Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Azrael
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Ibrahim wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
Azrael wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
Spenglerman wrote: At the opera's conclusion the father's statue demands that Giovanni repent, and Giovanni refuses in a last expression of churlishness. Rather than the orthodox but sociopathic Catholic of Tirso de Molina, da Ponte gives us an Enlightenment villain who refuses to bow to divine will out of sheer spite.
Don Giovanni's refusal to repent is what makes him heroic and along with Mozart's music raises the opera above the level of a conventional medieval morality play.
Perhaps Mozart is celebrating the rejection of traditional Catholic morality and making fun of Catholicism -- the talking statue taking Don Giovanni to hell could be Mozart poking fun of the veneration of religious statues. Perhaps the ending was supposed to be ridiculous, in order to imply that Catholicism is ridiculous. It's like Galileo writing a dialogue where his opponent, who favors a more orthodox view of astronomy, "wins" the argument, but his opponent's arguments are ridiculous. Mozart was, after all, a Freemason. He made the point that Catholicism is ridiculous more clearly in the Magic Flute.
A very interesting interpretation which, unlike Spenglerman's piece, takes into account what is known about Mozart.

Don Giovanni is revolutionary. Spenglerman is bemoaning that it's not yet another trite bit of fluff.
He's actually saying it's inferior to some obscure and allegedly Jewish-inspired version, which is essentially a "hipster" position. I mean everyone has heard of Don Giovanni, but Spengler prefers the earlier stuff. You probably haven't heard of it.

He even saw Don Giovanni by the Mannes school players. "Totally different show in the smaller venue, dude. You really 'get it' there," said Spenger in between sips of PBR in a "totally working class" Brooklyn pub.
Yes, that, too. Very good point. And very funny, too.

I wish I had thought of it.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Ibrahim wrote:
Typhoon wrote:Don Giovanni is revolutionary. Spenglerman is bemoaning that it's not yet another trite bit of fluff.
He's actually saying it's inferior to some obscure and allegedly Jewish-inspired version, which is essentially a "hipster" position. I mean everyone has heard of Don Giovanni, but Spengler prefers the earlier stuff. You probably haven't heard of it.
What brought you to that opinion? I know Speng loves to bring in the Jew at any or all points (lest irrelevance breaks the Jewish soul), but couldn't identify what you say in this particular essay of his.
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An obsession . . .

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Parodite wrote:. . Speng loves to bring in the Jew at any or all points (lest irrelevance breaks the Jewish soul), . .
How true, how very, very true . . .
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Rhapsody wrote:What brought you to that opinion? I know Speng loves to bring in the Jew at any or all points (lest irrelevance breaks the Jewish soul), but couldn't identify what you say in this particular essay of his.
Spengler wrote:Don Juan is a Jewish joke, I argued in a recent essay for Tablet magazine:
Don Juan exists to prove by construction that a devout Christian can be a sociopath, and by extension, that the Christian world can be ruled by sociopaths. The Enlightenment's most insidious attack on Catholic faith, then, came not from atheists like Voltaire, but from a Spanish monk with buried Jewish sensibilities.

A century and a half later, another converted Jew - Emmanuele Conegliano, known as Lorenzo da Ponte - reworked Tirso's play as a libretto for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the result was an utterly unique work of art.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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What must it be like to think the world revolves around you? Bet it's just a stone- cold bitch, what with nobody else agreeing.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Parodite wrote:Mozart, humor, musical satire, paradox of free will in the face of God. Hmm..

If thou asketh me, Speng's problem consists in demanding a serieus reason for artistic humor. As if there has to be a tragedy behind every joke.
Good point. He's like a devote of psychoanalysis who forgot something that Freud said: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Demon of Undoing wrote:What must it be like to think the world revolves around you? Bet it's just a stone- cold bitch, what with nobody else agreeing.
In Spengler's case, he thinks that the people who don't agree don't matter.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

Post by Azrael »

