> If mainstream Jewishness is a matter of accepting a particular interpretation of history, knowing Hebrew and living in Israel then there are very few mainstream Jews in the world. In fact there isn't much of a stream at all so the mainstream Jewish view of Wagner is fairly inconsequential.
> The Taliban in Afghanistan banned music altogether so we don't really care about their opinion on a Chopin prelude. I'm sure if they had their way no Muslims would live in a secular society and enjoy the art of those who were descended from the murderous crusaders.
> If Judaism is first and foremost a set of beliefs like Islam then a convert is just as Jewish as someone whose parents brought them up in the faith, agreed?
> If Judaism is to do with ethnicity then an atheist Jew is as Jewish as an observant Jew, agreed?
> There are some observant Jews who do not agree with Israel's actions and there are some ultra-orthodox Jews who do not even believe in the state of Israel at all.
> What shall we make of all these shades of opinion and blurred delineations?
> 
> I am sorry to say that your position on who is 'Jewish enough' to warrant your acceptance is no different from who is 'German' enough to be accepted by Wagner and his fellow nationalists.
> It is based on subjective, personal opinion and cannot be proved.
> 
> If you choose to view Wagner from a Jewish perspective instead of a musical one that is up to you.
> How about viewing Judaism or many other religions from a feminist perspective or a gay rights perspective?
> Imagine if women refused to listen to all the sexist and womanising male composers of the past. What would you say to them. Well unless you're a woman your opinion is worthless anyway agreed?


----------



## Petwhac

Musician said:


> Jewish history teaches for example that only a fifth of all Jews were saved in the Exodus from Egypt, the rest died in the plague of darkness, because they were so engrossed with Egyptian Culture, that to a degree they ceased been Jews all together. You have a situation where you are slave, and then you see a miraculous intervention on your behalf, open miracles are been performed in front of your very eyes and you and your people are been saved, is there any hope for someone that refuses to join the salvation and refuses to accept freedom and rather stay stuck under the yolk of the brutal Egyptian dictatorship?
> 
> Yet, that's what exactly happened, when someone is so engrossed in exile, and refuses to do anything that his religion says, refuses to accept his history, and refuses to march towards freedom, then to a degree that person ceases to be a Jew, in the practicing sense, and the only thing that is left in him is his biological connection to the Jews, but as I explained, Jesus for example was also biologically Jewish, but his actions and his teachings when they went contrary to Jewish principals and beliefs, ceased been Jewish completely, and that's why his movement departed from Judaism, and became something else all together.


But I'm afraid your argument is circular.
We can discount biological Jewishness because it doesn't exist. Your genes and mine will show many markers that can be traced back to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Markers that are shared with people of all 'races' and religions. 
Therefore in order to 'refuse to accept your people's history', you first have to accept your peoples history.

A history that teaches about miracles, divine intervention and God is not a history at all but myth and legend. What is more, it is at odds with other myths and legends that share the same origin.

You may choose to believe what you like and live accordingly but you are not talking_ facts _any more than is the Buddhist who believes the Buddha's mother was impregnated by a white Elephant. Or the Muslim who believes Mohammed was the latest prophet to receive the word of God.


----------



## samurai

SiegendesLicht said:


> Now, that is truly hilarious: a bunch of Jews fighting over who is the more Jewish. Wagner would have laughed so hard... :lol:


@ SiegendesLicht and Musician: The only point I was trying to make--unsuccessfully I guess--is that whether someone like me is "religious" or not and can speak Hebrew. go to temple and knows all the rites etc., etc., I am still Jewish in the sense that I am imbued with Judaism's moral, secular values. As well, these facts never stopped any of the various anti-semites I've had to physically defend myself against in the Army and civilian life from considering me a "Jew boy" and therefore an easy victim/fair game.
Again,I can state quite confidently that--in the final analysis--the fact that I am born of a Jewish mother {who herself had to escape from Romania before Hitler's minions took over} guarantees that I, and my ilk--no less than my Orthodox brothers and sisters --will not escape the ovens should they ever be put in place here.
Note to Musician: My mother has been dead some ten years now, so I guess I can't enroll in any of her classes, math or otherwise.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Your assertions about the ethnic lineage of German Jews are fascinating: how do you come by them? Is there an authoritative source that can provide convincing evidence of the ethnic origin of two individuals?





MacLeod said:


> I'm sorry. I don't understand. Would you explain?


If either David or Musician would like to answer the questions I posed earlier, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.


