Weimar Culture - the Outsider As Insider Pdf, Epub, Ebook

WEIMAR CULTURE - THE OUTSIDER AS INSIDER PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

But I think sometimes we lack a sufficiently vivid sense for how easy that is, in a case such as this. Let me conclude this post with a general statement from one of the two histories I quoted at the start: Despite the socialist components of their ideology, the Nazis were less successful in acquiring working-class support, in part because their version of socialism did not offer the sweeping economic and social revolution advocated by the Marxists. In fact, if this short essay tempts you to read the book, depending on your knowledge of the period you might want to begin with the appendix, a brief rendering of the history of the Weimar Republic. Gay does not seem to be writing for a casual audience. Not a student of German history, I admit that I did not know many of the German 20th century luminaries that Gay mentions other than the "big" names. Progressive thought eclipsed by the Extreme Right. Other means had to be found to allocate resources. Conservatives in Weimar at times tried to distance themselves from the Nazis, when they were competing with them for support on the right. If the left-right distinction is somewhat crude even for the period in which it originated, why should it be anything other than crude when carried forward into other historical contexts? The message remains just as relevant in the current unstable political situation, although Gay offers little in the way of solutions. Enlarge cover. As we all know, giant american corporations like Ford were very active, commercially, in Nazi Germay. I thought they were a democratic socialist party. The fallacy is to assume anyone who wants to totalize values must be doing it in a left-wing way. Left appeals to masses by stating that any individual is entitled to special status in achieving utopia regardless of his actual merit, if only he submits to the ideology, which replaces all other social standards. For Gay the artistic movements of the times mirrored the political developments as illustrated by the brief life of the Bauhaus though it gets less space than The Magic Mountain , only Thomas Mann gets a reasonable amount of space - though other cultural figures are name checked, this is a book that might help build up the sense of the cultural framework of the Weimar era but which does not fill in the details, he was best I thought on literary writers who with the exception of Thomas Mann he sums up quickly and moves on, generally in a few sharp words, a bit catty, but not completely unfair Hermann Hesse he describes as writing about puberty with "a psychoanalytical twist" p. Romanian Iron Guard, Hungarian Arrow Cross, all were regimes born of defeat and trying to create new states, commonly resorting to ethnic cleansing a la Turkey as the foundation for a new bourgeois state. On top of that, I was not talking about the total change of values, but about a politicization of culture and society which is a consequence of the implementation of such all-grasping utopia. Instead I was given a dry read which focused too much on the men, and their politics, who formed the Weimar era and less about the actual culture of the time. Ah, the Weimar Republic. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied — the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. Read an excerpt of this book! That seems true for the USA, a remarkably bipolar society in at least one sense. Alex K. And it was a theory of human, not just of German, history, a heady vision that claimed to understand the whole past and future of mankind. Great work! Sep 14, Bobsie67 rated it liked it Shelves: weimar-republic. If you want political psychology, go to where it happens. It also has the advantage of being very accessible and well-written, so can be readily used by non-specialists. A history of the politics, domestic and international, of a major European state, is stuffing the doings and life experience of tens of millions of people over the course of decades into a few hundred pages, feebly supplemented by a few maps, graphs and iconic photographs. It has an extensive bibliograph Ah, the Weimar Republic. Right-wing means conservative. Well, conservatism is also very Utopian in its way. Even regarding war-related projects, freedom of contract was generally respected; instead of using power, the state offered firms a number of contract options to choose from. Why then, should your argument be good either? Feb 06, Peter Pete Mcloughlin rated it really liked it Shelves: , media , modernism , owned-books , complexity , general-history , great-depression , intellectual-history , world-history , nonfiction. May 06, Mardel Fehrenbach rated it really liked it. SamChevre These groups cooperated in agitating against the Young Plan and in sponsoring a national referendum to prevent its ratification. But given what we now know about the Generalplan Ost and the comprehensive agrarian restructuring that it was supposed to initiate, it seems that this was a matter of timing. At this point we could go down the Magyar rabbit-hole, emphasizing that Kossuth was apparently kind of liberal. In order to tie farmers to the land, the Nazis prohibited the sale of agricultural land Petzina, , pp. Weimar Culture - the Outsider as Insider Writer

