George Grosz @ 50 Watts

>>>Twenty-One Book Covers by George Grosz @ 50 Watts

Es ist ziemlich bekannt, daß zwischen dem Proletariat und der Bourgeoisie gegenwärtig Krieg herrscht. [...] Es geschieht Unrecht von Seiten der Bourgeoisie, aber es geschieht überall Unrecht. Sie, George Grosz, und ich sind gegen Unrecht (wie alle Welt), aber wir hätten weniger dagegen, wenn vom Proletariat aus Unrecht getan werden könnte.

It is fairly well-known that, at present, war reigns between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. [...] There are injustices committed by the bourgeoisie, but there are injustices committed everywhere. You, George Grosz, and I stand against injustice (like the whole world), but we are less in objection when injustices may be committed by the proletariat.

–Bertolt Brecht, Foreword to Trommeln in der Nacht, 1926.

Cosas

>>>Ernst Tugendhat interview (from 4 years ago) @ signandsight

Villa Tugendhat, Brno.

Here [in Germany] there's a lot of bragging in universities. In England and the USA, people have a different way of addressing you, particularly with me, because my style of thinking is rather Anglo-Saxon. Many German colleagues have it easier in America because there people think, oh, that's some German profundity that's so profound that it can't be understood anyway. [...]

As far as the behavioural sciences are concerned, I think that people are too rash in looking for analogies – for example between human morals and animal altruism. That is what Konrad Lorenz, among others, did. As for brain research, I think it's rather crazy what's going on today. [...] They can only find out what types of processes are going on in which parts of the brain. But then those professors of brain physiology appear and present theories about the nonexistence of human freedom. And those theories are only based on the fact that they see themselves as scientists and believe in determinism.

>>>Philippe Meyer on France @ French Politics

Un pays qui prend Bernard Tapie pour un entrepreneur, Bernard-Henri Lévy pour un philosophe, Jacques Attali pour un penseur, Claire Chazal pour une journaliste, Alain Minc pour un économiste, etc. ne peut s'étonner d'avoir Nicolas Sarkozy comme président de la République.

(And in related news, Michel Serres thinks that at this particular junction in history we need to figure out if Astérix was a fascist.)

>>>Autumn's coming @ The Trad

>>>Edwin Fischer 78s @ 78 toeren klassiek

Film

Hiller gegen Hegel

I'm currently at the Deutsches Literatur Archiv in Marbach where I am researching the mostly forgotten post-war German writer Werner Riegel (more info from Wikipedia for the curious). As so often during research, what we find is not always what we initially look for, and I've had the pleasure of acquainting myself more with the work of Kurt Hiller, the essayist and publisher who was one of the first figures of the older generation to offer his support and guidance to Riegel and his colleague Peter Rühmkorf during the early stages of their careers.
Hiller is known primarily as a pacifist, a non-orthodox socialist in the tradition of Aktivismus and an early proponent of gay rights. His essays are hilarious, firebrand broadsides, maybe lacking the Verfeinung of Kraus' criticism, yet possessing a certain aggression which is undoubtedly what so attracted Riegel and Rühmkorf. Hiller's witticisms are anything but frivolous.
Yet the one aspect of Hiller's criticism that I find most fascinating is his anti-Hegelianism. Hiller always presented himself as part of a somehow Schopenhauerian Marxist tradition, a move which, in criticizing the Hegelianism of other Marxist movements, would bring him into conflict with certain communist groups. For Hiller the Aktivist, Hegel represents the passive observation of the historical process, and the intellectualizing reformation of history into a theory which only justifies, and cannot criticize. Hiller is close in spirit to Kierkegaard in such denunciations of Hegelian mystification.

Übrigens ist unter den Gattungen philosophischer Hochstapelei jene, die sich bemüht, die Vernunft verächtlich zu machen, nur die zweitärgste. Die ärgste ist die, deren fauler Tiefsinn uns weismachen möchte, die Vernunft herrsche bereits, sie sei das der Welt immanente Prinzip, sie komme in jedwedem vorgefundenen Staat nicht minder zum Ausdruck als in den Bahnen der Gestirne, und unsre einzige Aufgabe sei, ihrer gewahr zu werden, gerade in den zufälligen und überlebten Organisaten fragwürdiger menschlicher Macht. Den vorgefundenen Staat nicht kritisieren, ihn nicht ändern und umformen wollen, nein, ihn als Ausdruck der Weltvernunft begreifen lernen, um sich mit ihm zu "versöhnen", mag er beschaffen sein wie -auch-immer, - das lehrte Hegel und das impliziert auch die mit einem fashionablen Ismus beklebte moderne Hegelei. Wir dürfen Hegel definieren: Hegel oder die Deutung des Massenmords an Kindern als Ausdruck der Weltvernunft.

Hiller would also criticize this philosophical distancing from political reality (which has a rich history in German literature, stemming most prominently from Goethe's aloof attitude towards the political events of the 1790s) in Thomas Mann. Yet the question is not simply political for Hiller. It is concerned more generally with ethics, and the conservative collusion between philosophy (in the Hegelian tradition) and power.

'Das, was ist, zu begreifen, ist die Aufgabe der Philosophie, denn das, was ist, ist die Vernunft.' Dieser Ausspruch, Damen und Herren, stammt aus keinem Parodien-Atelier; dieser Ausspruch ist von Hegel. Es ist der Schwertstich durch alle Ethik, es ist der konservativste, der schmierigste Satz der Weltlitteratur.

Stuttgart 2 days ago. (Hegel: exactly wrong)

Mann speaks annoyingly and condescendingly of his respect for Hiller before claiming that "Hillers Feindschaft gegen mich ist die der Aufklärung gegen die Romantik," as if Hiller wasn't an Aktivist/socialist and Mann himself didn't stand for the worst bourgeois, un-political non-engagement.

More gems from Hiller can be found here: http://www.hiller-gesellschaft.de/prosa.htm