----------



## SiegendesLicht

*Samurai*, and what do you think about Wagner? I mean Wagner as composer, not only his anti-Semitic opinions.


----------



## samurai

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Samurai*, and what do you think about Wagner? I mean Wagner as composer, not only his anti-Semitic opinions.


Honestly, I as a rule am not fond of operas, be they by Wagner or anyone else. I did like his "Ride of The Valkyries" in *Apocalypse Now, *with Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen. I thought its use perfectly matched the bellicosity of Duvall and his avenging 'Birds of prey" at that particular point in the story. As someone who has lost relatives in the death camps, I do not blame Wagner, Sibelius, or any of the other composers whom Hitler might have extolled during his reign of terror. The fact that Wagner was a confirmed anti-semite does not therefore mean he in any way "caused" or enabled the Nazis to assume power; as we all know, there were many other factors--economic and otherwise--which almost assured their ascendancy d the Nazis as after the debacle of the First World War and the punitive way in which Germany was treated by the Allies, especially America and France. I do wish, however, that the Wagner family, which *was alive at the time-*-most notably his wife--had not been so vociferous in their support for this evil and dastardly regime. Whether Wagner himself would have supported Nazism must obviously remain an open question. In my heart of hearts, I'd like to think he wouldn't have, but I wouldn't want to bet a month's rent against it.


----------



## Musician

Actually you can't discount biological Jewishness cause I wasn't really talking about it from a scientific point of view. Jewish law says that the mother has to be Jewish in order the child to be Jewish. She could be Irish, African, Chinese, Black or White, but as long as she is Jewish, the kid is Jewish.

Secondly, about your assertion that Jewish history is a myth. Then I wonder, can you please provide me with a detailed explanation of what is Jewish history, where did Judaism begin, how was it developed, where did they get the Ten Commandments from, and the parameters of the Temple? where did they get the commandment to never forget the Exodus from Egypt? How come Jews still celebrate their redemption from Egypt, for 3300 years non stop year after year after year? Are Jews crazy? Are Jews ready to say that they were slaves for pharaoh for 400 years? what is there to be gained by saying that? isnt it the most degrading thing to suggest? what other nation in the history of the world had ever claimed to be slaves for so long if it wasnt true?

I don't know, but I just don't see any other history then the history that we have. Care to explain what is the Western Wall of the Temple is doing in Jerusalem? Where did all these Jewish rituals come from, and what purposes do they serve? How come this Jewish history is the foundation of most of the worlds inhabitants? how come the Jewish Bible is the most translated, most famous, most studied, and most respected document of faith in the history of man kind? Could all of these events, that shaped our collective conscience and existence for so long, be some kind of a myth guided by some kind of a conspiracy?

Are the Jews crazy to follow and keep 613 very demanding Commandments if they didnt believe with absolute clarity that the one that commanded these laws is real? What kind of a person will follow so many rules and regulations, that are extremely demanding and go into the most intimate personal situations of one's life if he didnt know certainly that what he is doing is rooted in truth and reality?

In the natural course of history, the Jews as a people should have been disappeared from the annals of history. There were more powerful nations then the Jews that have appeared on the world stage, from Ancient Greece, and Persia, to Rome, who have dominated most of the world with their military might and conquest. They have appeared on the world stage and created a great bravura, but where are they now? they can be found only in the history books. They have all disappeared. How is it then, that Israel a country that was destroyed by Rome, and its inhabitants scattered to the 4 corners of the world, with much of the world trying to erase any memory of them, how is it that such a persecuted, exiled, hated, and disadvantaged people, against all odds and logic, defied the natural course of history, survived all these great catastrophes, and not only survived, but returned back to their ancient homeland after a 2000 year exile, exactly as it was promised they would in their Bible?

Is this what you call, normative course of history, or there are things that are taking place, and a power that you don't realize, who is in charge of human existence and Jewish destiny and is guiding it to a pre planned destiny?

You know the characteristics of an Ostrich is that when it sees danger it just says that its a myth and sticks its head in the ground. But humans were given an intellect, and if they refuse on purpose to connect the dots, then aren't they less then birds and animals?

Open your eyes, study history, and study human existence and you will be surprised at the number of miracles that you'll encounter....



