"They want to teach the Holocaust. They just want a friendlier Holocaust to teach."

[kpete]

This is a great interview with Art Spiegelman on what the Maus controversy is about (rather than what lots of people are yelling about)

As Spiegelman sees it, the real reason for the board’s decision may be that the narrative of Maus offers no catharsis, let alone comfort, to readers. There are no saviors. No one is redeemed. The characters — Spiegelman’s family — remain the imperfect people they were to begin with. “It’s a very not-Christian book,” Spiegelman says. “Vladek didn’t become better as a result of his suffering. He just got to suffer. They want to teach the Holocaust. They just want a friendlier Holocaust to teach.”

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=wCOqBCsIPTXBVh8qleqYGg
https://www.vulture.com/article/art-spiegelman-maus-interview.html

[ck4829]

1. K&R. That seems to be the strategy across the board

A "friendlier" Holocaust
A "friendlier" slavery
A "friendlier" KKK
A "friendlier" segregationist regime

People were denied basic human rights, civil rights, were humiliated, were murdered, dehumanized in the worst ways (turned into property and items), demonized, etc. There's no rational, ethical, or moral way one can turn that into a "warm version" of those things.

It's kind of chilling if you think about it, if someone can slap a smiley face sticker on the atrocities of yesterday, what's stopping them from slapping one on the potential atrocities of tomorrow?

[KS Toronado]

4. Repugs already have a "friendlier Jan 6th"

[Dan]

5. Probably should add

A “friendlier” Genocide.

[haele]

6. These are people desperate for proof of redemption in history.

They personally feel guilt or discomfort at the acceptance of bullying, racism, sexism, classism - whatever "ism" from being part of the majority that gave them privilege over others.
By teaching redemption - "we learned our lesson and are now good people for it" - it implies there's no longer any "ism" that may have hurt people in the past, no need for accountability or reparations, no guilt going forward. They can pretend we are now all equal, and any failings or lingering issues are just moral hazards that are the responsibility of those who are currently experiencing them.

Redemption without long term accountability is a literary exercise, not history or reality.

Haele

[KS Toronado]

2. If repugs print a "friendlier Holocaust" book

I won't be buying one, I'll be outside the bookstore selling them protesting. You can take that to the bank.

[sop]

3. Oil companies oppose teaching climate science, rightwing christians outlaw mentioning gays,

the NRA wants to arm teachers, corporate interests are afraid students will learn about the labor movement, Neo-Confederates ban teaching CRT and Nazis don't want kids to know about the Holocaust.

[Retired Engineer Bob]

7. That pretty much sums things up.

Bless the double plus good duck speakers.

[Hekate]

8. What a profound statement by Art Spiegelman. Every word.

As Spiegelman sees it, the real reason for the board’s decision may be that the narrative of Maus offers no catharsis, let alone comfort, to readers. There are no saviors. No one is redeemed. The characters — Spiegelman’s family — remain the imperfect people they were to begin with. “It’s a very not-Christian book,” Spiegelman says. “Vladek didn’t become better as a result of his suffering. He just got to suffer. They want to teach the Holocaust. They just want a friendlier Holocaust to teach.”

Suffering without redemption. Suffering without catharsis. A very not-Christian book.

Sorry, people, no fluffy bunnies here in Nazi Germany.

[modrepub]

10. One Of The Stories About The Holocaust

that gets scant attention was just how few Nazis actually were held accountable for their actions. While a few high profile folks were given trials for crimes agains humanity, most never had to answer. They just melded back into society after the war. Hell, one of the dutch officers who arrested the Franks just kept on being a police officer after the war.

[Wounded Bear]

9. It is not enough to obey...

You hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love him.

– George Orwell - 1984

[peggysue2]

11. It's a very not-Christian book?

Yeah, maybe bc avowed Christian's were doing the killing, lighting the ovens, recording their triumphs.

The German Evangelicals and Catholics were the dominating religions in Nazi Germany. Christians perpetrated the horror, averted their eyes, lied about the grotesque slaughter, and then tried to cover it up.

Sorry. You can't put a happy face on genocide or make the deaths of six million Jews and another six million undesirables friendlier.

To even suggest such a thing is . . . craven and beastly.

Truth is hard. Get use to it.

[localroger]

12. I think what he meant is that there is no arc of redemption or salvation

Christian didactic tales tend to illustrate that God has a plan, suffering happens for a reason which often involves a vast conflict between unimaginably powerful forces which we know through prophecy will be won by the good guys even if not in our lifetime, and there is always at least a chance for redemption in the end, if not in this world then in Heaven. In Maus suffering happens just because bad people made it happen, not because of some moral dichotomy which is destined for resolution one day but just because some people are assholes. Nobody is redeemed and salvation is both incomplete and accidental when it happens at all, which is not all that often. Even for the people who survive the ending is anything but happy.

[Hekate]

14. Post 12 covers it well, but I have to add: "Evangelical" is a specifically American denomination

Protestantism started in Europe as a protest against the Pope and issues of faith in the Roman Catholic church. Martin Luther of Germany, who was a priest at the time, was so upset he nailed his comments to the door of a church as a form of protest. He later broke away and the denomination he started was ultimately called Lutheranism, after him. (Sorry, this is the briefest possible outline. But in Germany in the 1930s, you would have been Lutheran, or Roman Catholic, or Jewish.)

There are other Protestant denominations arising from that era in Europe. The Evangelicals, though, are an American phenomenon.

[hatrack]

13. "Life Is Beautiful" vs. "Nuit Et Brouillard"; "Schindler's List" vs. "Shoah" . . .

.

[Behind the Aegis]

15. "pajamafication."

There's a phenomenon I actually see extremely commonly when literature is used to teach history to middle school and high school students. Let's call it "pajamafication."

So a school district nixed Maus from their curriculum, to be replaced by something more "age-appropriate." IIRC they didn't cite a specific replacement title, but it will probably be something like John Boyne's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is tailor-made for classroom use. It's taught at countless schools and it's squeaky-clean of any of the parent-objectionable material you might find in Maus, Night, or any of the other first-person accounts of the Holocaust.

It's also a terrible way to teach the Holocaust.

I'm not going to exhaustively enumerate the book's flaws--others have done so--but I'll summarize the points that are common to this phenomenon in various contexts.

more...

While I did like that movie, there are some really good points in this article.

[hatrack]

17. School districts from TX to TN eagerly awaiting a Pixar Holocaust movie, I'm sure . . .

Maybe that would meet their exacting . . . educational "standards".

[Solly Mack]

16. K&R