How Nazis Use the Concepts of Politicization of Arts and Aestheticization of Politics - Article Example

Lecturer How Nazis use the concepts of "politicization of arts" and "aestheticization of politics" Introduction Immense transformation has been characterizing the history of modernity. During the times of Hitler, the relationship that existed between the actions of politics and the activities of arts was considered no less powerful, but this took different forms. The ideas of artists were not being used in the society as one figure but as a very model that the society ought to be. In the work of the Nazis theoreticians, the resemblance that exists between the two postures that of artists and statesman’s is seen. Why is the model of art so attractive to most politicians? It is evident that since romantic crisis, artists, especially poets have been sorting hard to occupy the places of priest, of being guidance and people’s educators. In the Nazi leaders’ eyes, artists were seen to be enjoying this advantage over the old religions servants: they were seen not to be obedient to the law or independent books but they were free to defining their own goals and their own ways through which they could use to achieving their goals. This is the genius privilege that was seen to have been given to the model of every artist: this seems to span all the other rules so that the individual can be very free to think and create (Acosta and Quintana, p. 53). Liberation used the weight of the tradition as the rallying cry of the avant-garde movement in the artwork by the end of the 19th century. There was the public cry from the futurists, Dadaist, cubists and abstract painters who strongly asserted they too had the right to shape the world that they are living in according to their will and zeal. Thus for Hitler, this was no longer enough to see politics being anesthetized. He was forced to fuse politics and aesthetics. This was done through subordination of all actions and institutions so that the ultimate objective of producing a new people- in both the physical sense and spiritual senses was met. The artists became huge symbolic figures in politics, and those who failed to see National Socialism as a religion at that time were considered not to know anything about it. Hitler too had to acknowledge the fact that this was more than just a religion, and it was the will of creating a new man. He had conceived this as a deliberate effort like that pictured of an artist in his studio or an inventor in his laboratory on the scale of the whole nation. The projects carried out by the two principals were considered to be acts of propaganda and eugenics. The effort of propaganda was seen too well profit the artists whereas the effort from the eugenics depended on the progress of science. The Nazi program was to support both art and science programs. Although Hitler had emphasized its exemplary role what mattered at the time was not so much art, it was rather considered art in the service of human life. It was seen as at some certain level every individual would behave like an artist. Therefore, creativity was to reflect in every work, and the norms of beauty were to be respected by the acts of utilitarianism (Geroulanos, p. 1115). Concepts of "politicization of arts" under the Nazi Politics and art are the main areas of human endeavor that displays several familiar intersections. Indeed the art politicization of arts has been by several political regimes for the purposes of propaganda. This has been through the cautious deployment of arts to try to shape the majority of the populations’ consciousness. It is that this has been done by every resistance movement, often with much results that are aesthetic than those that are procured by state, the arts of which are always gigantic, but extremely dull. The art history discipline has undergone shaping by the power of politics to the extent that is incalculable. In addition, the art that has been seen to survive from the past eras is what has been permitted by authorities to persist. The history of art is, therefore, considered to be the history of artworks and monuments that are compatible with capitulation. One can suspect that during the medieval and renaissance period there were atheists, skeptics and anarchists who roared through the period. There was immolation from their paintings and poems that were blasphemous. However, it is also noted that whenever a political regime begins making aesthetic objects it tries making them seem eternal (Zürn, p. 47). Whenever constitutions ideologies or political systems are mentioned, they have been characterised individuals who tend to think about the Plato republic, the manifesto of the communist, common sense or the independent declaration. However, the constitutions, ideologies and the system of politics are embodied in all sorts of non-textual or not primarily textual items. The ideology of politics are not merely a series of assertions, they are multi-media aesthetic surround. Now the texts have to be viewed semantically or aesthetically. The power of declaration does not depend on what it declares only but the poetry by which the declaration declares. Nazism is a central and a peculiar example. The ideologies were expressed in the series of propositions, and this was a complete mess and characterised by a congeries of race theory, capitalism, nationalism, pseudo-neo-paganism and many others. Nevertheless, the aspect of Nazism never expressed through texts. This notion considered an intimate combination of art and the beauty that ideology bear. During this time, individual’s lives were regarded as part of work. In addition, politics was also seen to be an art practice. The art era was a decade that had experienced the rise of a fascist regime that culminated in its ugliest form with the Nazis in Germany. This period was also marked by strict ideological standards of all kinds of inclination