[LEN-E] Discouragement vs. Disillusionment

[Ron Koster]

Going back a few weeks...

At 09:32 PM 9/15/2007 -0400, John wrote:

>Firstly please allow me to say that it feels so good to have found 

>this list again.  I was a long time member on the Yahoo Group and I 

>had been wondering why things got so quiet!  I found Ron's 

>explanation and couldn't believe that Yahoo had deleted the group. 

>What a story! Thanks, Ron, for gathering us back together via this 

>private list!


Well, you're most welcome! No need to thank me though, really, for 
having gotten the list going again (after that fiasco with 
YahooGroups), as it's just as useful and informative for me as for 
anyone else, of course (even if it's dead quiet around here for 
weeks, sometimes months, on end). So, if anything, I thank you -- and 
everyone else -- for (re-)joining me/us over here! ;)

With regard to your not realizing what had happened to the old list 
(i.e. Yahoo deleting it without notice or cause), immediately after 
that happened -- and once I got the new list up and running -- I sent 
out an email notice to every listmember that I had an address for 
explaining what had occurred, and (re-)inviting them to (re-)join the 
new list. Unfortunately, I can only suspect that you -- and, no 
doubt, many others -- never received that "personal" message from me, 
in all likelihood because of spam filtering that is so commonplace now.

This really is too bad, because in the end we've lost about 80% of 
our old membership. Seriously: on the old Yahoo list, membership had 
hovered steadily around the 100 mark for a couple of years (with 
approximately an equal number of people unsubbing about as frequently 
as new members would subcribe), but our current list has only 21 
members (as of today).

Oh, well. There's not much else I can do about that now (short of 
"spamming" those still-absent past list members -- which I won't do 
-- in an effort to encourage them to re-join), and we can only hope 
that, like you, eventually more people will come back.

In the meantime, though, the reason I thought I'd respond to you 
about this is because it does bring up a related matter, that is, the 
subject matter of this message: "Discouragement vs. Disillusionment".

As the creator of this list, with the old YahooGroups list having 
been up for about 4-1/2 years (and over 2500 posts), it was naturally 
quite a shock and, indeed, splap-in-the-face when they just up and 
deleted the list (and all the archives) without any reason or 
warning. And without having had any reason from them, it just 
*seemed* (or *felt*) like this was just yet another "attack" against 
anything to do with Leni Riefenstahl. I don't know, of course, I'm 
just saying that's how it *felt* (for lack of any other logical reason).

And then, right about the same time, those two very negative 
biographies came out by Bach and Trimborn -- not to mention Bach's 
going on what seems to be a "crusade" of public appearances all over 
the place, for months on end.

Add to that the occasional "hate mail" that I get (some of which is 
quite vicious) attacking Leni -- or just attacking me for having a 
site about Leni, not to mention the attacks that I've observed in the 
press against others (Jodie Foster, Bryan Ferry, et al.) who have 
expressed an appreciation for her work...

Needless to say, for myself it's been a rather difficult year with 
regard to my interest in Leni Riefenstahl -- and I guess that's what 
I mean about discouragement. It just seems like an almost 
insurmountable task to try to look at Riefenstahl's life and work in 
a *fair* and *objective* way, not to mention to try to bring greater 
awareness to others on that subject. People just don't seem to want 
to hear about it -- and I'm not referring to us here, of course, but 
to "most" people "out there". It just seems so easy for people to 
simply dismiss her -- if not out-right hate her, and condemn her -- 
and to me, at least, this seems like such a tragic folly.

What do I mean by "folly"? Well, I mentioned in a recent post here 
that it seemed Steven Bach hadn't learned the lessons of WWII -- 
perhaps when I said that, it may not have been clear what I meant. 
What I was referring to was this whole subject of "hate", of pointing 
the finger at others, seeing "evil" in others, creating that "us 
versus them" syndrome -- and that's what WWII was all about, wasn't 
it? In Europe we had the Nazis espousing that it was the German/Aryan 
people's divine destiny to rule the world, labelling all other 
peoples and races as inferior (if not sub-human) and as the cause of 
all the former's problems -- not to mention coming up with all sorts 
of historical, scientific and other "proof" (no matter how 
far-fetched) to justify that perspective -- and in the Pacific war we 
had virtually the exact same sort of ideologies coming from the 
Japanese Empire.

