> The first concert in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s 1940 series ‘boldly devoted its entire second part, which was broadcast, to extracts from Wagner's operas’. In response to a letter of complaint, the Bristol Evening Post’s music critic expressed the majority and the BBC view that ‘by their unstinted applause, the audience gave the lie to the fantastic myth that the music of Wagner cannot or should not be appreciated by civilised people at war with Germany’.
This is dumb. Ukrainians are not helped by denying them access to Russian culture. Putin is responsible for the invasion, not Pushkin, Dostoevsky, or Tolstoy.
Absolutely dumb. But let's think about why such an emotional knee-jerk
response is wrong.
A grave error is to underestimate your enemy. A good way to do this is
by systematically ignoring them. Demonising a group does not make them
unworthy of studying. Quite the reverse.
As an Emacs user I even keep a Vim book on my shelf as a reminder of
how lucky I am.
Consider Machiavelli's "The Prince". Do enemies of deceit and
dark-triad mentalities choose not to read it? Of course not. Because,
arguably, Machiavelli wrote it as an expose in spite of the Medici's,
to be taken as a warning rather than a handbook.
Alternatively, consider Martin Heidegger's work. Is his brilliant
philosophy, much of which informs humanist existentialism, to be
discarded because Heidegger was a Nazi?
Both authors were products of their time who made expedient life
choices - literally to survive. Machiavelli was imprisoned and had to
disguise his writing as flattery. Heidegger despised the regime but
chose self-preservation in order to keep writing, as many German
intellectuals did.
The Great Russian canon offers some of the most profound
psychological insights into the human condition. Dostoevsky was
arrested by the Russian regime of his time for discussing politics and
sentenced to be shot. His work reflects that Russians, like the Jews,
are some of the most long suffering peoples in history. To deem it
"pro Russian" in a modern context seems the height of ignorance.
Burning books is always anti-intellectualism.
- https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/class...