Page 51 - GALIET BEAUTY´S LURE: WAR Helen of Troy and Margareta of Germany IV

religious belief” is to be repudiated.91 Like Celan, Berlin also finds Nazi values detestable.92 Yet, Berlin does not regard the Nazis as “insane, wickedly wrong totally misguided about the facts...in believing that some beings are subhuman, or that race is central,”93 as others do, but he understands how this can occur. He blames “enough misinformation” and “enough false belief about reality,” and “widespread illusion and error,” misleading us all into believing “that these are the only salvation.”94 Plato’s and Hitler’s visionary salvation for beauty’s sake, reverts to a blinding oppression 3⁄4 a madness and infatuation 3⁄4 as bewildering as ἄτη, for which glorious Ilium, and Nazi Germany were destined to fall. Troy falls for Lady Helen’s sake, and for the irrational obduracy of Paris and the incompetence of King Priam. They descend to a festival of cruelty, just as Hitler descends to his carnival of cruelty. King Priam and Paris preserve the terrible sublime beauty of lovely- haired Helen, at Troy’s scorching cost, just as Hitler preserves the dreadfully sublime gaze of golden-haired Margareta, and his Platonic neo-classical utopia at Europe’s cost: the crematoria.
There is a pernicious infatuation, a maddening loss of reasoning, and a nihilistic desire to disregard Troy’s wellbeing and Europe’s welfare in Paris and King Priam, and in Hitler,
91 Berlin, Isaiah. The Power of Ideas. Ed. By Henry Hardy. USA: Princeton University Press, 2000. 14.
92 Berlin, Isaiah. The Power of Ideas. Ed. By Henry Hardy. USA: Princeton University Press, 2000. 12.
93 Berlin, Isaiah. The Power of Ideas. Ed. By Henry Hardy. USA: Princeton University Press, 2000. 12-13.
94 Berlin, Isaiah. The Power of Ideas. Ed. By Henry Hardy. USA: Princeton University Press, 2000. 12.
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