Typhoon wrote:
Azrael wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
Spenglerman wrote: At the opera's conclusion the father's statue demands that Giovanni repent, and Giovanni refuses in a last expression of churlishness. Rather than the orthodox but sociopathic Catholic of Tirso de Molina, da Ponte gives us an Enlightenment villain who refuses to bow to divine will out of sheer spite.
Don Giovanni's refusal to repent is what makes him heroic and along with Mozart's music raises the opera above the level of a conventional medieval morality play.
Perhaps Mozart is celebrating the rejection of traditional Catholic morality and making fun of Catholicism -- the talking statue taking Don Giovanni to hell could be Mozart poking fun of the veneration of religious statues. Perhaps the ending was supposed to be ridiculous, in order to imply that Catholicism is ridiculous. It's like Galileo writing a dialogue where his opponent, who favors a more orthodox view of astronomy, "wins" the argument, but his opponent's arguments are ridiculous. Mozart was, after all, a Freemason. He made the point that Catholicism is ridiculous more clearly in the Magic Flute.
A very interesting interpretation which, unlike Spenglerman's piece, takes into account what is known about Mozart.
Thanks.
Don Giovanni is revolutionary.
Yes. A revolutionary who has some traits that would be admired by many people. He's also a charismatic villain like Shakespeare's Richard III or Colonel Landa, whom one might even root for. He's a bit of a bad-ass. He goes all the way.
Spenglerman is bemoaning that it's not yet another trite bit of fluff.
Perhaps he would prefer something more boring and moralizing, like those after school specials they used to have on TV.
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"Chosen" or "Special" . . . ?

Post by Marcus »

Azrael wrote:
Demon of Undoing wrote:What must it be like to think the world revolves around you? Bet it's just a stone- cold bitch, what with nobody else agreeing.
In Spengler's case, he thinks that the people who don't agree don't matter.
Given his premises and in all fairness, he has to think so as does all of Judaism. The Jews were "chosen" to deliver Messiah to the nations. That purpose has been completed, and even Rosenzweig believed the Christianity would complete the mission of bringing the nations to God. If the Jews don't remain "chosen" for something, all that's left is "special" in some vague, undefined way and toward some vague, undefined purpose.

Tough go, tough sale, tough nut to crack . .
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Re: "Chosen" or "Special" . . . ?

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Marcus wrote:
Azrael wrote:
Demon of Undoing wrote:What must it be like to think the world revolves around you? Bet it's just a stone- cold bitch, what with nobody else agreeing.
In Spengler's case, he thinks that the people who don't agree don't matter.
Given his premises and in all fairness, he has to think so as does all of Judaism. The Jews were "chosen" to deliver Messiah to the nations. That purpose has been completed, and even Rosenzweig believed the Christianity would complete the mission of bringing the nations to God. If the Jews don't remain "chosen" for something, all that's left is "special" in some vague, undefined way and toward some vague, undefined purpose.

Tough go, tough sale, tough nut to crack . .
Well, ultimately people decide themselves what role and significance they have in life.

It is a rich ecology. Some people think they are a lamp post, I am fine with that. As long as they not tag me as one. I rather see myself as a doormat.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Spengman: Cherchez le juif (but in a good way).
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
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In a persistent way . . .

Post by Marcus »

YMix wrote:Spengman: Cherchez le juif (but in a good way).
;) . . . . :lol:
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Juicy detail: The mentioned Emmanuele Conegliano known as Lorenzo da Ponte and Mozart's libretto, supposedly also of Jewish descent according to Speng... very much resembled Don Juan in reality (apart from the killing)!

From the link I posted with the essay of James Donelan Mozart and Enlightenment Thought (my bold):
Mozart was somewhat of a prude (another thing Schaffer got wrong); he was a devout Catholic, wrote a long letter to his father about how getting married was far better than misbehaving as the other young men in Vienna do, and wrote his wife a steady series of letters about the importance of propriety and modesty. Da Ponte, on the other hand, had some adventures that would have done Don Giovanni himself proud. Originally from Venice, he had been a priest until he was defrocked and banished for having affairs with married women. He became a court poet and professional librettist in Vienna before moving on to a number of other cities, including London and eventually New York, escaping either angry creditors or angrier husbands. He became a grocer in Brooklyn, but then founded the Columbia University Italian Department, and died in New York in 1838. If you plan to write an opera about a libertine, I suppose it’s good to have a librettist who knows the territory.
The perfect artistic duo to create Don Giovanni. :)
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Parodite wrote:Juicy detail: The mentioned Emmanuele Conegliano known as Lorenzo da Ponte and Mozart's libretto, supposedly also of Jewish descent according to Speng... very much resembled Don Juan in reality (apart from the killing)!

From the link I posted with the essay of James Donelan Mozart and Enlightenment Thought (my bold):
Mozart was somewhat of a prude (another thing Schaffer got wrong); he was a devout Catholic, wrote a long letter to his father about how getting married was far better than misbehaving as the other young men in Vienna do, and wrote his wife a steady series of letters about the importance of propriety and modesty. Da Ponte, on the other hand, had some adventures that would have done Don Giovanni himself proud. Originally from Venice, he had been a priest until he was defrocked and banished for having affairs with married women. He became a court poet and professional librettist in Vienna before moving on to a number of other cities, including London and eventually New York, escaping either angry creditors or angrier husbands. He became a grocer in Brooklyn, but then founded the Columbia University Italian Department, and died in New York in 1838. If you plan to write an opera about a libertine, I suppose it’s good to have a librettist who knows the territory.
The perfect artistic duo to create Don Giovanni. :)
Indeed.

