The Netherworlds Sinks Further into Swampdeutsch Depravity

I admit it. I am a bit of a bigot. I am prejudiced against Germanic culture. Being half German, I absolutely thankful to St. Boniface for his role in bringing down the most horrid manifestations of Germanic culture (yes, I do mean that Earth-afirming, mother worshipping, oh yeah, human sacrificing, proto-Nazi death cult paganism that postmodern hippies seem to think was so groovy).

And yet I do make distinctions of horridness of Germanic culture. At the best, you have the civilized Germans: speakers of Hoch Deutsch, Romanized, capable of producing great art, music, literature, and pork products. Even higher than the Rheinland Deutsch, where my ancestors come from, are the Bavarians and Austrians. Although watch us closely, as history has shown, we can go as bad as the worst of them. And to make matters worse, we will spill gallons of ink debating the whys and hows of it afterwards (I tried to endure a seminar on the "German Question" at UCSC. It was part of the History of Consciousness program. I think I lasted about 15 minutes. ACH!).

Below the civilized Germans you have the Scandinavians: gotta love their gingerbread, Ibsen, hardanger fiddle, and architecture (not to mention IKEA), but you always get the feeling that the Viking roots are beginning to show again. Another generation of secularization and I expect them to lose all decency and to pillage Ireland again.

At the lowest level of Germanic culture you get the Swamp Germans and their Island Dwelling Cousins, the Englisch. Since I normally pick on the Englisch, even though they have been on pretty good behavior these last few decades (for savages, that is), and I have been enjoying Chaucer a lot these days, I will give them a break here. Also, when the good Germans went bad 60 or 70 years ago, the Englisch did their duty and put them back in their place. Also, Prince Charles really seems a decent chap. Good painter, staunch traditionalist. If he became Catholic, I would probably wear a Union Jack pin for a week.

The dwellers of the Netherworld, on the other hand, seem to be intent on earning their name. Some day the collective marihuana and recidual post-Calvinism might wear off and they may decide to return to the fold of Western Civilization, but until then, go read this abominable story and come back and tell me why it matters that they were liberated from the Germans. Or tell me why we needed to stop Hitler and Saddam and we should just sit idly by and allow these monsters (or is it maansteers?) to continue.

I was just at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento this weekend. They have some wonderful second-rate Dutch paintings (in other words, good works by "student of Rembrandt" and the like). One of the popular genres of the Dutch artists were depictions of depravity with stern warnings attached. "You see, Jaap, if you go out to the tavern, this scene of bedlam will become all that is left of your family!"

Of course the patrons of this kind of art were less interested in the warnings than the depravity. And thus enters the deadly dualism of Calvinism. Eventually comes the rationalization of how this is different than that, and, well, so long as you aren't a Papist, anything goes! When the strictures of the old Calvinism go away, all you have left is the sickest and the lowest, but now exalted as compassion and tolerance.

It seems to be coming to a head in the Netherwolrds, and I really do hope that they come out on top. I enjoy the place. I like their food, their music, their art, especially their art, their language (can you say Kaatzenjammer? I knew you could), and their stubborn clinging to some of the least habitable land in Europe. However, they are going to be facing the hardest struggle of all to return to the good of their culture, and sinking to the level of euthanizing babies does not point in the right direction.

Hat tip to Cacciaguida for the link.