Talk:Degeneration (Nordau)

Links?

This article needs some internal and external links where the reader who is interested can go for more information. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 20:39, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Have the editors read the book?

I hope no one uses this article in order to know what Nordau's book entitled "Degeneration" truly contains. There is not a single phrase of the text here presented capable of showing the content of his treatise. Even the citations are used randomly and out of context. Nordau's work is entirely concerned about French, English and German Art (and Art only), which he considers (clinically!) degenerated. And to analyse this disease and the public who consumes the degenerated art, he applies to them the most recent discoveries of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, mostly supported by the researches of dr. Lombroso, an Italian scientist. There is not a single instance in the book where he states that "the people are becoming degenerated under the influence of the degenerated art", on the contrary. He does not say anything about the "people", which he calls Philistines, and which he considers perfectly healthy. What he studies and criticizes is the degenerated Art and the degenerated persons who surround it, individuals he describes as "rich and elitist only", in other words, men and women completely apart from the people. I do not know, therefore, what premise the article refers to by saying: "its basic premise remains that society (?) and human beings (?) themselves are degenerating, and this degeneration is both reflected (?) in and influenced (?) by art". And Nordau did not believe that "degeneration should be diagnosed as a mental illness"; simply because degeneration was already diagnosed as such! But the diagnose was restrict to patients. As the art was not a patient and therefore unable to be diagnosed as degenerated, that becomes his purpose and the goal of the book. Please, Wiki editors, read the book before writing about it. 2804:214:816B:4CAC:C759:C8DB:A15F:F323 (talk) 00:22, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Recommend marking this article as a stub - or performing an overhaul

This page has likely been at some point severely editorialized if not outright vandalized. I have already performed edits to remove the worst and most-incomprehensible apologia and add (or re-add) references to what the concept of "Degenerate Art" is most known for - the Nazi Degenerate Art Exhibit in Munich in 1937. Additionally, I edited a section concerning Physiognomy which incorrectly and deceptively claimed it is a "branch of medicine," when it is, in-fact, a pseudoscience and closely-linked to Scientific Racism. These removals, by necessity, have removed a large portion of the page which either had been marked as needing citation for over 9 years, made misleading and seemingly-disingenuous claims, or seemingly only served to try and justify the work to a modern audience, rather than objectively discuss the work and its context -- both contemporaneous and consequential.

While Max Nordau himself was not a member of the Nazi Party, his work was a defining influence for the Nazis and especially Schultze-Naumburg (who would introduce the burgeoning NSDAP to Nordau via his 1928 book Kunst und Rasse, as evidenced by their assimilation of the phrase whole-cloth to criminalize Modernist Art, Jazz, and other works seen as "un-German," in addition to Schallmeyer (who would write about degeneration in the context of "Racial Hygiene" and thus motivate many of the Volksgesundheit policies of the Nazi party). Nordau would also write that degenerate writers "differed only in degree" from the (often-flawed) characters they would write about. And Nordau would himself propose what the Nazis adopted as policy:

"Such is the treatment of the disease of the age which I hold to be efficacious: Characterization of the leading degenerates as mentally diseased: unmasking and stigmatizing of their imitators as enemies to society; cautioning the public against the lies of these parasites (560)"

Peters, Olaf, and Steven Lindberg. “Fear and Propaganda: National Socialism and the Concept of ‘Degenerate Art.’” Social Research 83, no. 1 (2016): 39–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44283394.

And this is exactly what the Nazi Party would do via the formation of the Reichskulturkammer. When taken in-context with Schallmeyer and Schultze-Naumburg, it would also lead to institutionalized Child Euthanasia and the extermination of anyone deemed to live "Lebensunwertes Leben" -- a "life unworthy of life"; this would directly provide framework for the criminalization and extermination of LGTB+ groups (lumped together as homosexuals in contemporary parlance); as Nordau would write of "homosexuality" as one of the many manifestations of "degeneracy", specifically in relation to his attacks on Oscar Wilde for his bisexuality. "Homosexuals" were "[characterized]... as mentally diseased..." and "[stigmatized]... as enemies to society..."; exactly as Nordau wrote.

(the aforementioned source claims that Nordau would not coin the concept of "degenerate art," but in so doing seems to confuse and conflate it with "degeneracy" as a whole, and thus that may merely be a typo.)

In light of this, the previous rendition of this page was unacceptable. Nordau may not have been a Nazi, but his work has become inseparable from Nazi policies, writings, and atrocities as a direct consequence of what he advocated, and to exclude that context is thereby inseparable from editorialism and revisionism. ArianeSignalis (talk) 16:48, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Mention of the history of the label "degenerate" used in the persecution of LGBT+ groups, especially that citing Nordau, should also be included as context, including (of course), the Nazi exterminations of "homosexuals." ArianeSignalis (talk) 17:45, 29 October 2024 (UTC)