Christopher Webber wrote:

>Plato banished artists from his Republic for this reason - they rock the
>boat of our smug contemporary social mores; they disturb us and make us
>question our assumptions; they promote ambiguity over certitude, individual
>experience over Political Theory, however Correct.  That is what art is
>for, and I for one do not "respect the feelings of those who object",
>because the alternative they propose is censorship.  Ask Salman Rushdie.

I'm not sure how I wound up on Plato's side in this little dust-up, but
I would like to scramble to get off of it.  First of all, I'm not setting
up a Republic, and I am all for everyone listening to anything they want.
When I said I respected the feelings of those who associate Wagner with
Nazism, what I meant was their feelings about the Holocaust--many of them
are survivors or relatives of victims.  I can certainly understand why this
music causes them, personally, too much pain to listen to.  But if they go
on to demand that Wagner not be performed, so that no one else could hear
it, I do not agree with that position.  In other words, I respect their
feelings, but not their political views.  Nor, of course, would I suggest
for a moment that G & S or Mark Twain be banned, and certainly not (if they
were living) subjected to the treatment Rushdie has had to suffer.

However, call me an unthinking follower of trendy correctness, but I do not
believe that a song that refers unabashedly to "n-- serenaders and others
of their race," suggesting that none of them will be missed, and goes on
to refer to "lady novelists" in the same vein, is really a very effective
Socratic gad-fly bite administered to "our smug contemporary social mores,"
whatever those may be.  If anti-racism and anti-woman-bashing is a smug,
ignorant contemporary prejudice that needs a nip from that gad-fly, I would
like to see a somewhat more intelligent one.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]