The roots and flowers of evil in Baudelaire, Nietzsche, and Hitler / Claire Ortiz Hill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hill, Claire Ortiz.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Good and evil.

Baudelaire, Charles, 1821-1867.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.

Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945.

Physical Description:

xviii, 249 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Ill. : Open Court, [2006]

Summary:

Baudelaire, Nietzsche, and Hitler-a poet, a philosopher, and a politician-each profoundly understood the seductive attraction of evil. All three clearly and candidly depicted evil in idealized garb. Underheath superficial appearances of contradiction, we find in their writings uncanny insight into the human essence behind the masks of convention and hypocrisy.

Claire Ortiz Hill puts together the pieces of the puzzle of evil, like fragments of a mosaic, from the images and insights found in writings of Baudelaire, Nietzsche, and Hitler. The chief works examined are Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil and Spleen of Paris, Nietzsche's Daybreak, Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, Beyond Good and Evil, and The Genealogy of Morals, and Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Dr. Hill brings the thoughts and words of these three specialists of the soul into juxtaposition with real historical events in which evil is concretely manifested. Out of these depths, she appeals for an effective antidote to evil, which she finds in the achievements of nonviolent movements.

Contents:

Au Lecteur xiv

Part 1 From Theory ... 1

Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Hitler, and Theories 3

"From a Common Root ..." 8

The Roots of Moral Values for Nietzsche 10

Beyond Good and Evil 15

On Blonde Beasts and Ubermenschen 18

The Reversal of Values and the Specter of Contradiction 21

Baudelaire on Bludgeoning the Poor 24

Born for Evil 26

For a Race of Masters and Conquerors 28

The Victory of the "Better and Stronger" 31

Neither Marx ... 34

... nor Jesus 37

Nietzsche's Theories about Sick People 43

On Fostering the Strongest and the Healthiest 45

Hitler's Theories about Idealism in Mein Kampf 47

The "Idealization" of Humanity 50

Torpor and Turpitude 52

The Intoxication of Beauty and Art 58

The Devil 62

The Magical Powers of Words 67

Stripping Truth of Its Authority and Power 72

Vice, Crime, Beauty 75

Jung on the Sight of Evil 80

Guilty of Realism? 81

Behind the Masks 85

Jung's Reflections on Hitler, Nazism, and Realism 88

Part 2 ... To Reality 93

Making Action the Sister of One's Dreams 95

Of the Pen and the Sword 96

Imagining Adolf Eichmann 98

On Setting Aside Aesthetics 100

A Soul Powerful in Crime 101

Awakening Latent Tendencies in Society 103

Civilization and Its Discontents 105

Unleashing Pent-up Desires 108

On the Fulfillment of Long Present Desires 110

"The Show" by Wilfred Owen 113

Horror Replaces the Romance of Battle 114

The "Hidden Power of Evil" Released 116

Expressing Primitivity, Violence, and Cruelty 118

The Use of Terror 122

A Satisfied Torturer 124

Massacre 128

Destroying One's Own 130

Weeding Out People 133

Cleansing Society by Destroying Useless Lives 134

Sick, Weak Men 138

Jung on the Sentiment of Inferiority 142

Racism and Slaughter 144

Mass Executions 148

Extermination 153

Beyond Good and Evil? 156

Baudelaire's Meditation on a Corpse 161

Meditating on Piles of Corpses 163

Part 3 And from Reality to Theory 171

From Reality to Theory 174

What Experience Has Taught Proponents of Nonviolence 175

Mikhail Gorbachev on Going from Theory to Reality and from Reality to Theory 177

The Reality of Power in the Nuclear Age 178

Attacking with the Truth 181

Sowing the Seeds of One's Own Destruction 182

Breeding Lilacs Out of Dead Ground 185

Applying Social Pressure to Revolutionze Social Ideas 186

Planting Lethal Seeds 188

Curbing the Power of Evildoers through Nonviolent, Noncooperation with Evil 189

A Creative Force in the Universe 191

Limning the True and Ultimate Structure of Reality 193

Tolstoy on Undermining the Entire Existing Order of the World 194

Tolstoy on Penetrating the Essence of the Human Soul 196

Tolstoy and King Contra Nietzsche 198

Freud on the Impossibility of Eradicating Evil 199

Freud on Reality and Religion 202

Gandhi Contra Hitler 203

The Power of Self-Sacrifice 206

Hitler on Combating Spiritual Ideas by Violent Means 212

The Power of the Ascetic Ideal 214

The Powerless Declare War 215

Torturing People's Consciences 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-231) and index.

ISBN:

0812695860

OCLC:

62728583

Publisher Number:

9780812695861