Dual Level Writing

[rjordan]

What you are writing could be the subject of future book reports.

Eat your heart out, O Henry!

rj

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Along my journey, natural talent carried me far. . .

. . . True photographers can snap photos in just the right way that a photo tells a story, because they understand the ins and outs of photography.

Likewise, a writer might find one day that they can only achieve so much without wielding each and every tool at their disposal.

To build off your two examples - I've known musicians who were technically very proficient, but their music sounded soulless.

Same is true with photography. My wife has an amazing eye for composition. Her ability to compose through the lens is remarkable. However, particularly when we did our own B&W work, she was never technically proficient in the darkroom. Something could be well composed and draw the eye, however, her contrast would be off or her post production choices left the otherwise amazing picture looking flat. Many of her photographs looked better when processed by a lab due to her lack of darkroom technique.

I've read stories like that (here and elsewhere). The writing may be technically proficient, but the storytelling lacks. Or vice versa, the storytelling rocks, but the craftsmanship of the writing detracts.

It is pretty clear from the responses that the answer to the original question is that most of the authors who post in AH understand the theory of multiple meanings, even though some of them pooh pooh the need to do it here.

And I understand that.

They've chosen to pursue a market rather than art, and that's okay too.

But... I still say, when you are able to inject art into your market, then you'll have something that may outlast you.

I'm a hack. A rank amateur. I doubt if anything that I write will outlast me, but some of you are good enough to make the leap...so do so.

My claim to fame? That other site stole my work. LOL. Didn't bother me, but my spouse was incensed. I will take that. The only fan I care about fought for me on Christmas!

I would classify myself as a rank amateur, too. We each come to Lit for different reasons, I guess. Thanks for a thoughtful question.

 

[SecondCircle]

I am always very impressed with people who self teach.

Though I am curious, give me an example of "the next level of ultimate harmony".

Short of actually explaining music theory in extreme detail, that's hard to convey in layman's terms.

There are what you can call "basic" skills. They can deliver very basic music (however catchy or moving it may be). Simple "just play chords and scales and make it sound good."

It's the difference of building a doghouse and designing a skyscraper that can resist earthquakes. Most everybody can nail wood together and even do a very good job. But having the know how to build ANYTHING is what theory does for music. It lets you see through just arranging notes in different orders and producing largely similar sounds and songs. It lets you know how to "build" them in a complex array of ways on cue that not only sound great, but unique in the way you used the tools at your disposal.

It's my belief that most art is this way.

 

[le_kitty]

Short of actually explaining music theory in extreme detail, that's hard to convey in layman's terms.

There are what you can call "basic" skills. They can deliver very basic music (however catchy or moving it may be). Simple "just play chords and scales and make it sound good."

It's the difference of building a doghouse and designing a skyscraper that can resist earthquakes. Most everybody can nail wood together and even do a very good job. But having the know how to build ANYTHING is what theory does for music. It lets you see through just arranging notes in different orders and producing largely similar sounds and songs. It lets you know how to "build" them in a complex array of ways on cue that not only sound great, but unique in the way you used the tools at your disposal.

It's my belief that most art is this way.

You misunderstood me. I was asking what your taste was, in terms of which composers and artists meet that standard.

I know the difference between simple chords and scales, and composition techniques.

 

[jomar]

The world is a Rorschach test (Brad Pitt is his doppelganger, btw). I'm sure some writers write stories with embedded meanings and lofty symbolism and deeper stuff. But most authors probably just write...and readers and critics and English majors come up with the "meaning." To be honest, I've heard and slung so much bullshit in a creative writing class and an auteur directors class that it's hard to buy that writers are typically purposeful in dual levels, but then, I'm not 100% in that world and I'm on the bottom rung so probably have little idea...I do try to read between the lines, but...