on what was beautiful and was labelled to be “degenerative”. The idea of art was taken towards a very negative limit by the Nazi regime and art was, therefore, regarded as a mere tool of propaganda and mechanical part of the ideology of politics (Macdonald, p. 105). The era of anti-intellectualism had characterised the Nazi regimes attitude towards art. The Nazi regime had rejected the principle of using art for the sake of art. The national cause was to be by all aspects of aesthetic culture. The Nazi did no see it coming by subordinating art to the national purpose as a politicization of art. What the Nazi thought it was doing was that it was trying to free the art from the being used as a political instrument by the left wing. What the regime was sorting of was not politicization of art but trying to eliminate any debate of politics that would have favored the shaping of policies according to the criteria of aesthetics and beauty. Therefore, art had a very vital role to play during the Nazis regime. More priorities were put to the task that was aiming at reversing the decline in the standards of traditions that were already decried by the conservatives. To the general conservative bias, the Nazi had to add their special emphasis on the aspect of race. The authenticity of any art was not being determined by the conditions of age or the fashion changes; it was the expression of the innermost character that was timeless. The Nazi regime utilized the true art to emanate in peoples souls and to express their eternal ideals. The Nazi regime was using the vision of modern art in all its experimental as well as innovative forms and extolled instead of using the realism of German art. The regime rejected the notion of individualism in self-expression. It had demanded that every piece of art had to conform to the taste that was reflected by the mass of people. Those artists who were non-objective and were very sincere t the deformed vision of their world they were automatically declared to have mental incompetence and therefore were not allowed by any way to reproduce. These people were also threatened to be put behind bars in any case they were attempting to defraud the public. The artists who were Jews were being blamed for subverting the public’s mental health by their preoccupation with diseases and deformities. The Nazis demanded affirmation in situation of socially critical arts. The virtues of the military were considered to be more sacrosanct. Any art that was depicting any way of undermining any religion, patriotism or morality was to be extinguished from the society in the same way carriers of disease were eradicated. The cultural program of the Nazis had a wider appeal to the public, surprisingly in the same manner their artistic tastes just like their values in politics, reflected popular prejudices that were deep-seated. As in the sphere of politics, the Nazi regime represented a backlash against the progressive values and the liberals. This meant that the Nazis could count on the mistrust and the resentment that were exhibited by the modernist avant-garde. The Nazis tremendously helped in giving the older conservative tradition some prominence in representation that was somehow overwhelmed by the complexes of innovation of the modern art. Any artist who had achieved prominence during that period was by no means a propagandist. Several artists who had limited talent of art aligned themselves with the programs of the Nazi regime that was old fashion realism and renewal of moral. To the population, it seemed as though art had become accessible, depoliticized and furthermore useful to the life of the common person. Hitler authorized his favorite architect to draw up plans and create models of architecture that would transform berlin into future world capital this megalomania project was prevented by the start of the war. This shows how the regime was obsessed with the kind of information that art was able to possess and pass to the masses. Hence, Hitler had the developed the quest to control the talent that would otherwise be used as a weapon when the wrong information is passed to his people. With the control of what artists were to draw or express their views in the form of pictures and paintings, few artists were able to take the risk and show their prowess in the art. There was no freedom of artistic drawing and painting. People had no freedom to express their inner world in picture forms. Any artist who expressed his or her inner world in a way that was not impressive to the site of the public was deemed incompetent and was liable to be imprisoned. Several artists developed fear due to the tight conditions put on them despite this; there are those who went on and showed their talent in drawing and painting. The Nazi regime used these groups of artists as chief propagandists to express to the people what the regime had seen or had in mind. The Nazi regime took advantage of this to reach the public. Whatever they thought was good for the people and not what the people thought was good for them were drawn in artistic form to capture the attention of the masses. The population, therefore, was being controlled using this new tool of passing information that was able to catch the sight, as well as the emotional being of the public. The government realized that the artistic form of pictures was a great mean to reach the masses heart, convince them, and gather great support from them. Adolf Hitler utilized this successfully. Hitler was able to use this modern tool to gain support through bringing out the pictorial form of what was to be the new capital that was to transform berlin. Aesthetization of politics by the Nazi The true meaning of the notion anaesthetization of politics was intended to explain correlation account between the masses and the intellectual, and the cultural environment, aesthetic imperatives, in addition to the pertinent political