The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #107461   Message #2228412
Posted By: Don Firth
04-Jan-08 - 02:06 PM
Thread Name: Folklore: Amazing Grace. Should We Be Singing it??
Subject: RE: Folklore: Amazing Grace. Should We Be Singing it??
Ah, SO! I wondered how long it would take for this discussion to slide into the realm of the purely hypothetical. "A lovely little piece of music composed by Adolf Hitler."

Here's something to consider:   No person is the villain in his own movie.

I won't go through the murky convolutions of Adolf Hitler's beliefs, but they were colored by a number of factors, not the least of which was a liberal dose of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, especially Nietzsche's concept of the Ubermensche, or "Superman." He believed that the "Aryan Race" (in his mind, tall, blond Teutonic/Nordic types were that Aryan race (somewhat oblivious to the fact that he was neither tall nor blond), and that it was high time that all the human chaff was swept away so that the Übermensch could take his rightful place in the world. Compounding this was his belief (shared by many Germans at the time) that Germany got a bum rap after World War I and that the treaties were unfairly restrictive, so they should be rescinded or ignored.

Hitler thought he was doing the right thing.

Most of the world considers him to have been a murderous madman. The moral here is—it is never a good idea to put a person with irrational beliefs and a bellicose nature in charge of a country. (Ahem!)

If, during his lurid career, he turned his hand toward writing music, I would certainly listen to it, at least once, as a matter of curiosity. Whether or not I would perform it myself and "have ZERO concerns about enjoying, performing, recording, sharing, and otherwise propagating" it, however, would depend on an number of things, not the least of which would be the piece itself, independent of who the composer was.

The question is much too hypothetical to be taken seriously.

Besides,
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interréd with their bones.

                      —Julius Caesar, Act 3, Sc. 2, William Shakespeare
Give the Devil his due.

Don Firth