tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3371351138596055444.post4708895233453754432..comments2024-01-20T23:55:26.269-08:00Comments on The Detritus Review: I... You... Wait, What? History???Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3371351138596055444.post-67756678926299238072008-03-20T15:07:00.000-07:002008-03-20T15:07:00.000-07:00Fantastic points. I have only a few things in retu...Fantastic points. I have only a few things in return.<BR/><BR/>1. I brought up "Brahms the Progressive" to illustrate his anti-establishment tendencies, the sloughing-off of music-historical worldviews, i.e., the break from oppressive Beethovenian vocabularies. If indeed he was progressive, then he was of the same musical ilk as Weill. But, point taken about the German worldview; I'm sure they were miles apart, there.<BR/><BR/>2. Marx's theories of capitalist economics paint it as imperialistic, which leads to unlimited competition for expanding markets, thus causing global conflict over natural resources. Deja vu? <BR/><BR/>Growing resentment of Tsarism (via Marx), forced Tsar Nicolas to side with the Serbs and against the Germans in the hopes of reuniting his people and strengthening his power. His efforts to quickly mobilize an army, in defense of the Serbs, did not go unnoticed by the Germans, who promptly declared war on Russia, the first of the allied powers to be involved. In other words, Tsar Nicolas feared Marxist dissent, which had been growing for decades and threatened to strip him of power. Almost by accident, Marxism was the cause of Nicolas' hasty reaction to Ferdinand.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful comments.Empiricushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11629835829400843701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3371351138596055444.post-90319453245658072842008-03-20T13:22:00.000-07:002008-03-20T13:22:00.000-07:00"Brahms the Progressive" proves my point. Schoenbe..."Brahms the Progressive" proves my point. Schoenberg, whose worldview was formed in the late 19th century, was eager to claim the mantle of Brahms. Weill, whose worldview was formed during WWI (he was 14 when it broke out) was eager to avoid that mantle like the plague. So even though "Ein Deutsches Requiem" seems benign to us in the US today, it's worth considering that Weill, in Germany in the 1920s, probably saw it as a pernicious reminder of the idealistic German nationalism that fueled the war.<BR/><BR/>The intellectual atmosphere in Germany prior to the war was an outgrowth of that of the "Requiem": a mystical, optimistic view that the totality of human history had culminated with the rise of the modern German state and the advance of the German people. Yes, the causes of the war were multiple and complex, but a number of historians (Modris Eksteins, for example, who writes about this period better than just about anybody) effectively argue that the German worldview was a big reason, if not the main reason, that Germany a) welcomed, rather than tried to forestall, the outbreak of war, and b) continued to fight the war—often effectively—long past the point a rational assessment of manpower or resources would have deemed practical.<BR/><BR/>And Karl Marx? Come on, he was dead before Brahms. (Seriously, Socialists were pretty divided as to the prospect of war. Even the German Socialist party only came around to supporting it in the face of overwhelming popular opinion.)Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10936327293692397100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3371351138596055444.post-14304350670921004022008-03-20T07:40:00.000-07:002008-03-20T07:40:00.000-07:00Indeed."history-having" is my new favorite constru...Indeed.<BR/><BR/>"history-having" is my new favorite construction.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3371351138596055444.post-39037115154790711442008-03-19T22:38:00.000-07:002008-03-19T22:38:00.000-07:00Awesome post. Wow,SAAwesome post. Wow,<BR/>SASator Arepohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00006808744513156317noreply@blogger.com