National Socialism in Music

[Cythraul]

Even entrenched mainstream artists like Marilyn Manson and Rammstein have played around with Nazi iconography (much as David Bowie, Siouxsie and Banshees, The New Order and The Joy Division did in the late 70's and early 80's).

I don't think there's much to be worried about (or glad about in your case) with regards to such artists' use of national socialist iconography. I think for the above performers, nazi iconography serves more of a fetishist function, and that's certainly nothing new.

Still, the continuing allure of National Socialism for musicians is that it, alone of the great ideological systems of the modern era, recognized the enduring power and value of art. Indeed, National Socialism was in large measure an attempt to make art of politics. This is the enduring philosophical achievement of National Socialism, the recasting of political ideology in terms of myth, culture and aesthetics rather than in purely economic and material terms. In this sense, it remains a potent influence today, particularly on the post-Marxist Left (though you'd never get any of them to admit their indebtedness to the Nazis).

You act as if art created in the name of national socialism isn't worthless, overwrought, kitschy garbage. National Socialist philosophy and ideology is for the half-educated and no serious thinker takes it seriously.

What is unquestionable is the continuing power of National Socialist expression to elicit visceral reactions from those who come in contact with it. The moralizing and hand-wringing that inevitably result from any public discussion of National Socialist music serves to demonstrate why such music remains necessary.

The reasons for the "moralizing" and "hand-wringing" have already been stated; it's fucking obvious. Stop trying to intellectualize your way out of basic human feelings of compassion and empathy.

 

[The Grimace]

I like Patheon. Get "Vargrstrike", and listen to "Neo-Pleistocene", and fear NSBM.

 

[Cythraul]

Ooohhh NSBM. How very exciting.

 

[Naggamanteh]

That's not a very funny "Shut The Fuck Up" picture.....

It made me grin. I've seen worse.

 

[MasterOLightning]

I didn't think too much of this at first, but I came up with some other thoughts.

I haven't listened to any NSBM, and I don't have much desire to. I still don't understand why NSBM is it's own genre/style when NS does absolutely nothing to explain the music itself. There's no NSDM, is there? The whole thing is just a stupid attempt to draw attention towards a controversial belief system. I understand that ideology is a driving factor behind music, but I mean why don't I just start a Judeo-Christian Death/Grind genre? If there is a substantial difference in the styles of these NSBM bands from other black metal, can we really say that NS is accountable for that?

Also, the much of the shock value of Nazi imagery has to do with the relative immediacy of the events. In some 50 years I doubt it would have the same effect. It's not the fact that it was NS that we collectively reject the imagery. If Hitler's Germany was a fundamentalist Islamic state and murdered all the Jews in the name of Jihad, you can be damn sure that we would reject anything Islamic, art included.

*Waits for Demiurge to find fault with this post*

 

[The Grimace]

If there is a substantial difference in the styles of these NSBM bands from other black metal, can we really say that NS is accountable for that?

Most NSBM bands tend to be, if not consistantly good, then at least of consistant integrity. NSBM bands don't ever get the opportunity to "sell out", since the mainstream would never accept NS and the NS fans would never support a sellout band. It's quite trve.

 

[MasterOLightning]

Most NSBM bands tend to be, if not consistantly good, then at least of consistant integrity. NSBM bands don't ever get the opportunity to "sell out", since the mainstream would never accept NS and the NS fans would never support a sellout band. It's quite trve.

This makes sense, but fails to make a musical distinction. There are plenty of bands with integrity that won't sell out. Any band that makes especially harsh and aggressive music will never have the chance anyway.

 

[R.I.P.2]

Cliff notes:

1) NS shocks the masses more than Satan does.
2) The herd shudder at the nazi logo
3) Thus NS music is necessary because it shocks the masses, which brings the lol.

 

[no country for old wainds]

I personally get nothing from about 95% of music with NS as the dominant theme. While I have no objection to ruffling the feathers of liberal society, the ability to shock the masses alone ultimately has little worth to me. The NS bands who do have value tend to make such music for reasons other than because NS embraces the power of art, or because it's one of few taboos left in the world - they write it because they genuinely value National Socialism in their worldview. My tastes tend towards bands who have integrated certain values of NS which I share into a broader picture, not focusing on the effect it will have on those in opposition but on the beauty of their own ideals.

 

[DE]

Nazis

 

[Planetary Eulogy]

Almost stopped reading here. It's true that the symbol incites fear. Why on Earth could that possibly be a good thing?

There is enormous value in forcing the herd to confront its fears. The herd is invulnerable to critique and impermeable to new ideas when it is allowed to be complacent and content.

Oh, right. You don't want to be part of the herd. That's not cool, dude. You've got to be different. Can't be a sheep. Even if the sheep are right.

The sheep are wrong, the whole arc of liberal democracy leads only to self-immolation. No one is proposing National Socialism as the solution, but it is a vector for forcing people to actually think about the course they're on (most people are averse to this, which is why they lash out blindly when confronted with NS ideals or anything else that challenges their worldview, still, the effort should be made).

Romanticizing it is what it is. "NS stands for art!" I guess that makes it a fountainhead of achievement, right?

It certainly promoted genuine achievement more than liberal democracy ever has. Democracy seeks the great levelling, it has no interest at all in achievement.

