To Gird a Word is Absurd, so I've Heard: A Treatise on Historical Absurdity

Perhaps, you, reader, in your recent perusals of my previous blog posts, have noticed an increasing tendency towards the absurd. Well, let me assure you that this was quite intentional and not, rather, the quasi-physical manifestations of the very breaking-down of my mind. No, the randomness you might have perceived to be present on this url of unrivaled magnificence was not the "rambling" of a "crazy" "person" - it all leads to a point! An absurd point! Well, actually, no - the absurdity was done for the sake of absurdity, myself being a fan of the word of the absurd. But, I figured, with such absurdity already wafting through the blogospheric atmosphere (the kids still call it that, right?) like a nonsensical phermone (or aphrodesiac - wait, no, that just sounds weird), I would write a post dealing with the absurd in a rather-more-than-cursory way. And so, I end this absurd introductory paragraph, in which I have used some form of the word "absurd" over 7, no 8 times (rather absurdly I might add - oh no! 9 times!), and thus begin the meat, the crux, the meaty crux of what I am trying to say...............absurdly...............(10 times!)...............



As I read what might have been the section of the MEH textbook assigned for tomorrow's class (being syllabus-less, I cannot be sure), I found myself chuckling, nay guffawing, at John Heartfield's "Have No Fear - He's a Vegetarian" on page 944. The picture itself, though literally/photographically crazy (...absurd...) is nonetheless quite true and, more to the point, incredibly chilling (it's meaning is explained in the textbook). Heartfield was a communist and dadaist (or at least sympathized with the movements), and, according to the online brochure for a Heartfield exhibition at the Getty Museum, he "unleashed his sharpest satire on Hitler's Führerkult (cult of the leader), the basis of German Fascism. These montages parody Hitler's most iconic poses, gestures, and symbols to create the impression that one need only to scratch the thin surface of Fascist propaganda to uncover its absurd [!!!] reality."

It seems to me Heartfield was one of the many Europeans who had lived through World War I, seen the rise and spread of fascism and Hitler's ascension to power, and thought, "How is Mussolini in power? Why are so many people listening to what Hitler says? Why are the rest not paying attention to him? This makes no sense. How could this possibly be happening? Did we spend four years fighting in World War One, at the cost of millions of lives, for nothing? This is absurd!" Of course, the dadaists had already acknowledged that the world was an absurd place during World War One, when Marcel Duchamp's forays into what-the-hell?-ness were at their strangest and strongest (see page 930 or any of Duchamp's works from that period). Hitler and everything he represented, not to mention the allies appeasement of him, just cemented these views.

Heartfield's picture also reminded me of Max Ernst's "Une Semaine de Bonté" or "A Week of Kindness," which I discovered randomly at Green Apple Books (a quality bookstore). A book full of collages, it is divided into 7 sections (for each day of the week) with some theme or common image running through all the collages of a certain section. And it really doesn't make any sense, at least to the conscious mind. It is instead meant to appeal to the reader's feelings and emotions, and there is definitely a "mood of catastrophe that pervades this collage 'novel'"that every interpretation attributes to the fact that Ernst was putting this together in Italy (remember, that's fascist Italy) and in 1933, just after Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of Germany. Yes, it's crazy, it's absurd - not just the book - Hitler, Europe, history - that's what's damned absurd - the world is absurd.

(17 times!)

The Technology of Death

I mostly agree with Sam's post about total war, but I don't think the fact that the conditions of World War One caused considerable mental-warping for the soldiers involved fully explains why the war was so atrocity-ridden. I believe (and this may be getting all philosophical and stuff) that soldiers in war were always mentally and emotionally capable of committing these atrocities and were limited only by the technological advancements (or lack thereof) of their time. Machine guns, poison gas, shells, even tanks and planes near the end of the war - all these things enabled soldiers to kill, wound, traumatize, and destroy on a scale previously unimaginable. On a lighter note, I enjoyed the link to the TV tropes page on World War One. Besides being quite funny, they also show the impact that World War One has had over the past 95 years. But I feel I have written perhaps a few too many posts on this subject, and so let this be the last World War One post on my blog.

Unless there's something else cool to write about.

In which case I will, once again, write about World War One.

And, if such a case should occur, I will acknowledge the fact that I claimed I would cease from World War One posts.

Cause you got to stay true to what you say.