Petwhac said:


> But I'm afraid your argument is circular.
> We can discount biological Jewishness because it doesn't exist. Your genes and mine will show many markers that can be traced back to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Markers that are shared with people of all 'races' and religions.
> Therefore in order to 'refuse to accept your people's history', you first have to accept your peoples history.
> 
> A history that teaches about miracles, divine intervention and God is not a history at all but myth and legend. What is more, it is at odds with other myths and legends that share the same origin.
> 
> You may choose to believe what you like and live accordingly but you are not talking_ facts _any more than is the Buddhist who believes the Buddha's mother was impregnated by a white Elephant. Or the Muslim who believes Mohammed was the latest prophet to receive the word of God.


----------



## Pennypacker

Musician - logic is hard, I know. Cause and effect, probability - these are very complicated things to perceive. This is exactly the way myths are created. You use quantity as an argument, but what would you say a 100 years from now when the majority will be atheist (or maybe you're denying that this is the direction we're going)? You look at this "amazing" course of history as some king of a proof. A proof for what? How is being persecuted and killed a good thing? Wouldn't it be better if the Jews merged into other cultures and not go through the holocaust decades later?


----------



## Musician

It would have been better of course that the Jews would have not gone through the Holocaust and merged in with other cultures, and that's exactly what I'm trying to point out, its remarkable and also a fantastic open miracle, that the nations of the world rejected the Jews and never let them become like them, and absorbed them fully. That's the entire miracle, and that was the natural course of history, but that never happened, as if someone was controlling the faith of the Jews, wanting them to be a distinct group and planned their return after the long exile. When I read the verses in the Bible where God swears that he will never let the Jews completely mixed up with the nations and will bring them back to their land of their forefathers, that's all the evidence I personally need...but there are way more great facts and evidence then this, of course.

That natural course of history would have been better if there was no God, but there is a God, and that makes all the difference.



Pennypacker said:


> Musician - logic is hard, I know. Cause and effect, probability - these are very complicated things to perceive. This is exactly the way myths are created. You use quantity as an argument, but what would you say a 100 years from now when the majority will be atheist (or maybe you're denying that this is the direction we're going)? You look at this "amazing" course of history as some king of a proof. A proof for what? How is being persecuted and killed a good thing? Wouldn't it be better if the Jews merged into other cultures and not go through the holocaust decades later?


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## Pennypacker

That is one sadistic god. Somehow I never felt the need to thank him for living in this country at the expense of millions horribly murdered.


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## Musician

You blame human fault on God?



Pennypacker said:


> That is one sadistic god. Somehow I never felt the need to thank him for living in this country at the expense of millions horribly murdered.


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## SiegendesLicht

I have said it in another thread, so I will repeat it here: the Holocaust would not have happened if the Jews had their own national homeland to move to at that time, instead if being that minority with its own identity and culture, which tries to stay separate and is never quite accepted. Which is why I think it is great that they have a homeland now, but of course the European nations do in turn, also have the right to their own countries.


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## Blancrocher

Musician said:


> You blame human fault on God?


Siegmund and Sieglinde knew what they were doing, and can't put all the blame for the results on Wotan, imho.


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## aleazk

SiegendesLicht said:


> I have said it in another thread, so I will repeat it here: the Holocaust would not have happened if the Jews had their own national homeland to move to at that time, instead if being that minority with its own identity and culture, which tries to stay separate and is never quite accepted. Which is why I think it is great that they have a homeland now, but of course the European nations do in turn, also have the right to their own countries.


Oh, please... so, they deserved to be killed because of that?, after all, it's all their fault?.
The Holocaust would not have happened if the blind and resented German people would not have elected Hitler as their chancellor...


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## EricABQ

SiegendesLicht said:


> I have said it in another thread, so I will repeat it here: the Holocaust would not have happened if the Jews had their own national homeland to move to at that time, instead if being that minority with its own identity and culture, which tries to stay separate and is never quite accepted. Which is why I think it is great that they have a homeland now, but of course the European nations do in turn, also have the right to their own countries.


That's a pretty apalling post.

The only thing that would have prevented the holocaust was the Germans not willingly murdering millions of Jews.

The holocaust was %100 the fault of the German people of that time. Period.

Even if there was a Jewish state established prior to the 1930s, the Jews of Europe wouldn't have en masse imigrated there. Europe was their home. They had been there for centuries.