 

[BuckyDuckman]

The world is a Rorschach test (Brad Pitt is his doppelganger, btw). I'm sure some writers write stories with embedded meanings and lofty symbolism and deeper stuff. But most authors probably just write...and readers and critics and English majors come up with the "meaning." To be honest, I've heard and slung so much bullshit in a creative writing class and an auteur directors class that it's hard to buy that writers are typically purposeful in dual levels, but then, I'm not 100% in that world and I'm on the bottom rung so probably have little idea...I do try to read between the lines, but...

And sometimes, I think that "extra meaning" sneaks its way into a story because it was in the back of the author's mind as they wrote it. Not everything is going to be "Animal Farm" with its thinly veiled duality.

Oh, and I hate when painters (or sculptures) don't give their work a title. "Untitled" to me usually means: "I was just fucking around and now I'm hoping to sell it."

 

[sr71plt]

Then you appear to have lost some of your ability to read for comprehension.

We learn to read first. Then we learn to write.

We listen to music first. Then we learn to play.

We listen to speech first. Then we learn to speak.

In each case we are exposed to more sophisticated patterns than we are able to produce, and that's what we learn from. We build our own patterns, but based on what we learned as readers, listeners, etc.

Obligatory quote:
"Learn any language and you'll speak it your way, but your way may be schizophrenic word salad." [NOIRTRASH]

rj

Maybe after all the graduate degrees I've had to go through, I've learned to close my ears to pontification and lecturing when I recognize it--like I didn't bother to read too far into this post.

I think, as always, the thread is just devolving into folks with just enough knowledge of writing to be dangerous to themselves and others sticking their noses in the air and telling others how and what to write.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

BTW, there was an O Henry story (Gift of the Magi) linked here as an example of incredible writing talent, which I don't question. However, I found it nearly unreadable. It may or may not have had all the elements that please literary people, but I couldn't get through it even by skimming. I wouldn't offer that piece as something to emulate for new Lit writers. It would be like having the music teacher recommend your new singer emulate something operatic.

rj

I am the person who linked it. It has a powerfully ironic and moving effect, using (as someone else pointed out) about a third of a Lit page worth of words. However, it was written during a period when our culture was more elevated and the average person more literate. It is challenging for today's readers.

I am of the opinion, and I realize that it is a controversial one, that we are living in a cultural dark age right now. Ask yourself, would our citizenry tolerate our government's behavior, launching one senseless war after another, if that were not the case? I know, that's controversial as well. But if you accept my assertion that we are in a dark age, the only way to climb out of it is by learning the lessons of previous cultural high points, which means reading Shakespeare and other dudes who are not exactly easy to grasp.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I am the person who linked it. It has a powerfully ironic and moving effect, using (as someone else pointed out) about a third of a Lit page worth of words. However, it was written during a period when our culture was more elevated and the average person more literate. It is challenging for today's readers.

I am of the opinion, and I realize that it is a controversial one, that we are living in a cultural dark age right now. Ask yourself, would our citizenry tolerate our government's behavior, launching one senseless war after another, if that were not the case? I know, that's controversial as well. But if you accept my assertion that we are in a dark age, the only way to climb out of it is by learning the lessons of previous cultural high points, which means reading Shakespeare and other dudes who are not exactly easy to grasp.

America was at war for almost all of the 19th Century, starting with the Barbary Pirates and ending with the Spanish-American War. Indian terrorism was common west of the Mississippi River for most of the time. Movies are efficient medium for fiction. I spent many years learning to draw, a computer does it better in a fraction of the time.

Where we fail is when the forfeit the time with bull shit rather than training strudents to think and how to assess information.

 

[Handley_Page]

I am the person who linked it. It has a powerfully ironic and moving effect, using (as someone else pointed out) about a third of a Lit page worth of words. However, it was written during a period when our culture was more elevated and the average person more literate. It is challenging for today's readers.

I am of the opinion, and I realize that it is a controversial one, that we are living in a cultural dark age right now. Ask yourself, would our citizenry tolerate our government's behavior, launching one senseless war after another, if that were not the case? I know, that's controversial as well. But if you accept my assertion that we are in a dark age, the only way to climb out of it is by learning the lessons of previous cultural high points, which means reading Shakespeare and other dudes who are not exactly easy to grasp.

