No Subject

[microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net]

Subject: Re: Hitler clarification
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA

someone writes:
>>To put Hitler in a song of this type is to do him an honour that
>>he does not deserve.

stewarte@sco replies:
>I'm not sure I'd say he's being honored...really, he's hardly a 
>character in the song at all.  The narrator is the only real character
>in this song, and the real story is about her horror when she realizes
>just who she was dancing with.  So why did KaTe need to mention Hitler
>at all?  Because he's familiar to all, and the scope of his atrocities
>are pretty much universally acknowledged.  I fail to understand how this 
>either honors him or diminishes the impact of the Holocaust.

I agree.  Hitler is mentioned in the song as someone universally
understood as a symbol of human evil.  The song doesn't make sense
without the understanding that he was evil.  Acknowledging his
humanity doesn't lessen the evil.  It strengthens the fear that just a
human could lead such evil.

To say that mentioning Hitler as a symbol of human evil does Hitler
honor is similar to saying that mentioning Satan as a symbol of
supernatural evil honors Satan.

The song doesn't do the Nazis' victims any honor, but neither does it
dishonor them or trivialize their loss.  It doesn't mention them at
all in fact, particularly since the song seems to take place just
before the war, before Hitler had accomplished most of his
atrocities.

-- 
	Steve Schonberger	microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net
	"Working under pressure is the sugar that we crave" --A. Lamb