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## DavidA

Musician said:


> Note, that I was not speaking of European but rather German anti semitism, who by the way did exist even before Martin Luther, but he was responsible for adding all the gasoline and fumes to a hate that was terrible as it is. His diatribe 'The Jews and their lies' was pretty much responsible for turning casual anti semitism into an eliminatory antisemitism, his actions are tantamount to the charter of Hamas who virtually calls for the wholesale mass murder of every single Jew on earth. No wonder that Wagner and many others who were raised with Luther's diabolic ideas and teachings, have developed a world outlook where they saw the Jews without it. In fact those who were exposed in any way to Luther's venomous lies about the Jews, have first of all found a scapegoat to blame all their problems, and developed an extreme form of anti semitism where the notion of murdering Jews was not such an immoral or strange thing to do. Luther blamed the rise and fall of Germany on the existence of the Jews, suggesting that Germany's problems will never end as long as Jews lived there. How did he reconcile the fact that he worshiped a Jew? well simply, he and his fellow clergymen have simply changed history and facts and claimed that Jesus wasnt a Jew to begin with, how convenient...
> 
> What has the peaceful, and talented , successful Ancient Jewish community done to him? a community that did only good, who benefited Germany and contributed to it in every possible way, what did it do to deserve this treatment from Martin?
> 
> There goes the saying that no good deed goes unpunished...
> 
> But the real question is where did Luther get his inspiration of hating Jews? Simple, when the Christian religion/ bible blames the Jews with murdering God, so its not a wonder that Martin Luther considered the Jews to be devils.
> 
> Thank Goodness that in modern times the Catholic Church had absolved the Jews from these lies, and many Christians today are supporters of Israel and the Jews, they have come a long way. But those first teachings in the Christian Bible have inspired many to hate Jews, and had a direct responsibility for spreading anti semitism to the 4 corners of the world.
> 
> Again, I'm only touching very briefly on the context of Wagner's anti semitism, this needs much more elaboration....


Luther's diatribes against the Jews were certainly a bad blot on his history. But you need to get your facts right. First, anti-semitism was rife long before Luther. For example, the massacres that took place during the crusades were not casual. And where on earth did Luther claim that Jesus was not a Jew? That's a new one on me.
Unfortunately your statement that the Christian Bible blames the Jews for murdering God is, of course, ludicrous. The Christian Bible was written by Jews about a Jew and his interaction with Jews, for people who were mainly (at time of writing) Jews.


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## aleazk

EricABQ said:


> That's a pretty apalling post.
> 
> The only thing that would have prevented the holocaust was the Germans not willingly murdering millions of Jews.
> 
> The holocaust was %100 the fault of the German people of that time. Period.
> 
> Even if there was a Jewish state established prior to the 1930s, the Jews of Europe wouldn't have en masse imigrated there. Europe was their home. They had been there for centuries.


And how much they wanted to do it!. They even did it with their "punctilious" nature (as our friend Musician likes to say), achieving a clock-like precision and efficiency in the killing of innocent people...


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## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Unfortunately your statement that the Christian Bible blames the Jews for murdering God is, of course, ludicrous.


Unhappily, you might be giving the Bible too much credit. From an article in Slate magazine, a usually thoughtful source:
---------------------------
In the Gospel of John, the phrase "the Jews" is used at least nine times to denote those who encouraged and assisted in Jesus' execution. In the Book of Matthew (27: 25-26) the Jews accept responsibility for the execution. When the Roman governor Pontius Pilate hesitates over deciding Jesus' fate, the Jews assembled before Pilate demand that Jesus be crucified, proclaiming "His blood be on us, and on our children."
---------------------------
As the article points out, the factuality of the Bible's narrative may be questionable.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2001/04/did_the_jews_kill_jesus.html


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## SiegendesLicht

aleazk said:


> Oh please... so, they deserved to being killed because of that, after all, it's all their fault.
> The Holocaust would not have happened if the blind and resented German people would have not elected Hitler as their chancellor...


I never said not having a homeland at that time was their fault. More like a set of really bad historical circumstances.

And the German people did what a folk driven into poverty and despair, as the Germans were at the time of the Weimar Republic, does - trusted the first guy who promised to get them out of it. There was no way they could foresee what would come out of it (the Holocaust only started around 1939, six years after Hitler had got in power). And the makers of the Versailles Treaty who had believed they would build their world peace on German suffering, eventually had something just opposite of peace on their hands.
By the way, the German people never really elected Hitler. It was the government of the Weimar Republik that made him chancellor.


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## aleazk

SiegendesLicht said:


> By the way, the German people never really elected Hitler. It was the government of the Weimar Republik that made him chancellor.


Technically, yes, but that only happened because of the enormous popularity and influence he had. And, in any case, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 per cent of the electorate voting in a plebiscite (you can check that on Wikipedia). The Germans loved him, it seems...:lol:
And, as a general rule, populist leaders always come to power thanks to the support of the electorate.