exigencies. It is considered that outcomes of fascism that are reasonable deeply depend on establishing aesthetics into politics. This notion was seen to be evident in the discernible manifestations of politics where it should have been construed in terms of the fascist ways as well as the way the Nazi regimes had to endeavor in order to convert the occurrences of politics into spectacles, carnivals and dramatic mass rallies (Huimin Jin, p. 141). However, in the light of the difference seen in conceptualization of fascism in the context of aestheticized politics is assuming that the contention that is decisive in the aesthetization defies focus, incoherent risks. It is essential to note that this view may be acceptable because politics is considered more aesthetic more than aestheticized and taking into account that there exist several forms of enunciation between politics and aesthetics. The aesthetics used by the Nazis was, above all, the aesthetics that could be seen through vision. These included the perception of the world and self that were profoundly cinematic in nature. The Nazism political project can be described as an attempt that was used both to claim the political autonomy and to aim at refashioning politics as authenticity and existential self-assertion space. Therefore, it will be shortsighted to say that politicization of art is entirely in response to the anesthetization of politics to be just a mere reversal of dialect. Dialect is understood in a teleological, indeed totalitarian sense. The main purpose of this groundwork was to replace the fundamental contradiction that existed between politics and aesthetics from the conscious, as well as the unconscious form. The act of replacement is political in nature. In addition, the concept of the notion of politicization of art serves to denature the anesthetization of politics by the Nazi, which is to say simply that it politicizes it. Its main aim is exposing the duplicity of the position of the Nazi whereas the anesthetization of politics means in effect the aspect of depoliticizing the society (Fenner, p. 44). In order to conceive the society of the Germans as the Gesamtkunstwerk, the Nazi obliterated every source of antagonism, conflictual and multiplicity. This helped in remodeling of the society as a literal nature morte. The death naturalized the society that believed deeply in the immortality as the work of art and was to be guaranteed by the collapse of artist and patron in the name of state united. Anaesthetized politics was regarded as the anaesthetic politics that is to say that from the citizens’ standpoint, there was no politics at all. The identitarianism used by the Nazis aesthetic total mobilization was a de-politicization of the society to the extent that self- inhalation occurred. History has shown that such aesthetic politics is suicidal at its core. The more effective a strategy imposition is to the anesthetization of politics, the more teasing the personal emotions are to certain decisions of politics directed to the individual. The sphere of politics is not completely based on the arguments that are rational not even in the leader who is in authority. There is a need for calling support that produced a united nation and the consensus of the ruling class. The rhetoric was evident in the type of weapon that were used in all the regimes, and the aspect of democracy is combined with aesthetics through elements that are formal. The speeches that were by most of the communist leaders in most of the times were characterised by the veil of expression that was figurative but had nothing dealing with aesthesis, but they were try to cause manipulation not only to the German public but also the elite through ideological presentation as the only thing and inevitable. Aesthetic resources had helped the Nazi state be transformed to a Wagnerian total work of art. This was carefully done to produce spectacular geometrical shapes and ethereal bodies. The art in Nazi regime was used to not only show a deception of an identity of art and life but also to glorify gestures of surrender. This artwork helped reshaped common ideas of beauty in order to produce pleasure in aesthetic that is a direct extension of terror in politics. During the Nazi regime, period, large percentage of the population had double life; they had to deliver vows to symbolize loyalty in politics in public rituals as well as pursuing leisure that us apolitical in private life niche (Alberro, N. p). The Nazi regime was following two different strategies that were overlapping. The Nazis in the pursuit of the people’s homogenous community made numerous concessions. Simultaneously, the Nazi regime hoped that depoliticizing cultural practices could be aligned with the regimes larger agendas in politics. The Nazis regime culture in politics and spectacle relied mostly on the power of the public mass events that was charismatic and the lure of private consumption. Nazism was a highly incoherent ideology of politics that relied on the marketing strategies that were advanced so that it could sell itself to the public. The Nazis anesthetization of politics was visible through stressing that they had the absolute necessity, and the authoritarian government was of its kind. All their efforts to render politics of aesthetics all culminated into the war. The huge parts of the works of painting, arts, literature, sculpture, architecture, theater were the core themes used in the liberation struggle. To the Germans, war appeared aesthetics, and it made readers believe that it was “beautiful” and death was grandest, and this did not highlight the terrible consequences it had for all the people who were involved. Therefore, the Germans saw this as an opportunity to extend their territorials and be a super power. The Germans had nothing to oppose their government as long as what they did bring them glory and on top of the world maps. The Nazi