SOME People OBVIOUSLY Can't FATHOM My BRILLIANCE

To Mssrs. Jonathan and the hundreds of others who read my learned blog on a daily basis,

I shall have you know that you made an unforgivable mistake in your recent blog posting. What is this mention of "reds" and "whites," this talk of revolution-from-below and Lenin? Clearly you are hopelessly mired in the early 1920s, content to pick at the uncomplicated events of the Russian Civil War whilst sullying the good name of your peers. Well I say to that harrumph, good sir! I do believe it was plain for all to see that my erudite analysis of the Russian psyche concerned the period of time known as (and I quote myself, wonderfully) "the late 1920s" and "the 1930s." Yes, you may have stumbled upon an inkling of correctitude, namely that (and I quote you, unfortunately) "for the most part, people went with their own self interest," and certainly this was true for those caught up in the hellish maelstrom the aforementioned civil war, but...actually, this was also true for those pinned down under the terrible weight of Stalin's revolution-from-above. Perhaps I did not happen to fill my sentences with enough clarity, or rather I forgot to mention the very motivating factor of fear that Stalin so exuded, that fear of deporation, of famine, and of death. Now, most rational beings, acting out of their own-self interest, would take steps to ensure that they were not exposed to such things, even if these "steps" involved working for a totalitarianly murderous regime. But, such fear as this, coinciding with the purges of the 1930s, was not so everpresent when Stalin first took power and began instituting his policies. What about those people who implemented and carried out Stalin's plans in the beginning? Why did they act the way they did? What motivated them? I expect the answers to all the questions on the morrow, attached with twine to the leg of a mottled speckledove.

Your good sir,
Nate

The Terror Justified Redux

Putting ourselves in the shoes (or boots) of the Bolsheviks and the leaders of the communist party of the USSR on Monday, almost everyone put the survival of the state and the communist ideology as a top priority and the guarantee and protection of civil liberties as unimportant or even dangerous to the Soviet cause. This was the mindset of those in charge of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s, and they were willing to go to any means to achieve their goals, even if this meant killing (take a deep breath) millions of their own countrymen. Was this justifed? Hell no! I think a better question to ask is whether the people who participated in such terrible state actions, such as carrying out the purges of the 1930s, believed these actions were justified, or whether they did these things only as way to increase their own power and eliminate enemies (real and imagined). The latter case is most certainly true for Stalin, that personification of revolutionary betrayal. But what about the party members in positions of less power who were obeying orders from the top? Did they think they were doing the right thing or were they acting out of self-interest? Yes, there are always people blinded by ideology enough to do anything or people willing to undertake grotesquely Machiavellian tactics for their own gain. But most people, like those in the Nazi regimes and other totalitarian governments, were probably just doing as they were told.

Weekly Summary Six

So...WWI. Kinda awkward. As Cas has put it, the beginning of the period where Europe "lost its marbles." Jonathan's post about the "ingrained conservatism of the military leaders of the time" and Declan's post about the war's surreality complement each other nicely and are two different ways of exploring the war's effect on the European psyche. Europe basically could not cope with something so strange, new, and horrible, thus hindering the attempts of both sides to achieve victory and permanently changing the face of European politics as old monarchies fell and new totalitarian regimes rose. A former teacher of mine described the war as a pyrrhic victory for the British because it ruined their economy and hastened the demise of their empire. World War One defeated not just the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, but all of Europe.

Versailles Treaty Excercise: An Excercise in the Versailles Treaty

I enjoyed the peace conference exercise we did on Friday. The inclusion of Germany and Japan would have made it more interesting, and probably much more complicated, but the situation and the goals of each country (or potential country) were still fairly accurate. The one aspect of the conference that wasn't covered was colonialism and imperialism. Although the territories involved fall outside of the boundaries of Europe, the existence of colonies or desire to establish colonies in those areas played their part in the relations between the countries. In Africa, Britain and France kept their colonial empires and split up the German colonies between themselves. There had already been tension between Britain and France (and Russia before the Revolution) over the fate of the Ottoman Empire during World War One, and once the war was over these problems became apparent during the peace conference, resulting in the division of the Middle East into British and French mandates and the disastrous consequences of such actions. In addition, the imperialist tendencies of the British and French undermined the peace process and made the League of Nations more than a bit hypocritical, contributing to its lack of power in the following decades. After World War One, imperialism was still a potent force.

David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace" is an excellent book on the subject.

Factors...factors...factors of World War One...

In "The Armaggeddon Waltz," an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday, Frederic Morton describes a financially strapped and politically volatile world of 1913 Vienna. He makes the point that this was a place where Stalin and Trotsky (separately) planned for a communist revolution, where Hitler attended art school, and the archduke Franz Ferdinand met with the Austro-Hungarian emperor, his uncle, in an attempt to convince him to cease the military activities in Albania that were only further provoking the already angry Serbians; the seeds of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and even World War II could be traced back to this city. I found this quite interesting (although not Morton's final analysis that America could somehow be similar). There were so many infinitesimally minuscule factors that shaped the course of history leading up to the first World War that I think the conclusion that the war was an inevitable occurrence is an enormous oversimplification. For instance, there had already been numerous instance of imperial sabre-rattling, even when the alliance that existed in WWI were already in place, such as during the Second Moroccan Crisis. With WWI, it was just that no country backed down. What would have happened if Franz Ferdinand had convinced his uncle to pursue a less belligerent policy in the Balkans. Maybe a conflict similar to WWI would have occurred at a later date, maybe it would have never occurred, but there is no certainty about either option.