As the writings of O Henry are not usually my staple fare, I read that short story with interest. I reckoned its brilliant.

BTW. Is that "Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy" in your AV ?

 

[lovecraft68]

Maybe after all the graduate degrees I've had to go through, I've learned to close my ears to pontification and lecturing when I recognize it--like I didn't bother to read too far into this post.

I think, as always, the thread is just devolving into folks with just enough knowledge of writing to be dangerous to themselves and others sticking their noses in the air and telling others how and what to write.

You do realize that this post is you pontificating on how no one here knows anything except you, right?

That you come across as this "God" who sits on high and shakes his head at all the little people beneath them.

So as I always do, I wonder if we're all so lost and confused and dangerous, why you continue to post in these threads. But then posts like the one I quoted answer that, to feed your superiority complex and need to be the BMOC.

You also are in your full mode of replying to posts you have obviously not read through entirely and you don't do that because you have too much contempt to read all our drivel, but that never stops you from snarking on it.

You prove my point-and the one you're trying to prove about everyone else-that there are people here who think their way is the only way and they're so much better than everyone else.

Write whatever you write and leave others to do the same.

 

[lovecraft68]

Here's a comment that sort of fits the topic here.

by Anonymous
12/26/15
It takes a lot of talent ...

... and kink to write something so absurd and wild within a realistic theme and setting. A lot of commenters got annoyed by the characters - which only shows how much they bought into the realism. It's the beauty of this, that I managed to jerk-off to even the relatively mundane handjob session - because the world was so immersive. Very good world building done mostly through dialogue. Kudos.

Dialogue has always been my strength which this comment backs. But I do think its an eye roll to think there was "world building' in my incest story, but I'll take the compliment because my reason for writing some incest stories is to strive to make the implausible as plausible as possible

 

[lovecraft68]

Classic example of what I generally write to, especially if its a darker more violent piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aDcINj-JvY

The wife bought me a great pair of Bose headphones so she isn't subjected to this at high volume

 

[sr71plt]

You do realize that this post is you pontificating on how no one here knows anything except you, right?

That you come across as this "God" who sits on high and shakes his head at all the little people beneath them.

So as I always do, I wonder if we're all so lost and confused and dangerous, why you continue to post in these threads. But then posts like the one I quoted answer that, to feed your superiority complex and need to be the BMOC.

You also are in your full mode of replying to posts you have obviously not read through entirely and you don't do that because you have too much contempt to read all our drivel, but that never stops you from snarking on it.

You prove my point-and the one you're trying to prove about everyone else-that there are people here who think their way is the only way and they're so much better than everyone else.

Write whatever you write and leave others to do the same.

Merry Christmas, jerk.

I see that you don't plan on stopping trying to pull yourself up by pulling others down to your level.

 

[SecondCircle]

Here's a comment that sort of fits the topic here.

by Anonymous
12/26/15
It takes a lot of talent ...

... and kink to write something so absurd and wild within a realistic theme and setting. A lot of commenters got annoyed by the characters - which only shows how much they bought into the realism. It's the beauty of this, that I managed to jerk-off to even the relatively mundane handjob session - because the world was so immersive. Very good world building done mostly through dialogue. Kudos.

Dialogue has always been my strength which this comment backs. But I do think its an eye roll to think there was "world building' in my incest story, but I'll take the compliment because my reason for writing some incest stories is to strive to make the implausible as plausible as possible

Aye but "world building" doesn't necessarily have to mean something as high brow as it may seem. It certainly doesn't have to mean you outlined it or consciously designed it methodically. World building could very well simply mean that while writing you wrote in a way that made things seem plausible. The characters sound and act more realistically and are easier for that commenter to "relate" to. Perhaps the premise itself was something more than "son saw mom getting out of the shower".

The little things that the readers appreciate may be little techniques or skills that are naturally in your understanding of writing.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

BTW. Is that "Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy" in your AV ?

