Klarinet Archive - Posting 000029.txt from 1998/10

From: John Dablin <johnd@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: Wagner
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 15:09:08 -0400

I don't think it's possible for anyone alive today to properly judge the
attitudes of previous generations to the Jews because our views will
forever be shaped by the horrors of the holocaust, and we can never
separate the two. It seems to me that many otherwise perfectly
respectable people had degrees of prejudice, ranging from mild distaste
to downright anti-semitism, but you cannot thereby imply that they would
have acquiesced in, or in any way approved of, genocide. My own Mother,
now 83, remembers as a girl calling someone who didn't pay their share a
"mean old Jew" in a jocular manner, without even thinking what it meant,
but in her dealings with people she has always treated everyone with
proper courtesy and respect whatever their race, and I can't imagine she
was any different before I was born.

So, how can we judge Wagner's anti-semitism? It's impossible. Maybe he
would have colluded and approved of the mass-murder of millions, maybe
he wouldn't, we can never know. I prefer to enjoy the music and the
stories behind them on my own level, which doesn't involve racist
assumptions. If Wagner was wrong to portray an evil character as a
Jewish caricature, that doesn't alter the fact that there are evil
people in the world and they can be be legimately portrayed in a drama,
and I find it perfectly possible to separate the two. By this I mean
seeing the evil while ignoring the Jewishness Other people may not be
able to, and I have every and respect and sympathy for them. Indeed, if
I had any personal connection with victims of the Nazis I might well
feel very different.

Everyone must make up their own mind, but I don't think we can
*necessarily* condemn a man because of the actions of later generations.

John Dablin
Aylesbury UK

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