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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Image
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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YMix wrote:Spengman: Cherchez le juif (but in a good way).
:lol:

Yes, exactly.
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Filthy insult . . .

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—from that other place:
Spengler, thank you for your new brilliant essay “Beautiful Evil: Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Mannes Opera”. . .

Nonetheless, there is something that profoundly bothers me about many of your articles. I guess your idea of what Christianity means is a little bit distorted. I cannot blame you for this. As a Jewish gentleman, your vision about Christians is the vision of an outsider, . .
When Goldman claims that a devout Christian can be a sociopath, his idea of what Christianity means is far more mistaken than "a little bit distorted"—it is genuinely and stupidly perverted.

A devout Christian of any denomination can be and always is a sinner, but a "devout Christian sociopath" is a filthy oxymoron.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Because theJew is concerned with outward observance and fidelity to tribe. They never got what Isaiah said about " not blood of bulls and goats, but mercy". At least not in the mainstream. The great rabbis, Hilel and Gamaliel, and surely many since. But rank and file? No, inward observance eludes because they have for years followed the Law. You do the motions, you get the ticket punched. The heart is a maybe. So in the Jewish world, were salvation so easy, yes, you could be a sociopath and game it. But not as a Christian, and anybody claiming Christ that thinks otherwise can't claim Christ at all.
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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I think Spengler is correct in identifying a "loophole" in Catholic doctrine, I only mock him because everybody has already thought of it long before Don Juan. French and Italian Priests had not only recognized it but actually monetized it by the Middle Ages.

In theory, you can do whatever evil thing you like and then "repent" at a later time. I think the doctrine of many Christian churches supports that. Of course would it work? I think the spirit of the law might triumph over the letter of the law in this instance. To use this "loophole" as a critique of Christianity as a religion is as crude as some of the attacks against Islam that I've dealt with on these various forums.

That Spengler thinks it's a) a Jewish idea, and b) that it's actually very clever, is just too precious.
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Spengler should stick to the piano . . .

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. . In theory, you can do whatever evil thing you like and then "repent" at a later time. I think the doctrine of many Christian churches supports that . . .
None that I'm aware of:
"If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment . ."

—from the Epistle to the Hebrews
You're right . . that dog won't hunt:
Of course would it work? I think the spirit of the law might triumph over the letter of the law in this instance. To use this "loophole" as a critique of Christianity as a religion is as crude as some of the attacks against Islam that I've dealt with on these various forums. . .
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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I think sociopathy is a medical definition of a neurophysiological disorder. Jack the Ripper would not fit well in any legal framework of any human society. They are not able to repent because a lot of emotions like shame and empathy are simply non-existent.
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An durian . . .

Post by Marcus »

Parodite wrote:I think sociopathy is a medical definition of a neurophysiological disorder. Jack the Ripper would not fit well in any legal framework of any human society. They are not able to repent because a lot of emotions like shame and empathy are simply non-existent.
That and more, and that and more is what makes Goldman's comment so stupidly offensive. What a jerk . . . :oops:
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Re: Spengler should stick to the piano . . .

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Marcus wrote:
. . In theory, you can do whatever evil thing you like and then "repent" at a later time. I think the doctrine of many Christian churches supports that . . .
None that I'm aware of:
"If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment . ."

—from the Epistle to the Hebrews
You're right . . that dog won't hunt:
Of course would it work? I think the spirit of the law might triumph over the letter of the law in this instance. To use this "loophole" as a critique of Christianity as a religion is as crude as some of the attacks against Islam that I've dealt with on these various forums. . .
I don't see how your claim is correct here at all. Anybody can repent and seek forgiveness from Jesus/God at any time, correct? Regardless of what they may have done up to that point.
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Make of it what you will . . .

Post by Marcus »

Ibrahim wrote:I don't see how your claim is correct here at all. Anybody can repent and seek forgiveness from Jesus/God at any time, correct? Regardless of what they may have done up to that point.
"If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment . ."

—from the Epistle to the Hebrews
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
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Re: Spengler discovers Beautiful Evil

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Not a new theme for David - he stated it much more eloquently the previous time he discovered Japan.

Of course the beautiful is not the good - just look at the Italian renaissance, the high point of Western visual art, when you could literally get away with murder as long as you did it with style. But far more evil has been generated by deeply moral persons with a flawed morality, who thought it was crucial for the good of all to burn heretics, keep slaves, women and the lower orders in their place, eliminate the bourgeois, slay the infidel - and kill Jews. Zealous intolerant morality does of course have some Abrahamic roots...
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