So what's wrong with fascism?

[Lord Baal]

Forcing gamers to peddle bicycles or run on hamster-wheels to power their own servers sounds like a fantastic plan for combating obesity.

It seems that way on paper, but we both know the only reason gamers play games is to keep their minds busy while they sit around getting fatter. If given the choice between gaming or increasing their obesity levels, they'll choose obesity every time. After all, when was the last time you convinced a Halo fanatic to actually enlist in the military, or even go paintballing? I haven't led any civilisations from 4000BC to present recently, after all. Maybe next week.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Some of the protagonists in Neal Stephenson's latest novel REAMDE are game software developers who got into shape by doing much of their work while running on a treadmill.

 

[AlpsStranger]

The basic philosophical premise from Fascism is that societies can be likened to organisms AND the meaning of life is derived from this as well, from which follows that societies should be "healthy" (minorities and political opponents are like diseases) and that societies should be able to direct people into following their life's meaning (read: states ought to be powerful and corresponding to ethnic groups)

That's how I understand it as well. It's a very brutal system I could never support, but I'm not sure I agree that it's "wrong" in some strict, ultimate sense. I'm sure it could "work" indefinitely if it was well designed. The question is, who would really want it to work?

I wouldn't go near it with a 10 foot pole myself. No way.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Are you not forgetting the first jet fighter? Genuine question.

The Italians did that, and there's was cooler looking.

Then again, it's the Italians vs. the Germans, so of course the Italian one was better looking, and the German one actually worked.

I must say (and I am including the article Mise posted and I just read) this is the stuff Germans should be taught in school.

In America too. The truth is, Nazis in the 1930s were as smart as Nazis today.

 

[ParkCungHee]

EDIT: Double post.

 

[Lord Baal]

The Italians did that, and there's was cooler looking.

Then again, it's the Italians vs. the Germans, so of course the Italian one was better looking, and the German one actually worked.

I must admit I haven't come across an Italian jet. Link?

In America too. The truth is, Nazis in the 1930s were as smart as Nazis today.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I must admit I haven't come across an Italian jet. Link?

Tell me that's not a beautiful plane?

 

[Dachs]

It looks gross. Like a cigar.

 

[sophie]

It looks gross. Like a cigar.

You know those Italians. They always have to be compensating for something.

Not enough driveshaft in the boot, clearly.

 

[Mouthwash]

Amazing how much a thread devolves in half a dozen pages.

 

[Traitorfish]

But now you're here to save the day, eh?

 

[Lord Baal]

It looks gross. Like a cigar.

I was thinking something even less flattering.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, regarding fascist-related art, most of it is clearly crap, but still it is nowhere near as demented as some of Egon Schiele's works...

 

[sophie]

Hm, regarding fascist-related art, most of it is clearly crap, but still it is nowhere near as demented as some of Egon Schiele's works...

I wouldn't call it crap...just antiquated for the time.

I mean this statue is physiologically glorious, and the contraposto pose is straight from the classical artistic tradition of the Renaissance. It is a technically flawless piece of work and considering the Nazi emphasis on the German mythos and the evolutionary endpoint of man it's perfectly understandable why Hitler would prefer it to the sorts of things being shown at the Degenerate Art Exhibition of the same year. Buuuut when you put it next to, say Guernica, Duchamps 40 miles of string exhibit (of the subsequent year), Dix, Grosz, and Mondrian it looks old-fashioned and reactionary (necessarily so).

 

[Kyriakos]

Sorry but the statue you posted is hideous in my view... Nothing like ancient Greek and Roman statues at all. It just looks plain ugly...

Some Greek statues:

Laocoon and his sons (death by the sea-seprents at Troy)

Apollo Lykeios

Hermes of Praxiteles

...

Really that nazi statue you posted is just ugly and an abomination...

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'm with Kyrakos on this. This sort of thing is why lots of civilizations considered sculpture to be a craft rather than an art. That something could be so technically perfect yet still so vulgar and inane, even as a classical sculpture it would still only qualify as "nicely made" compared to something like this.

