January 25, 2004

• The site is only half-translated into English. There seems to be something on Die Swing-Jugend here, but being German incompetent, I have only read the partial Google translation. (It stops translating after a while - maybe the page is too long)
• Now I must learn the Lindy! But only, of course, if I get to wear 'Die Knickerbocker'! Great fun exploring this, even though I've less German than would fill a flea. Thanks, Dizzy.
• My bad--on the homepage, click "Get English" and problem solved.
• Interresante Website. Wir haben dieses Jahr in meinen deutschen Filmkurs die "Faschistiche Aesthetik" und Lenni Riefenstahl (die dieses Jahr gestorben ist) diskutiert. Es ist immer noch ein bisschen merkwurdig, glaube ich, zu glauben, dass ein Aesthetik koennte "Uebel" sein. Aber, es preist das Existenz, das denkt nicht, und das ist vielleicht das einzige oder beste Abwehr gegen Uebel das wir haben. And now if you'll excuse my german practice, I'll translate: Interesting website. We talked this year in my german film class about about the "facist asthetic" and Lenni Riefenstahl (the director of a famous Nazi rally documentary who died this year). It's still interesting for me to think about an aesthetic being 'evil'. But the 'facist aesthetic' glorifies the a kind of non-thinking existence, which I think is in some ways our only or at least best defense against 'evil'. History note: The photos are from 34-36, which is one year after Hitler was elected with something around 35% of the German vote (or it was a minority, at least, but he had the largest percent of the multiple candidates). Germans were just beginning to see (yes, and in some cases embrace) the effects of his leadership. It's scary to see sometimes what we have in common, but important.
• "...glorifies the a kind of non-thinking existence, which I think is in some ways our only or at least best defense against 'evil'." I'm curious what you mean by that! A non-thinking existence being a defense against evil, that is.
• [this is good]
• This is utterly wonderful, thank you, Dizzy. There is an English translation of Die Swing-Jugend, though I can't work out how to link directly to it. Click on "get English version", then click on "Museum", then click on "Everyday Life in the 3rd Reich", then scroll down and click on "Swing Youth". Then enjoy. I love the German Swing Youth Lyrics, and their rough-and-ready English translations ("Come on, boy and girl, we go to the thing, Come to the feast of fairness and jump"). I wonder if Sir Anthony Eden ever knew that there was a group of German Swing Kids named after him: the "Anthony Swingers".
• stirfry: I guess I didn't word that very well. I should have said 'a thinking existence is a defense from evil';it came out sounding the opposite. I think a lot of the idea came from a closing article I read in an ethics class a few years ago, which was actually written in light of a Nazi officer's war crime trial. One of the main defenses is of course that they were just doing what they were told to do. In terms of systemic injustices/atrocities such as the Nazi period, it's not like you can just rely on public ideals or even what you've been raised to think: a critical attitude is all you've got. Facist art (like lots of propaganda) in some ways devalues or even defiles this viewpoint (e.g., the "cunning, evil jew" in WW2) by glorifying ideologies, purity (simplicity), or as Sigfried Krakauer talks about in his critique of German films leading up to WW2, even such things as "mountaintop experiences" or beauty in itself. I don't necessarily buy the idea that any particular kind of art is 'evil', but for example the film I mentioned in my last post, _Triumph of the Will_, many would argue was very instrumental in creating the Third Reich.