Shave off the fur and you will discover the skin is in fact black … Like I said, reality is complex. Peter Gay promoted a psychoanalytic history that I look at with mixed feelings, but he had a good eye for where to deploy his method. For half a century, none the less, Hitler has been portrayed, if not as a conservative — the word is many shades too pale — at least as an extreme instance of the political right. Another point that culture is NOT political in itself is the variety of its manifestations. Let me conclude this post with a general statement from one of the two histories I quoted at the start: Despite the socialist components of their ideology, the Nazis were less successful in acquiring working-class support, in part because their version of socialism did not offer the sweeping economic and social revolution advocated by the Marxists. The first development in this direction came with the rightist campaign against the Young Plan, which was to establish a new schedule for German reparation payments. He also slammed Vicki Baum, whose novel Grand Hotel was superb. Importing this confusion into a serious discussion is quite unwise. This discussion is still vitiated by the failure to include the imperialist dimension. Or because they were anti-communist? Showing Hitler had a fatherland, and it was everything to him. The fate of the Weimar Republic has helped to make unemployment into every government's nightmare. How would you go about telling this Big Lie? In he joined the faculty at Yale University, where he taught until he retired as Sterling Professor of History in If one puzzle piece changes shape — the Nazis — all these pieces need to change shape. With each chapter focusing on a different aspect of Weimar culture, the result is a sweeping account of the rise of outsiders whose influence as insiders is virtually undeniable. The leftist traits of nacional-socialist regime are to be found elsewhere than in superficial self-statements and that is their subjugation of the whole society to the ideology, which permeates each corner of the everyday life. Norton, W. The standard histories all presume that the Nazis are right-wing but not uncomplicatedly so. His own thoughts gave no prominence to left and right, and he is unlikely to have seen much point in any linear theory of politics. Throughout the book, one is placed by Peter Gay in the thick of the debates, and sites of a cultural revolution that tried and succeded in translate the zeitgeist and meaning of what was happening to them: the destruction of the old world, and the painful birth of a new, more chaotic one. Weimar Culture - the Outsider as Insider Reviews

View all 13 comments. The great strength of the book is the overview of the elements that led to the virtual self-destruction of the Weimar Republic in the midst of an artistic and philosophical explosion of expression. Similarly, the New Left rapidly found itself alienated from the American mainstream, being accused of having lost the war in Vietnam, and being maced and arrested for trying to make its voice heard by the Democratic Party it thought of as an ally. Jonah is proven right once again. Ben Alpers A wonderful insight into the life of Weimar Germany, which elaborates on the complex relationship between the cultural and intellectual life with the political situation of a struggling regime, that constantly looked for support in contrarian forces. Just very depressing if enough do believe it to make that the case. SamChevre But mostly they said and did things that were pretty far right. It just was a heavy read for me. Apr 26, Mark rated it did not like it Shelves: abandoned. Hitler himself was more concerned with the racial, nationalistic, and foreign policy goals of the ideology than he was with socialism. As Gay sees it, this claim is a necessary condition for the plausibility of his thesis statement. Dunked in the alphabet soup? Even driven by Gay's enthusiasms, it's a bit o This is a decent if arbitrary history of Weimar Germany. Chapter one, however, is particularly devoted to establishing the consequent. They tried to appeal to the working classes. The astonishing thing about this book is the incredible range of intellectual and cultural big-shots that came out of Weimar in one way or another. Just tremendous. There was 1 a real left-right struggle in the party. For half a century, none the less, Hitler has been portrayed, if not as a conservative — the word is many shades too pale — at least as an extreme instance of the political right. To ask other readers questions about Weimar Culture , please sign up. This post at shudder! They have the word socialist in their name. Thanks for telling us about the problem. But they were not the first right wing politicians to appeal to working class voters with a right wing platform, especially in Germany and Austria. The simple version is this: at times the Nazis attempted to win votes from working-class constituencies that were traditionally leftist. Also, he calls Fritz Lang "overrated" ,,,. This is a weak argument. I do not find that entirely comforting. But maybe the details will still be interesting to some who already buy the basic outlines. You know the saying: There's no time like the present Or at least they were, on every point except nationalism and racism. Original Title. Add sufficient supporting material to fully intellectually convince him, and everyone around him, of the power and efficiency of the unfettered free market. The artfulness of this study lies not so much in its account of political history as in the way it weaves literature, painting, dance, theater, architecture and other facets of German life into a broader tapestry. A seminal work as melodious and haunting as the era it chronicles. The point is: electoral partisan politics is full of eloquent statements about how the other side is alarmingly powerful and effective, an expression of the Zeitgeist, charismatic, strategically brilliant, and etc. The same is true of Weimar politics, as you would predict. I read it first as a young-ish fellow, then again about years ago when I was concocting a seminar on the Avant-Garde from to for my theatre students at Ithaca College. Partly it was introduced just to create brand confusion, re: the left-wing socialist parties.

