And while I�m a great fan of the arts and think they often do have important things to say, there�s an aspect of all forms of art that was nicely articulated by Thomas Mann in Death in Venice:
[Actors, artists, musicians, Hollywood script writers] "can be neither wise nor worthy citizens. We must needs be wanton, must needs roam at large in the realm of feeling. Our magisterial style is all folly and pretense, our honorable repute a farce, the crowd�s belief in us is merely laughable. And to teach youth or the populace by means of art is a dangerous practice and ought to be forbidden.�
Well, while making a valid point, perhaps that quote goes a bit too far. Free speech is important. Art is part of understanding. But in American popular media, where news and fantasy compete for air time, it�s Mother Fantasy who often dictates what�s acceptable and what isn�t. She has her own ideas--"bohemian," in a sense, but also at times perhaps rather rigid--about what are good manners and what are'nt.
On TV's The Insider, for example, little doubt is ever expressed about what's right and what's wrong. I'm not saying that I find anything terribly wrong with The Insider, or that I can make any claim to moral perfection myself. But when some media figure makes a bad mistake, the people at The Insider know right away and can seemingly quantify the extent of the icon's error. Watching that, one may wonder, "Do they have a little media rulebook that tells them?"
If so, that media rulebook probably shouldn't be confused with any of the world's major religious or ethical systems or any code of law. Perhaps they could do a special televised segment from time to time to help the rest of us understand.
At any rate, US popular media, circa 2007, didn�t want to tell the true story of how the homosexual issue had actually played out in Nazi Germany. While I can�t control the popular media, I don�t think I should let popular fallacies control my own effort to create an accurate political or historical backdrop for material in the rest of this article.
I strive, perhaps surprisingly, to attain a sort of "political correctness." But that correctness isn't intended to conform simply to the politics of a given moment, but to political developments over a wider period of time.
In 2007, the US mass media was happy to remind us that homosexuals and Jews were victims of Nazi persecution during World War II. To depict the cruelty of Nazis was safe enough, since there were then few Nazis watching TV or reading newspapers in the US, and Nazism was a form of depravity that wasn�t popular in Hollywood or theatrical or literacy circles. But the earlier history of homosexuality in Germany was something that most of those who were hammering away on the anvils of popular culture didn�t� want to talk about--even though that history indeed led to the horrific events of 1939-45. We�ll sketch the true events here and leave any reader who�s interested to confirm our facts, as may be easily done.
�The theory of homosexuality was largely invented in Germany.� That�s what Mr. Daniel Johnson tells us in an introduction to Death in Venice and Other Stories.
An excerpt from that excellent collection of translated stories has been quoted above. It was published by Everyman�s Library in 1991. If the reader would like to buy a copy, a link is at left. Death in Venice itself was first published in 1911. (The edition that's now for sale is slightly different and has a different introduction; the older edition should be availlable in many libraries. They share the same cover design.)
Now, Mr. Johnson tells us that the term �homosexuality� was first used in 1869 in Germany. As the subject was developed it was proposed by some that �true� homosexuality was genetically determined.
The same idea was later put forward in the US--although the notion isn�t compatible with Darwinism, at least not without further explanation. The genetic idea can be handy, nevertheless-- either for homosexuals or for those who dislike them. While homosexuals can claim that their behavior is entirely due to DNA programming--and therefore without stigma--those who�d like to do something TO homosexuals can profess an innocent medical desire to treat a degenerative condition or disease.
Continue
--see midscreen, right