Misc. Degeneration

[Mark Kohut]

rich wrote:
"it's quite interesting how all the disparate views on cultural
degeneracy coalesced into Hitler's world view during this time; Nordau
was Jewish, too."

Watson wrote:
"It was this miasma of ideas that greeted the young 
Adolf Hitler when he first arrived in Vienna in 1907
to attend art school".



----- Original Message ----
From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2008 11:19:33 AM
Subject: Re: Misc. Degeneration

Nordau is discussed in the fine book, Hitler's Vienna by Brigitte Hamann.

He critiqued not only modernism's penchant for the primitive but also
figures like Wagner for his descent into what he called "modern
mysticism", the rule of emotion over rational thinking

it's quite interesting how all the disparate views on cultural
degeneracy coalesced into Hitler's world view during this time; Nordau
was Jewish, too

Rich

On Feb 6, 2008 4:55 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> So, I'm reading in "The Modern Mind", by Peter Watson, subtitled "an
> intellectual history
> of the 20th Century", knowing I'll learn stuff I didn't supposedly know from
> Moses and
>
> I read of Max Nordau. (1849-1923).born in Budapest (!) whose best-known work
> was
> called "Degeneration", a two-volume bestseller in Europe, and maybe
> especially in
> Vienna, cultural capital of Europe, where Cyprian just was.
>
> Described: "Everywhere he [Nordau] looked, there was decline", ye old Henry
> Adams-like
> entropy concept, so dear to OBA.......but THEN:
>
> "Nordau believed that degeneracy was caused by industrialized
> society---literally the wear and tear [my italics]
> exerted on leaders by railways, steamships, telephones and factories".
>
> do you think?  or just bi-location via some common disgusts and themes?
>
> MK
>
>
>
>
>  ________________________________
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