Yes. I like le Carre.

 

[SecondCircle]

To go a little further I do have to ask something. When LC said it seemed a little silly that "world building" might exist in something like an incest story... why is this often so?

In war stories there can be deeper themes or meanings. In fight stories. In romances. In comdies even. In horror. In sci-fi. It would seem fine to inject more complex writing, like world building or character development or what is considered "high brow" writing style. Why is it that when a story is about explicit sex that this is silly or odd to add?

I understand that erotica works fine just being sex stories for the limited purpose of arousal. Yes. That is fine.

But why does it sound ridiculous to think erotica can't go further? Why does "people fucking" seem a strange thing to add duel levels of meaning to?

I wrote a TS/CD story here that followed a young trans women that was at rock bottom, on the brink of suicide. What was a harmless kink to her was a wretched sickness to those she loved. The story encompassed her journey to discover her identity. It included heavily explicit sex and sexual tones. It "may" have carried the undertones of "be who you are and not who they want you to be." (Not that I consciously made the effort for that.) I don't think it was particularly profound or anything, it certainly is no literary classic. But lots of people liked the explicit arousal factor as well as the overall driving theme.

Why does that seem a silly thing to do concerning a story about people fucking? Is it simply the <gasp> sex that hangs us up?

 

[lovecraft68]

To go a little further I do have to ask something. When LC said it seemed a little silly that "world building" might exist in something like an incest story... why is this often so?

In war stories there can be deeper themes or meanings. In fight stories. In romances. In comdies even. In horror. In sci-fi. It would seem fine to inject more complex writing, like world building or character development or what is considered "high brow" writing style. Why is it that when a story is about explicit sex that this is silly or odd to add?

I understand that erotica works fine just being sex stories for the limited purpose of arousal. Yes. That is fine.

But why does it sound ridiculous to think erotica can't go further? Why does "people fucking" seem a strange thing to add duel levels of meaning to?

I wrote a TS/CD story here that followed a young trans women that was at rock bottom, on the brink of suicide. What was a harmless kink to her was a wretched sickness to those she loved. The story encompassed her journey to discover her identity. It included heavily explicit sex and sexual tones. It "may" have carried the undertones of "be who you are and not who they want you to be." (Not that I consciously made the effort for that.) I don't think it was particularly profound or anything, it certainly is no literary classic. But lots of people liked the explicit arousal factor as well as the overall driving theme.

Why does that seem a silly thing to do concerning a story about people fucking? Is it simply the <gasp> sex that hangs us up?

Maybe it seems out of place because there are so many one handed reads on here that in a sense we become conditioned to not take stories seriously here? That when one is it stands out as odd? Just a guess.

I think in my example its me. I see incest as a fun kinky type of writing. I do try to make them plausible, but the stories aren't taken seriously by me. So I guess it strokes me odd people who read them take them more seriously than I do.

In Siblings with Benefits the sister was a drug addict for a decade and I do some flashbacks to her days of addiction. In a three chapter story arc I describe her last days as one which led to a suicide through overdose attempt. But before that I had her deciding to make her family hate her so that way when she went back to drugs and died from them they wouldn't care.

Its a totally fucked up thought process, but dead on accurate. I took a lot of crap for the three chapters, people saying they were to dark, to depressing, didn't belong here. But I also got a ton of feedback asking me if I still battled addiction or if I were currently clean.

I've never done any drugs in my life, never even taken a puff of a cigarette or a hit from a joint and although I've drank heavily in the past, never an issue stopping. But I mailed it because I was raised around addicts so knew the mind set and...I do understand despair and pain.

IN general the reaction was more negative than positive. The score's were low, but have now become decent as the series is a few years old and past the reach of the new story trolls and maybe people reading from start to finish are having less knee jerk reaction than people awaiting each chapter.

It topped off with a comment your last post made me recall, "Some things just don't belong here, keep your real life bullshit in a diary."

So maybe people get caught by surprise when someone here takes the time to be 'real'

If anyone cares to suffer through it here's a link to the absolute depths of that arc.