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## DavidA

KenOC said:


> Unhappily, you might be giving the Bible too much credit. From an article in Slate magazine, a usually thoughtful source:
> ---------------------------
> In the Gospel of John, the phrase "the Jews" is used at least nine times to denote those who encouraged and assisted in Jesus' execution. In the Book of Matthew (27: 25-26) the Jews accept responsibility for the execution. When the Roman governor Pontius Pilate hesitates over deciding Jesus' fate, the Jews assembled before Pilate demand that Jesus be crucified, proclaiming "His blood be on us, and on our children."
> ---------------------------
> As the article points out, the factuality of the Bible's narrative may be questionable.
> 
> http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2001/04/did_the_jews_kill_jesus.html


Of course, if read without understanding, the Bible can be misinterpreted. The word as used in John's gospel does not mean the Jews en mass as a race. After all, John was himself a Jew and a follower of Jesus so it would be extraordinary if he included himself in with them. It means, of course, the Jewish leaders Jesus was debating with who sought to justify themselves before God. 
Of course, we miss out the words of Jesus for the Jewish race and the Gentiles who were crucifying him: Father forgive them........
Extraordinary if a writer seeking to promote anti-semitism would include this prayer!
In the Matthew quote it needs to be read in the context of what comes before:
V.20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.
Ie it was the Jewish rulers who had ultimate responsibility.
But at the end of Matthew the risen Christ tells his followers to preach what? Judgment? No! Good news of forgiveness.
So then look at Acts 2 where Peter is preaching. The crowd is roughly the same. He tells them that they with wicked hands slew Jesus. But then comes something extraordinary - the offer of forgiveness. 3000 people take it up - all Jews. They are the first to receive the offer of forgiveness.
The problem is we have forgotten the Jewishness of the New Testament and looked on it as a western book. It is only by realising its Jewishness that we see it in its true light.
As to the point about the veracity of the New Testament, many scholars today favour an earlier date for the NT writings. But that is far beyond this post.


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## KenOC

DavidA said:


> Of course, if read without understanding, the Bible can be misinterpreted.


That's for sure! But in fact the Bible says what it says, and sometimes in quite a straightforward fashion. It may be faked, or had spin added well after the fact, but that's not really relevant. People read the NT, as it is written, all through the middle ages and renaissance, and they BELIEVED it was absolute truth. And I think any reasonable person would read the NT as saying that the Jews, not the Romans, were ultimately responsible for Jesus's crucifixion.


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## Musician

There is so much confusion here, no wonder people come to the wrong conclusion. Lets put some context and perspective into the discussion. There are many things going on here at the same time, you have Judaism, Christianity and the Holocaust. All three major issues that need much study and elebratation, but I'm astounded at the level of generalities without the specifics. For all intends and purposes, yes it is obvious that if a creature from mars would have appeared in our planet and seen what happened to the 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, he would have thought that this world is inhabited by monsters and that the noble traits of truth, justice and destiny are categorically absent from the human experience. Who could blame it for coming to this conclusion?

But if this Marsian was presented with facts, historical accuracies and context, those conclusions would have been different, except for the fact that indeed, this world was and still is inhabited by vicious demonic monsters in the form of human beings.

Someone here suggested that the Christians shouldn't be held accountable for the spreading of anti semitism in the world because the Christian religion was created by Jews and its most important document the 'New Testament' was also written by Jews. Well of course this assumption is totally wrong because of a number of factors. Firstly, the Christian Bible was not written in one sitting by one individual, but rather 40 years after the death of Jesus, with some sections written even much later, (till today on record, there are 300.000 different versions of the NT) and not all its authors were biologically Jews, especially the anti semitic sections. But lets just suggest for the benefit of argument, that every single word in the NT was written by Jews, is the person who suggests this assertion argues that Jews will stay Jews even though they practice a totally different religion altogether? Was Paul, Mathew, and all those Jews that came after, who have neglected the Torah way of life, and became members of a completely different religion, still remained Jews?

From a totally Jewish perspective, Jesus, Paul, Mathew, John, are the leaders of the Christian people, and they have no association or connection in any way shape or form to Jews and Judaism, for they have departed from us, and went to a different route. They have changed their religion, and thus got mixed up with the nations of the world, and they and their descendants were no Jews.

So you can't have it both ways, you can't say that you are a new religion, and a distinct religion, and yet at the same token still remain Jewish. It just doesn't work this way. No Christian here would suggest that they are Jews, correct?

