Andrew Carlan wrote:

>Do you walk through doors rear-end first? (-:)

Once in a while, just for variety's sake.  Actually, I may have
misunderstood you when you wrote:

>How could Hitler have--as I delicately put it--have had an embolism
>for Wagner and Wagner be the oracle of freedom and the worth of the
>individual?

I thought you were suggesting that the fact that Hitler admired Wagner was
evidence against Wagner supporting freedom and individualism.  My point was
just that this is not evidence of that at all, any more than the fact that
he was a vegetarian says anything about vegetarianism.

Actually, of course, Wagner was all for revolution (at least briefly) in
1848, and one could argue that part of the significance of Siegfried is
his urge to rebel against the father figures Mime and Wotan.  Certainly
he is on the side of Walter (and Sachs) in the battle against musical
conservatism in Die Meistersinger.  But as in most other aspects of his
character and opinions, Wagner was very confused in his politics, to the
point that one cannot say simply that he was or was not in favor of freedom
and the individual.  What would he have thought about the Nazis? I don't
think we can say for sure.  He might have partially sympathized and
partially not.  One thing one can say for sure: his ego was monumental
enough that he might have sided with them just for the sake of the
adulation he would have received, unfortunately.

>It is Wagner's ego trip I was originally commenting on and his pack of
>rogue descendants, up to this generation, who seem like Nietzsche to
>finally realize what a hoax Wagner was.

Maybe I'm one of those "rogue descendants," but I don't see in what sense
he is a hoax. He is simply one of those artists that people seem compelled
to have very strong feelings about, positive or negative. Either you're on
his musical wavelength or you're not. It's always puzzled me, though, why
people who dislike his music feel compelled to denounce him so frequently
and vociferously. What is it about Wagner (his music, that is--we all admit
that he was not a very nice person) that gets under people's skins so much?

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]