Sunday, January 11, 2009
La Trahison des Clercs
Mark Falcoff reviews The Shameful Peace, by Frederic Spotts, a book which investigates the extent to which artists and intellectuals in France collaborated with the Germans during the occupation. I have not read it yet, myself, but it looks interesting. Many of our own self-appointed intellectuals revel in their theatrical denunciations of "fascism" in America, and instances of celebrity BDS have been numerous. It would be fascinating to see whether the same people, faced with a genuinely authoritarian system in which one's adherence to principle might well have life and death consequences, would follow the French model.
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Are you kidding me? Those people LOVE to have things banned (for our own good, people arrested and tried for imaginery offenses, and private property seized. They have a sense of grievance that they're not the ones running the country.
ReplyDeleteThey'd be trampling people to death in order to be the first in line to collaborate.
They quite openly support Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Hamas, the PLO....
You know the old saying "You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything?" It was written for our very own bunch of collaborators.
ReplyDeleteA few, when faced with the reality of totalitarianism, would stand & fight with the rest of us.
Most would never say a word in protest, as they watch the boxcars move out...
Most would help load people into boxcars.
ReplyDeleteThey are the enemy of freedom.
Those reviews read well. I'm surprised that the old Commie sponge Jean Paul Satre doesn't rate a mention. Mehaul.
ReplyDeleteClive James' Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts addresses many of these same people in his essays. It's a brilliant collection and well worth the reading.
ReplyDeleteWould they follow the French model? In a heartbeat and without a second thought, and they would rationalize it to themselves that everybody who is anybody would do the same. And they'd never, ever let themselves think about what might be happening to the victims (they were merely "deported, n'est-ce pas)?
ReplyDeleteRichard: Thank you very much for that tip; looks like a must-read.
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