Condescending Philanthropy

[davemarc]

----------
> From: Steelhead <sitka at teleport.com>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Condescending Philanthropy
> Date: Wednesday, February 26, 1997 2:40 AM
> 
> davemarc digs deeper:
> 
[snip]
> 
> I don't give Spielberg that much credit for the Shoah project. For
decades,
> the oral histories were being collected by hundreds of real historians
and
> dozens of real film-makers, such as Claude Lanzman, capable of
> contextualizing these stories.

It's obvious that Jeffrey St. Clair doen't give Spielberg much credit for
the Shoah project.  He's so set on demonizing Spielberg that he'd rather
imply that there's no such project.  Then, when he's challenged on the
point, he belittles the Shoah project.  I obviously think it's great that
more than ten thousand survivors have been interviewed under the auspices
of Shoah.  These testimonies are not only of some importance historically,
they also have therapeutic value for many survivors and their families. 
They also foster awareness of the Holocaust--the details of daily life, the
psychological impact--among the interviewers and videographers.  And,
according to a Shoah representative, the project's managed to do some
pioneering work that hadn't been done by any other organizations or
historians.  There have been something like five detailed accounts of the
treatment of homosexuals in the camps; apparently, this type of information
is *incredibly* rare.  Similar accomplishments were made regarding the
experience of Gypsies.
> 
> My wife (a teacher, don't that beat all?)--who lost dozens of relatives
to
> the Nazi's at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald, and knows far more about
these
> grim matters than I--denounces Speilberg's whiz-bang Shoah project as
> displayed on computers at the Holocaust Museum in DC as "an offensive
cyber
> circus."

Thousands of survivors and their families are grateful for the work of
Shoah.  There's no way around the fact that interviews with Shoah are often
landmark events for such families.  
> 
> My attitude toward "charitable works" by folks such as Spielberg, Andrew
> Carnegie and JP Morgan is guided by Michel Foucault, who in Madness and
> Unreason (or the poorly translated "Madness and Civilization") warned of
> "the malign uses of condescending philantropy."

I keep on having to remind myself that of course Jeffrey St. Clair's
attitudes are going to be extremist, almost never moving beyond a kind of
primitive friend/enemy dichotomy.  I find it possible and productive to
distinguish between the different acts of people like Carnegie, who like
Spielberg simply wasn't a two-dimensional evil capitalist cartoon
character.

Distressed by the malign uses of contemptuous caricature,

davemarc