> > Creativity and thuggishness are not
> > "contradictories" , are they ?
andie nachgeborenen replied:
My point exactly. But most of the high class talent fled the Nazis, Schmitt, Heidegger, and (more ambiguously) Riefenstahl and Heisenberg being exceptions. Apparently even Junger found them to thuggish.
^^^ CB: When you said " unfortunately for the creative fascists, the thug ones stole the name " there was a mild implication that the creative fascists weren't thuggish and the thuggish fascists weren't creative.
Doesn't romanticism part of the core of fascist "ideals" ?
The sticky wicket of this thread is that "creativity" , something we think of as a virtue in the abstract seems to be as easily associated with bad politics as with good. "Art" , whatever that is, is not uniformly something that enhances our lives, although most intellectuals seem to have a pro-art reflex.
^^^^^
Andie: What do you have against Alexander (the Great, of Macedon, I figure you mean him)
^^^^ CB: That he was a conquerer. He seems to be legendary role model for Western conquerers, the tradition with which the fascists identify. He seems a sort of symbolic originator of conquest as an ideal for the West.
^^^^
He was unusually humane for his age, would only kill the men and enslave the women and children (the normal thing with warfare in the ancient world) if you resisted; if you surrendered he'd basically be nice;
^^^ CB; Why was he even there at all ? It's somebody else's place. It's just gratuitous bullying ,machoism.
He seems the original: " join Alexander; see the world: meet new and interesting people; kill them. " If you surrendered peacefully, he wouldn't have you killed. Wow, that's really "great" of him.
His whole project seems wickedly great, to coin a phrase.
He's an emblem from the era of the origin of war, slavery, the male supremacist family, private property and the state.
^^^^^^
he never asserted any sort of Macedonian "racial," ethnic, national, or whatever inherent supremacy (as opposed to political rule) over the peoples he conquered -- in fact was criticized by Macedonians and Greeks for Persianizing too much. He wasn't mad or especially cruel;
^^^^^ CB: He killed his best friend in a fight while drunk, no ?
^^^^
he was ruthless with subordinates who were. He was no proto-fascist, although he did replace Greek democracies with oligarchies. As wold conquerors go, Alexander is near the best of the lot.
^^^^^ CB: As primo conqueror, I'd say he is the proto-type for fascists.