Such ideologies can only ever bring uprising and retaliation from 
those who are oppressed -- and the oppressed are virtually always the 
majority, not the minority, and thus the oppressed will ultimately 
always win -- but in the process of winning back their freedom it is 
also not unpredictable that they should become, if only for a time, 
mirror images of their oppressors. And so it was that in the European 
war (for example), just as the Nazis had labelled "all" Jews as 
"evil", in fighting the Nazis it similarly was a natural (that is, 
understandable and predictable) reaction for any soldier on the side 
of the Allies to hate all Nazis (if not all Germans) essentially 
lumping them all together, seeing them not as individuals -- as 
different within their own people, race and communities as 
individuals in any other -- but in essence as though they were all of 
"one mind".

This sort of sentiment is natural (i.e. understandable and 
predictable) *during* any war, no matter how great or small -- but 
after the war is over and won, if we cannot see the *mistake* that we 
were fighting against, then the war has been for nothing, and the war 
has been lost.

And this is, indeed, the issue that I have with what I find to be 
such *contemptuous* writing as Steven Bach (or Susan Sontag, or 
whomever else): these writings are driven by *hate*, an assumption 
(presumption) of guilt, not innocence, and a determined effort to 
come up with any sort of "evidence" (no matter how insignificant or 
even ludicrous) to justify that perspective, and a determined effort 
to promote hateful, hate-filled, finger-pointing, good-versus-evil, 
"I would never, could never, do that" conclusions -- and, ironically, 
in the process of espousing their theses, these writers are doing 
exactly what they claim to abhor and condemn. What the Nazis did to 
the Jews in macrocosm, they endeavour (and promote) to do to Leni 
Riefenstahl in microcosm.

And to say this is frustrating is, of course, an extreme 
understatement. But despite all their efforts, through the absurdity 
of so much of those efforts it hasn't changed my mind about Leni. 
It's been very *discouraging* this past year, but I'm not 
*disillusioned* about her at all, despite everything. In all 
objectivity and fairness, I still think that her films and her 
photography are all beautiful (even at their most youthful and 
amateurish state, if one can accept them from that perspective), and 
her whole life story is truly fascinating, if not amazing, even 
astounding (at the same time that it is also very tragic). In that 
regard I'm not *disillusioned* about her, but at the same time that's 
not to say that I'm blind to the mistakes she made, blind to the very 
confusing things she's said at different times in her life -- that 
is, blind to her *humanity* -- or that I have any desire or 
inclination (like a "groupie") to idolize her and elevate her to some 
deified status (as some have).

None of these latter things would be, I feel, the right thing to do 
(even as a response to Bach or Trimborn or Sontag or whomever else), 
but if I continue to struggle to do what I've been trying to 
accomplish with my site at all -- no matter how slowly those 
accomplishments might come about as a result of such great feelings 
of frustration and discouragement at times -- it's only because I 
can't help but believe that to hang Leni Riefenstahl up with all the 
other Nazis (figuratively, if not literally) is just wrong.

And so when people ask me "Why bother with a site about Leni 
Riefenstahl?", I guess that's why: it's not because I love her and 
admire her so much, over and above so many other film makers and 
artists (so many of whom are worthy of a web site), but because so 
many, many people seem to *hate* Leni Riefenstahl, and it's that hate 
-- like any hate -- that is so very, very wrong. That's what that 
whole war was against, and all about.

Aaaaaanyway... not that you asked, John, but how's that for a 
response (to what wasn't even a question on your part)?

Ron ;)

Woof?... http://www.Psymon.com
Ach, du Leni!... http://www.Riefenstahl.org
Hmm... http://www.Imaginary-Friend.ca