Wrong. It is easy to twist things around so it seems as though it is virtuous to champion the ideology which holds art as the greatest triumph of mankind, but if it is at the expense of free will

Free will is an illusion. Our lives are not blank slates on which we as individual actors enforce our independent, free will. Rather, our decisons emerge from the intersection of genes, experience and circumstance, none of which we control.

or equality

This is an even bigger lie. People are born with different capabilities, different strengths, different weaknesses. There is no inherent equality and there certainly is no equality in the real world of actions.

For the reasons Misfit stated, not any romanticized notions of supremacy over the collective thought.

If that were the case, the hammer and sickle and red star of Communism would garner the same reactions. The real reason the swastika evokes such visceral reactions is that it stands both as a monument to the impotence of democratic values (it wasn't democracy that beat Hitler, it was firepower) and as a reminder that some of liberal democracy's cherished illusions are just that, illusions. Proponents of liberal democracy desperately want to believe that they have some sort of "natural law" on their side and that, given the choice, everyone would always choose democracy. Anything that gives lie to this will always frighten liberals (this also explains why Osama bin Laden is feared all out of proportion to the actual threat he represents).

This is the real value of NS exploration in music; it challenges the unchallenged assumptions in society. Once people have come to grips with the unpleasent realities they have heretofore denied, it will cease to be shocking and there will be no more need for it.

 

[kmik]

Free will is an illusion. Our lives are not blank slates on which we as individual actors enforce our independent, free will. Rather, our decisons emerge from the intersection of genes, experience and circumstance, none of which we control.

What we are actually doing is up to our own will. It is just that THIS will is pre determined by genes etc. You posted here because you wanted to; you wanted to because of countless other factors that are beyond your control.

Democracy sucks and has many faults, just like any other form of political system - it is simply the least worst of them, unless you are childish enough to think that the atrocities of war are cool or aim to an Orwellian dystopia

 

[no country for old wainds]

What we are actually doing is up to our own will. It is just that THIS will is pre determined by genes etc. You posted here because you wanted to; you wanted to because of countless other factors that are beyond your control.

I think that's what he was saying. I agree on both counts, anyway.

Democracy sucks and has many faults, just like any other form of political system - it is simply the least worst of them, unless you are childish enough to think that the atrocities of war are cool or aim to an Orwellian dystopia

Democracy is far from being the least worst of them, it's illogical and stagnant, and there's nothing wrong with war, war encourages evolution.

 

[kmik]

It is very easy to sit here near your computer and tell everyone how cool war is, but I doubt whether you'll say the same thing when you actually have to pick up a gun and go on a battlefield. If war can be avoided, it should - not only it brings misery and pain, but also takes a lot of money that can be used for better things.

I'm not sure what Eulogy was trying to say with that one, but perhaps he meant that it doesn't matter if you take away the people's freedom, since they don't have free will anyway, which is false, because they do have a 'will'.

Democracy is illogical, yeah, because it is based on religious principlas when all is said and done, but do you think that being happy to die makes any more sense? Or putting all the power in the hands of a single person is a better alternative?

 

[10293847]

There is and isn't free will, depending on how you look at it. You have free will within your limited choices. But then you can also say that you don't have free will, because of your limited choices.

This is sort of a pointless question I think. Life is what it is, do what you can with what you've got and what's within your ability.

 

[Necro Joe]

The real reason the swastika evokes such visceral reactions is that it stands both as a monument to the impotence of democratic values (it wasn't democracy that beat Hitler, it was firepower) and as a reminder that some of liberal democracy's cherished illusions are just that, illusions.

Or it could be the genocide committed in its name.

 

[polarity]

as long as Billy Milano and those right wing nutjobs are allowed to put their political views out there, I think it's only fair that the Socialists voice their political viewpoints. Whether they're respectful of other peoples' opinions or not is their choice I guess.

NATIONAL SOCIALISM IS NOT SOCIALISM YOU FUCK

If that were the case, the hammer and sickle and red star of Communism would garner the same reactions. The real reason the swastika evokes such visceral reactions is that it stands both as a monument to the impotence of democratic values (it wasn't democracy that beat Hitler, it was firepower) and as a reminder that some of liberal democracy's cherished illusions are just that, illusions.

are you implying that the USSR was a democratic, egalitarian state?

 

[Scourge of Malice]

are you guys against true democracy or what democracy has become? true democracy is not what we have in the US

 

[Planetary Eulogy]

Or it could be the genocide committed in its name.

Again, if that were the case, the hammer and sickle would evoke even more negative reactions (since, after all, the Bolsheviks had already murdered more people before Hitler ever came to power than the Nazis killed during the entire duration of their regime).

 

[Planetary Eulogy]

are you implying that the USSR was a democratic, egalitarian state?

The USSR was certainly an egalitarian state, much more so than any democracy. The real issue with Communism was always that liberals could effectively write it off as aberrant, since it was imposed and maintained by violence and violence alone.

The NSDAP certainly used violence against its enemies, but it was an overwhelmingly popular regime that did not rise through violence nor did it require violence to sustain it. The German people had a choice between National Socialism and liberal democracy, and they willingly opted for the former.