Warning, the beginning is a brother/sister sex scene that's a dream sequence. The pertinent part starts at "I woke up to hell"

https://www.literotica.com/s/siblings-with-benefits-ch-38

The other memorable remark I received through feedback was "You really know how to kill a boner." Oh, and I got flack fro using the N-word in the ensuing fight scene. I forgot the rule all characters must be politically correct.

 

[SecondCircle]

Maybe it seems out of place because there are so many one handed reads on here that in a sense we become conditioned to not take stories seriously here? That when one is it stands out as odd? Just a guess.

I think in my example its me. I see incest as a fun kinky type of writing. I do try to make them plausible, but the stories aren't taken seriously by me. So I guess it strokes me odd people who read them take them more seriously than I do.

In Siblings with Benefits the sister was a drug addict for a decade and I do some flashbacks to her days of addiction. In a three chapter story arc I describe her last days as one which led to a suicide through overdose attempt. But before that I had her deciding to make her family hate her so that way when she went back to drugs and died from them they wouldn't care.

Its a totally fucked up thought process, but dead on accurate. I took a lot of crap for the three chapters, people saying they were to dark, to depressing, didn't belong here. But I also got a ton of feedback asking me if I still battled addiction or if I were currently clean.

I've never done any drugs in my life, never even taken a puff of a cigarette or a hit from a joint and although I've drank heavily in the past, never an issue stopping. But I mailed it because I was raised around addicts so knew the mind set and...I do understand despair and pain.

IN general the reaction was more negative than positive. The score's were low, but have now become decent as the series is a few years old and past the reach of the new story trolls and maybe people reading from start to finish are having less knee jerk reaction than people awaiting each chapter.

It topped off with a comment your last post made me recall, "Some things just don't belong here, keep your real life bullshit in a diary."

So maybe people get caught by surprise when someone here takes the time to be 'real'

If anyone cares to suffer through it here's a link to the absolute depths of that arc.

Warning, the beginning is a brother/sister sex scene that's a dream sequence. The pertinent part starts at "I woke up to hell"

https://www.literotica.com/s/siblings-with-benefits-ch-38

The other memorable remark I received through feedback was "You really know how to kill a boner." Oh, and I got flack fro using the N-word in the ensuing fight scene. I forgot the rule all characters must be politically correct.

Hmm. That does make sense. Of course "different strokes" goes without saying and I think all that's been covered so I won't touch on that. (As in, people read different stuff for different reasons. Some are one handed some read for deeper stuff, all out of preference. )

Largely I guess it is in the way we view sex in general. We openly discuss it here because it's on point, it's the theme of the site. But there's still something in us that sees the act of sex as that thing we do in the bedroom that we don't share with everybody else at the drop of a hat. We can be as serious as possible, but the second we start saying things like "sucking on a cock" or "she rode my dick", it's like it becomes "well that's just sex" or "that's just porn".

Odd to me, because war, technically, is just humans killing other humans. But we can weave deep narratives out of the complexities of that topic, that have deeper meaning and impact on an audience. When technically it's just killing.

I do think it's as you say, depending on how seriously we take the topic. I just find it curious that this is the case.

 

[rjordan]

I am the person who linked it. It has a powerfully ironic and moving effect, using (as someone else pointed out) about a third of a Lit page worth of words. However, it was written during a period when our culture was more elevated and the average person more literate. It is challenging for today's readers.

I am of the opinion, and I realize that it is a controversial one, that we are living in a cultural dark age right now. Ask yourself, would our citizenry tolerate our government's behavior, launching one senseless war after another, if that were not the case? I know, that's controversial as well. But if you accept my assertion that we are in a dark age, the only way to climb out of it is by learning the lessons of previous cultural high points, which means reading Shakespeare and other dudes who are not exactly easy to grasp.

The O Henry piece was not hard to grasp because it was too deep. It was unreadable to me because it was a different language. Same with Shakespeare. The message is there, but the curve to learn the new language is steeper than many people choose to endure to be able to understand the message. A message that may really only exist in academia centuries later.

