"When men and women are reduced to nothing but their lowest appetites, we live in a state of barbarism. Weimar Period artists painted people in this state, for this, in their view, was what society had become. Their honesty would cost them. When the Nazis made barbarism official, these artists were among the first to go -- into exile, concentration camps, or inner emigration.
"The war had destroyed the old order, but there was a new one. The tragedy of the Weimar Period was that too few people were prepared to defend it. The new order was in any event, too fragile to withstand its brutal enemies."
- Glitter and Doom, German Portraits from the 1920s, by Sabine Rewald, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, page 17.
Are men and women in a society dedicated to consumption and "personal experience" reduced to a "post-modern" level of barbarism today? Isn't this how today's Christian Right views America? Will the reaction push us forward to a new "official barbarism" or pull us back to the old order of "Pulpit and Throne," the order destroyed by World War I and being reborn today through a corporate aristocracy, which has taken control of the federal government.
The Weimar Period lasted just 15 years but it was a crucial turning point for European civilization. Did a similar period -- a crucial turning point -- begin for us in 2001? The events in Germany during those years will certainly not repeat themselves here and now, but their causes and consequences hold a great deal for us to ponder.
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