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Feb 06, Peter Pete Mcloughlin rated it really liked it Shelves: , media , modernism , owned-books , complexity , general-history , great-depression , intellectual-history , world-history , nonfiction. And: Despite appealing exclusively to Hungarian nobility in his speeches, Kossuth played an important part in the shaping of the law of minority rights in We used to roar with laughter at these silly faint-hearted bourgeoisie and their efforts to puzzle out our origin, our intentions and our aims. Soviet socialism also appealed to people from varying social realms: engineers, inteligentsia, culture etc. Apr 26, Mark rated it did not like it Shelves: abandoned. OK, enough arguments that Hitler was a big Marxist. Temin agrees with part of this and mentions that even in the Soviet Union, factory managers dealt with the disfunctionality of the central plans by engaging in blat :. The standardized allocation form described above included penalties for noncompliance. Since he had solved for all time the enigma of history, as he imagined, National Socialism was unique. Private vs. Why is this bill to outlaw mosques within feet of schools and churches called the Freedom of Association Restoration Act? Collin, engels That seems true for the USA, a remarkably bipolar society in at least one sense. John Holbo Peter T The Five and Four Year Plans set quantity goals for firms and enterprises. Is social democracy right-wing, too? Anyway, I wonder if this sense of the term goes as far back as the 20s and 30s. Both economic systems therefore eliminated profits as an indicator of desirable investments. Read an excerpt of this book! Moreover, the party was struggling against a republic that seemed to have stabilized itself. World turned upside down : Awesome work, JH. Or because of their theory of politics and history? Instead, it is and always has been, a phenomenon of the left. But Wilhelm's abdication left the ruins of a crisis in the German state: its having no democratic political tradition, suffering from an attachment to a romantic sense of German nationalism, the embittered taste of defeat and humiliation of the armitice with the Allied Powers, and a cultural tradition that abhored and was wilfully indifferent to the political state as such. If you come to it with some passing familiarity with the subject, there are some gems to be gleaned here. I realize very few regular Crooked Timber readers are likely to share this opinion. But having a number of influential persons and movements seems to be a general feature of a number of European states at this time, such as France, where there were a number of important composers, philosophers, and writers; and Russia, which also had a number of important writers and an extraordinary group of modernist composers that included Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Mosolov, and Shostakovich. At pages, the book can only introduce us to the currents and landmarks of the momentous period between the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler's chancellorship. Italy lost over half a million soldiers in WWI, and as a reward was given one port city, Trieste, by the allies. All this has only a tenuous connection to parties and their policies, to personnel and their working principles. This was worth reading because it delved into the reasons why that came about and why people were drawn to them. It has its high ideals. National socialism would eliminate neither private property nor class distinctions. Now, if there were a lot of cartoons. But suppose, years from now, historians are trying to reconstruct what ISIS was all about on the basis of opinion journalism in US sources. At this point we could go down the Magyar rabbit-hole, emphasizing that Kossuth was apparently kind of liberal. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/ef393caf-1721-421b-b971-ac03c40d9020/giving-birth-has-its-funny-side-cartoons-and-j.pdf https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/ad0fdffb-3083-4358-a8c7-bcf91a78f239/teaching-and-assessing-intercultural-communica.pdf https://cdn.starwebserver.se/shops/brandonpetterssonnk/files/the-ends-of-life-roads-to-fulfilment-in-early-modern-england-844.pdf https://files8.webydo.com/9585656/UploadedFiles/30DF1AC5-FB0C-4500-F38C-BDF8711D2386.pdf