4 ms·

He was also a virulent anti-semite

alkyon 1y ago
Like Wagner and lots of other artists around that time. Agatha Christie's most famous novel? - Ten Little Niggers. Jean Genet was a convicted criminal. I try to separate the work from the artist, even if it's difficult.
- multjoy 1y ago
  OP doesn’t even acknowledge it. Eliot chose, in 1948, when the Holocaust was common knowledge, to reprint a poem that contains the line: >On the Rialto once./The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot. That isn’t a poet following a common zeitgeist, that is a deliberate, provocative act.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    I think it's a valid and important observation, but it's not incumbent on someone bring up T.S. Eliot to offer a disclaimer about it, and you shouldn't write a comment that implies otherwise.
    - multjoy 1y ago
      Why? Who are you to say what I can, and cannot, write?
      - tptacek 1y ago
        I mean, you do you, but it's not a reasonable complaint.
Slava_Propanei 1y ago
[dead]
danans 1y ago
Which was sadly not uncommon in those days. The Nazi party had a significant following in both the US and the UK at that time.
- multjoy 1y ago
  That doesn’t make it any better. They also had significant opposition.
  - danans 1y ago
    Indeed, they had opposition. However, the way we have been taught history has been laundered to make us think that Nazi ideology never had a significant base of support outside of Germany, when the truth was that it was not only significant, but segregated American society under Jim Crow was in several ways a model for the Nazis.
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      US treatment of migrant workers under the Bracero program and US usage of Zyklon B on migrant workers as a delousing agent directly inspired Nazis. This came to a head at the so-called bath riots in 1917: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots This has come up a couple times before on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38552760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38552760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40381708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40381708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40382627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40382627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40646876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40646876
      - mjcohen 1y ago
        TIL

Like Wagner and lots of other artists around that time. Agatha Christie's most famous novel? - Ten Little Niggers. Jean Genet was a convicted criminal. I try to separate the work from the artist, even if it's difficult.

multjoy 1y ago
OP doesn’t even acknowledge it. Eliot chose, in 1948, when the Holocaust was common knowledge, to reprint a poem that contains the line: >On the Rialto once./The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot. That isn’t a poet following a common zeitgeist, that is a deliberate, provocative act.
- tptacek 1y ago
  I think it's a valid and important observation, but it's not incumbent on someone bring up T.S. Eliot to offer a disclaimer about it, and you shouldn't write a comment that implies otherwise.
  - multjoy 1y ago
    Why? Who are you to say what I can, and cannot, write?
    - tptacek 1y ago
      I mean, you do you, but it's not a reasonable complaint.

Slava_Propanei 1y ago

[dead]

danans 1y ago

Which was sadly not uncommon in those days. The Nazi party had a significant following in both the US and the UK at that time.

multjoy 1y ago
That doesn’t make it any better. They also had significant opposition.
- danans 1y ago
  Indeed, they had opposition. However, the way we have been taught history has been laundered to make us think that Nazi ideology never had a significant base of support outside of Germany, when the truth was that it was not only significant, but segregated American society under Jim Crow was in several ways a model for the Nazis.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    US treatment of migrant workers under the Bracero program and US usage of Zyklon B on migrant workers as a delousing agent directly inspired Nazis. This came to a head at the so-called bath riots in 1917: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots This has come up a couple times before on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38552760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38552760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40381708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40381708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40382627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40382627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40646876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40646876
    - mjcohen 1y ago
      TIL