Now lets understand what was the motivation of the early Christians to infuse anti semitism in their writings. They had to do this, because the existence of Jews in the world was the best refutation to the validity of Christianity, because if your own people reject you, then there is no greater evidence that you are false. Its like someone claming that he is your father, but you and your entire family say that he is not, it was a major problem. So in order to help them with this problem, Christians decided to turn the Jews into devils, and who is going to take the Jews seriously now? that was the strategy.

About who is to blame for the Holocaust. I think that there are situations in life, where both sides are wrong without it been a contradiction. You're father warns you, please son be careful when you cross the road, and he didn't listen and the car hit him. The son is wrong for not listening to his father, but that doesn't take any of the blame from the drunk and irresponsible driver who was driving 100 miles an hour.

The Holocaust was written in the Torah by God before it happened, and it was a warning to the Jewish people, saying that disobedience and assimilation can bring about the natural course of history upon you, where the minority and the weak is been either massacred or completely swallowed up by the more powerful and majority. If you stick to my laws and adhere to my commandments, you will be prosperous and no nation would have any authority over you.

Tragically, the Jews didn't listen, and wanted to assimilate with the rest of Germany, so God's warning came to reality. But that doesn't take any of the blame and the brutality of the Germans and those who assisted them. Their actions were sadisitic and they operated under full freedom of choice, they decided to do what they did, no one forced them. So they will be held accountable for their crimes before God.


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## Blancrocher

aleazk said:


> :lol:


Hm, this really sticks out. It was on my shortlist of unlikely emoticons to appear in this thread.

Well, not the first time I've been wrong. 

(Whoops--now I did it to myself. Wrong again!)


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## Petwhac

Musician said:


> Actually you can't discount biological Jewishness cause I wasn't really talking about it from a scientific point of view. Jewish law says that the mother has to be Jewish in order the child to be Jewish. She could be Irish, African, Chinese, Black or White, but as long as she is Jewish, the kid is Jewish.


It's interesting that you can divorce biology from science but I guess if your ideology starts with a premiss of the supernatural then anything is possible.
Jewish law like that of any religion explains nothing about reality but are a set of 'rules' for the members of the religion to follow. The fact that members of the religion believe that the laws were given to them from 'on high' is no proof that such a law giver exists or existed.



Musician said:


> Secondly, about your assertion that Jewish history is a myth. Then I wonder, can you please provide me with a detailed explanation of what is Jewish history, where did Judaism begin, how was it developed, where did they get the Ten Commandments from, and the parameters of the Temple? where did they get the commandment to never forget the Exodus from Egypt? How come Jews still celebrate their redemption from Egypt, for 3300 years non stop year after year after year? Are Jews crazy? Are Jews ready to say that they were slaves for pharaoh for 400 years? what is there to be gained by saying that? isnt it the most degrading thing to suggest? what other nation in the history of the world had ever claimed to be slaves for so long if it wasnt true?


Once again you seem to be going in circles. It is obvious that Jewish tradition has a history but that doesn't not prove the reality of the events the traditions are commemorating. For how many centuries will people leave a glass of wine out for Santa Claus before his existence becomes a fact.
Was the world created in seven days? No. Are there religious texts that say the world was created in seven days? Yes. How much faith can one have in the 'facts' that are set out in religious texts? Texts that were written before carbon dating, computers, astro/particle physics and the sequencing of the human genome. We know only a fraction of the history of our universe but still a whole lot more than those who wrote of the' firmament'.
The events that are described in holy books are completely unverifiable.
Jews are no more crazy in their beliefs than any other faith group but they are in my opinion equall likely to be in error.



Musician said:


> How come this Jewish history is the foundation of most of the worlds inhabitants?


It isn't



Musician said:


> ..how come the Jewish Bible is the most translated, most famous, most studied, and most respected document of faith in the history of man kind? Could all of these events, that shaped our collective conscience and existence for so long, be some kind of a myth guided by some kind of a conspiracy?


Soon to be overtaken by the Koran perhaps. Conspiracy? No. Myth? Yes.



Musician said:


> Are the Jews crazy to follow and keep 613 very demanding Commandments if they didnt believe with absolute clarity that the one that commanded these laws is real?


The fact that you follow 613 Commandments does not prove anything except that you believe it to be real. I don't.



Musician said:


> What kind of a person will follow so many rules and regulations, that are extremely demanding and go into the most intimate personal situations of one's life if he didnt know certainly that what he is doing is rooted in truth and reality?