 

[Kyriakos]

Originally i thought that was supposed to be Socrates (since sources claim he was very ugly)

Turns out it is a Hellenistic statue of an athlete, probably in the palaistra (a wrestler).

Can't say i like it though, to me statues of realistic forms are only great if they depict either impressive emotion (as in Laocoon) or amazing beauty of form (as in Apollo Lykeios). Apollo Lykeios is probably my favourite of all Greek statues, and since the remaining one is only a copy, the original might even have been more impressive

 

[ParkCungHee]

Originally i thought that was supposed to be Socrates (since sources claim he was very ugly)

Turns out it is a Hellenistic statue of an athlete, probably in the palaistra (a wrestler).

No, it's definitely a boxer, because he's wearing the cestus.

Can't say i like it though, to me statues of realistic forms are only great if they depict either impressive emotion (as in Laocoon) or amazing beauty of form (as in Apollo Lykeios). Apollo Lykeios is probably my favourite of all Greek statues, and since the remaining one is only a copy, the original might even have been more impressive

To me, the Boxer of Quirinal has even more impressive emotions than Laocoon. Sure, Laocoon displays the emotions much more potently, but the emotion being conveyed is really very simple: Laocoon does not like being killed by snakes.

The Boxer of Quirinal, comparatively conveys the complex mix of emotions happening between rounds. Things are clearly not going well for him, both from his expression, and the nature of his wounds. His body language convey's his tiredness, despite his muscular perfection.

But there's also a nervous anticipation about him. His feet are not flat, his hands are not at rest. He is not hanging his head in defeat but listening upwards, perhaps to a coach, with uncertainty. He is wounded, but his nose, brow and teeth all show that he has been wounded in the past.

It's captured a liminal moment for the boxer. This is a man not in terror of his fate like Laocoon, but uncertain of what his fate is. Bereitschaft, meanwhile, I'm uncertain of that man's fate for entirely different reason.

Bereitschaft means "readiness" but readiness against what? What is he feeling? What might he have his sword out against? He's just standing chin out in a generically heroic pose. Even the genuinely heroic Hermes you've posted offers a glimpse of vulnerability there as well.

 

[Kyriakos]

Mm, you are right. Indeed i judged the Boxer statue in a wrong manner and now can see what you were picking on it. It looks very good as a capture of an instant of worry for the athlete and mixed emotions.

I guess i am a lot more focused on the ancient Greek (and to a lesser extent Roman) ideal of somatic Beauty, which often was linked to spititual beauty as well. So Apollo Lykeios (like a number of other Greek statues) seems to depict the divine essence of beauty, one of Apollo's main elements- along with logic.

 

[sophie]

Sorry but the statue you posted is hideous in my view... Nothing like ancient Greek and Roman statues at all. It just looks plain ugly...

Really that nazi statue you posted is just ugly and an abomination...

Thanks for giving no formalist reasoning for your opinion. It's really useful for discussion.

If you ask me I think it's an excellent sculpture. The use of line and shadow is very striking. I like the more aggressive play on the contaposto pose employed by Michelangelo in his David. The piece is so gloriously fascist in its obsession with the human form and musculature. It reeks of masculinity and everything is rife with sexual overtones. Just as the sword is unsheated, ready to strike down its enemies, so too is the male form here, haughty with pent up rage, ready to unleash its strength on any who would do it wrong. At the same time the face betrays a stoic, almost brash indifference. There's a casuality about the way he withdraws the sword. To kill or act is nothing to him. His enemies are meaningless and will fall by the wayside with nary a thought from him. From a formalist perspective it is an absolutely brilliant piece. Very akin to what the Soviets were doing at the time with the near-wholesale eradication of constructivism under Stalin in favor of the more conservative homely propaganda pieces of Brodsky, Gerasimov and Deinaka.

While my preference is clearly for the Dadaists, Constructivists, De Stijl, and Neue Sächlichkeit, I really can't fault the piece from a formalist perspective. It is a highly effective work of art for what it sets out to do.