overwhelmingly gained support from the people as they raged on with the war outside its borders. The wars fought in the past were anesthetized, and propaganda used as a tool of gaining public support to engage with its enemies. The Nazi went steps ahead of anesthetizing even what was to come in the future. They played tricks to win the public support by depicting the best for the country and the worse for their enemies. They aesthetised their military capability to the public through military march and displaying their military capabilities. The marching of the Nazi army in front of the people was not to appear as a threat to the German people but to gain their support and also be beautiful to see. There were parades by the Nazi military as they marched in front of the people as a monumental massiveness and trying to mimic the effect of aesthetic. Theoretically, this was more than just aesthetic effect. What the Nazi was doing is mimicking the war, battle tanks were displayed, hands on hands battle, Nazi soldiers marched with horses and dogs all these display were only aimed at aestheticizing the war and gaining the support of the public when the Nazi regime decided to go for a war against its enemy. During that time, the Nazi regime used a lot of propaganda through arts, Medias including television and radios to pass information to the public demeaning and opposing any other political party that was against it. These tactics were also used in times of the propaganda war between the Nazi and the United States at the time the cold war. The propaganda war shaped the political system in German and aesthetised it so that the public could offer support in any case the country was to engage in war with the United States. During the reigns of national socialist (NAZI) the anesthetization of politics had truly infiltrated deep into the imaginary of the fascist. The events that the Nazi produced were catastrophic but their shadows were cast over the theorization of modernity. Their technological progress and prowess in Europe were the signatures of modernity at that time. The party had a huge hand in the propaganda machine that helped Hitler come into power through winning the public support. Hitler was received as a kind of god who had a special power to remodel the society like any other sculptor working on soft clay. The regime deemed the Jews as the sole enemies of the state of Germany. This propaganda led to the public support for the regime to exterminate the Jew population in Germany and any other part of the world that was controlled by Germans. The discourse in politics that the Nazi pushed had framed superiority as something that had to actualize itself. The Jews works of art were put in the public and rebuked as well as received dislike. Hitler together with his architect had planned to level down every major city in Germany and rebuild it after which he was to go other Europe countries and do the same. As German cities were being level by allied bombs, Hitler was still designing opera houses. The public accepted his imagination of transforming the entire environment and perhaps the physical world despite the fact that the allied bombs were falling in German cities his support from the public was still intact. This case of the Nazi had suggested to several people that of politics is itself totalitarian. The Nazi propaganda and its anesthetization was more than any other ideology in politics. Nazism was deeply embodied in the lives of the people who had complete trust in the regime; therefore, attacking Nazism during that time was not enough to destroy its sheer fact of its central aesthetic it had created in the minds of the people. The people were totally convinced from the things that the Nazi regime were displaying, saying in public occasions, politicizing among others (Geroulanos, p. 1115). It can be concluded that the Nazi regime used aesthetic of politics as the main arena through which it could construct and impose power as well as win the public support in everything they were doing and they were to do in the future. The aesthetic of politics was to create a resistance to both the outside and internal forces that were trying cause a divide among the German population. The Nazi regime hence was successful in the use of the strategy to bring people together and support the government as well as the activities the regime was engaging. The strategy led to the allegiance to Adolf Hitler by his followers that led to the system of aesthetics in politics. At that time when Hitler was ruling Germany, he had less opposition since the public support was behind him. Hitler made the Germans believe that he had all the solutions to their problems, and no other country would defeat Germany. He invested much in technology to out win his enemies. Through the support he gained from the public, the Nazi regime was able to extend their territorial control across Europe and this worked perfectly because of the unity brought because of the aesthetised politics. Works cited Acosta, M R, and L Quintana. “From an Aesthetization of Politics to the ‘Inoperative’ Community.” De la estetización de la política a la comunidad desobrada 35 (2010): 53–65. Print. Alberro, Alexander. Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity. N. p., 2003. Print. Fenner, Angelica. “: Entertaining the Third Reich: Illusions of Wholeness in Nazi Cinema . Linda Schulte-Sasse.” Film Quarterly 2000 : 44–46. Geroulanos, Stefanos. “The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany (review).” MLN 2004 : 1115–1120. Huimin Jin. “Simulacrum: An Aesthetization or An-Aesthetization.” Theory, Culture & Society 2008 : 141–149. Macdonald, S. “Words in Stone?: Agency and Identity in a Nazi Landscape.” Journal of Material Culture 2006 : 105–126. Zürn, Michael. “The Politicization of World Politics and Its Effects: Eight Propositions.” European Political Science Review 6 (2014): 47–71.  Read More