The kind of person who requires life to have meaning given to it from an external source.



Musician said:


> In the natural course of history, the Jews as a people should have been disappeared from the annals of history. There were more powerful nations then the Jews that have appeared on the world stage, from Ancient Greece, and Persia, to Rome, who have dominated most of the world with their military might and conquest. They have appeared on the world stage and created a great bravura, but where are they now?


I know many Romans, I was at the wedding of an Iranian (Persian) just last week and If I remember correctly the Olympic games were held in London last summer. If you are talking about the Roman and Persian and Ancient Greek empires/civilisations then it is true they came and went. But the people and their traditions are still very much around. Not all their traditions are still around, thankfully. 
Stoning adulterers is a tradition I don't miss. Or was that a biblical one?



Musician said:


> they can be found only in the history books. They have all disappeared. How is it then, that Israel a country that was destroyed by Rome, and its inhabitants scattered to the 4 corners of the world, with much of the world trying to erase any memory of them, how is it that such a persecuted, exiled, hated, and disadvantaged people, against all odds and logic, defied the natural course of history, survived all these great catastrophes, and not only survived, but returned back to their ancient homeland after a 2000 year exile, exactly as it was promised they would in their Bible?


Excuse me Mr Palestinian, but according to this here book this land was promised to me 2000 years ago by a sky God so pack up your things I'm moving in.
It's not that I'm anti-Israel per se but I am wholly against claiming a 'God-given' right to anything. God is fickle, one minute he's parting the sea and the next he is bidding Bin-Laden to fly planes into buildings. Go figure!



Musician said:


> Is this what you call, normative course of history, or there are things that are taking place, and a power that you don't realize, who is in charge of human existence and Jewish destiny and is guiding it to a pre planned destiny?
> 
> You know the characteristics of an Ostrich is that when it sees danger it just says that its a myth and sticks its head in the ground. But humans were given an intellect, and if they refuse on purpose to connect the dots, then aren't they less then birds and animals?
> 
> Open your eyes, study history, and study human existence and you will be surprised at the number of miracles that you'll encounter....


I rather think it is you burying your head in ancient and untrustworthy writings and refusing to accept that we the human race must put away our superstitions and discard our deities for the greater good of all. 
Open your eyes to nature and you won't need your miracles.
Maybe there is a great creator with an interest and control over human affairs. Maybe there isn't. You don't know for sure, whatever you think, and neither do I. Therefore the only rational way to conduct ones life is to act as if there isn't. Through lack of evidence. A text written centuries ago about events millennia earlier is not good evidence.

What has all that to do with Wagner? Nothing at all. So......

*When I read what Wagner wrote about some of his fellow humans and see how much suffering has been caused by people with no empathy for their fellow humans ( Nazi/Jew: Hutu/Tutsi: Shia/Sunni:etc) I despair.
But when I listen to the Prelude to the Meistersingers or the Entry Of The Gods To Valhalla, I know that we humans are able to create sublime beauty and make life worth living.*


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## Musician

I don't know why you need to quote every single thing I say, and do a breakdown, some people think that its smart and it gains them some points in an argument, but that's besides the point.

Again your entire foundation of rejecting Jewish history is your over simplification on purpose of the magnitude and significance of Jewish history and existence and its meteoric impact on humanity in all aspects. Your oversimplification suggests as though the Jews are some unknown members of a primitive African tribe who decided to bond together and invent books and traditions. You are talking about the most influential nation on earth, a nation who's sacred writings are the foundations of the faiths of most of the world's inhabitants. Your argument that the Koran is going to take over is somewhat ironic and erroneous, since the Koran is deeply and categorically rooted in Jewish teachings, and its no secret that without Jewish Theology, neither the Koran or the NT and many other books of theology would even exist. So the Koran and NT don't need to take over, if we are talking about quantities, they have of course 'taken over' (in the sense of teaching the foolishness of the pagans) and have spread to the four corners of the world, teaching them ideas and philosophies that are rooted in Judaism.

So to take the nation of Israel and turn it into some kind of a little known wild tribe that no one knows or heard of , is terribly a weak argument. But what can you do, when most of the world's inhabitants are religious one way or another and do believe in the existence of God, primarily because of these Jewish teachings spreading around the globe? 

What can you do when the atheists who Wikipedia brings down to be about 2% of the world population, are the vast minority, and the burden of proof is on your shoulder to explain to us the majority how is it possible that you have the audacity to consider the entire world as 'irrational' while you, a dust in the wind, present yourselves as 'rational'?

