Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Art as Symbolic Propaganda
In my opinion, the classification of some types of art as degenerate and others as beautiful is an example of a subliminal yet powerful form of propaganda. Operating under the assumption that Hitler’s goal was the unification of his Volk to further his end, one must understand that such unification is best achieve when the Volk has something to unify against. This mass hatred of a particular group (in this case Jews and mental patients) occurs most easily when there exist clear delineations between good and bad, beautiful and ugly, right and wrong. These delineations become much clearer when physical examples can be presented to the population. Grouping all works of modern or abstract art together and labeling them “bad” and grouping all works of classical and folkloric art and labeling them “good” creates that delineation. This, coupled with the strong (although forced) relationship created between “bad art” and inferior races, created the ideological propaganda that pervaded the German Volk through art.
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