You know its a famous thing that the mentally deranged and the crazies who are living in mental institutions all believe that the entire world population is crazy and the only rational and intelligent folks are them? 

Ask anyone of these mentally sick people if they are irrational or crazy, they'll laugh at your face and tell you that you are crazy, and that they are perfectly normal. So who would you believe? the extreme minority who lives in an institution or the vast majority of the world's population?

So the burden is on your doorstep to explain to us hear clearly, what's so rational about you and your approach, and why the vast majority of the world who does believe in God is wrong. Please do explain.

And trust me, the atheists are walking in such turtle steps that they wont reach 5% even if this world will be destroyed and then be created again, they'll still be stuck all the way deep within the vast minority.


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## Sid James

samurai said:


> ...I believe that it is a person's moral values and he/she treats other people in the real world which determines whether they are truly a good person or not. Whether one believes that there is a God or not should not be a criterion on judging whether a person is ethical or not; he/she still has to interact with his fellow human beings in a moral and honorable way, to the fullest extent possible.
> ...


That's right. All I would add to all this is that totalitarian regimes all tend to do one thing and say another. I am trying to focus this discussion away from the anti-Semitism aspect of Wagner a bit, and look at the bigger picture. What you say regarding people's actions feeds into this. The moral corruption of regimes like that of Hitler and Stalin shows through when one compares what they said and what they did. They promised utopia on the one hand, and delivered hell.

The other thing is that I am not Jewish, however I know from reading the histories of these regimes - and also personally knowing people who survived them - that they where not good for the whole society. Nazism was bad for the whole society, not only those of Jewish heritage. I've said this many times, but according to the statistics, about 6 million Jews died in the death camps. But up to 12 million more (the figures on non-Jewish deaths is less accurate) where also murdered. These included other ethnic minorities like gypsies and Slavs, homosexuals, also Christians, Communists, anyone who resisted the regime, and also people with physical and mental disabilities. Similar things can be said about Stalinism, or indeed any such similar despotic regime. They claim to be for the whole society, they claim to be lifting the nation (and also the music, the culture), but in reality they're like a parasitic disease, destroying everything in their wake.

This is a digression of sorts away from Wagner, but I think I am just doing what many here are doing, diverting from one issue to another. I don't want to get political other than, as I've said before and others here have suggested, this is a complex issue.

And on the lighter side, I think Wagner's bicentennial year this year of 2013, has probably increased the pages on the internet to do with him ten fold (or more?). My guess is next year things may die down with regards to issues to do with his legacy, musical and otherwise. But he is forever controversial, the most controversial composer on the planet, so I won't hold my breath!


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## Musician

Samurai Said:

*"I believe that it is a person's moral values and he/she treats other people in the real world which determines whether they are truly a good person or not. Whether one believes that there is a God or not should not be a criterion on judging whether a person is ethical or not; he/she still has to interact with his fellow human beings in a moral and honorable way, to the fullest extent possible. "*

You are mixing two things up. The first human being Adam didn't belong to any religious institution. And God never asked him to be Jewish or any other thing, all he asked him was to listen to his commandment, his will, of not eating from the fruit of knowledge. 
So there are parameters that exist between the relationship that one has with his Creator and that one has with his fellow man, and both are important. The Ten commandments were written on two separate tablets. The first five on the right are commandments that deal with the man and his creator, and the other five written on the left tablet are commandments dealing with a man and his relationship with his fellow human beings. Both these tablets are important and tied together and form the Ten Commandments, meaning one can't say that I will be a moral man just by been nice to my fellow human beings, one also has to know his responsibilities to his creator. The opposite is true too, one can't say that I will do whatever God asks me, but I won't be nice to my fellow human beings. Both are important and one can't be really considered a moral person if he decides not to fulfill his duties to both God and Men. This is the Jewish perspective.


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## mamascarlatti

There is a requirement on this forum not to discuss religion or politics on the open boards as it inevitably leads to conflict and reported posts when members take exception to other members' views. 

Of course it is hard when discussing Wagner to exclude discussion of politics and perhaps religion when discussing Parsifal.

However this thread has diverged into a discussion of Nazism, the Holocaust (both of which post-dated Wagner by 50 years), and Jewish history and religion which are not relevant to the original topic.

I am closing this thread for repairs and would invite members who wish to discuss religion and politics to do so in social groups.


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