To you, it was worth it. To others, it isn't. As I said in a previous post, I wasn't questioning the quality of the writing. I was objecting to the inaccessibility of the message for most 21st Century readers.

The universal truths in Shakespeare have been interpreted and reinterpreted for every generation in the last 400+ years. There is no shortage of modern works with the same messages, and in a modern context.

rj

 

[rjordan]

Here's a comment that sort of fits the topic here.

by Anonymous
12/26/15
It takes a lot of talent ...

... and kink to write something so absurd and wild within a realistic theme and setting. A lot of commenters got annoyed by the characters - which only shows how much they bought into the realism. It's the beauty of this, that I managed to jerk-off to even the relatively mundane handjob session - because the world was so immersive. Very good world building done mostly through dialogue. Kudos.

Dialogue has always been my strength which this comment backs. But I do think its an eye roll to think there was "world building' in my incest story, but I'll take the compliment because my reason for writing some incest stories is to strive to make the implausible as plausible as possible

I think the commenter makes a good point that building credible characters in the context of their own "world" might be considered world building. Not in the sci fi/fantasy sense of worlds we have never seen, but in the sense of worlds we aren't intimately familiar with.

I've visited neighbors in their homes where I felt uncomfortable with the surroundings, but, of course, they didn't. It can feel "other-worldly", and an ability to realistically describe that for others isn't far from sci fi world building.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting way to view what you've done and something to do consciously.

rj

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I think the commenter makes a good point that building credible characters in the context of their own "world" might be considered world building. Not in the sci fi/fantasy sense of worlds we have never seen, but in the sense of worlds we aren't intimately familiar with.

I've visited neighbors in their homes where I felt uncomfortable with the surroundings, but, of course, they didn't. It can feel "other-worldly", and an ability to realistically describe that for others isn't far from sci fi world building.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting way to view what you've done and something to do consciously.

rj

World building is what we all do IRL. Some of our worlds are glorious, and plenty are bizarre. As I usta say to patients, BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME...(or stay the hell away).

 

[rjordan]

World building is what we all do IRL. Some of our worlds are glorious, and plenty are bizarre. As I usta say to patients, BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME...(or stay the hell away).

Yea, I agree with that. I always called it model building because my academic background is engineering and economics, both of which depend heavily on model building. That's what theories are--models.

We have no real concept of the entire world. What we do is build a serviceable model of the part we are involved in. It isn't entirely accurate because we can't model everything. Some stuff we have to greatly simplify because we can't understand or deal with it all. Stereotypes, etc. are attempts to build the model we need to cope. It serves our own purposes allowing us to somewhat control our world, predict our own future to some extent, and make decisions in that world.

That's what stories are too, I suppose. Simplified and stylized models that let us screw around with a part of it without consequences.

I never thought about psychological problems being an inability to build functional models of the real world, but it makes sense. Without them, the real world is a very scary and overwhelming place.

rj

 

[Bramblethorn]

The "natural" aspect of this though... I don't think it changes very much. I've used this example before, But imagine a singer. She's on stage at some local venue, and it's clear to everyone this girl has got a voice. It moves people. And ultimately it entertains the crowd. Everyone cheers and applauds her as she leaves the stage. A music enthusiast, say a music teacher who teaches people to do what the singer just did, approaches her.

"That was excellent! I know very few people that can hit a high C like you did."

The singer shakes her head. "I don't sing notes or anything like that. I've never been taught music, I just love to sing. I don't actually sing in scales."

The musician smiles and replies, "Well, yes. You may never have had a single lesson, but those are notes and scales you are singing. That thing you did with your voice at the end is still called vibrato. Whether it was taught or you picked it up singing the songs you love, it was a beautiful vibrato."

"...but you really should get some lessons, because if you're pushing those high Cs with the wrong technique you can permanently damage your voice." Pro singers dread vocal nodules; Bonnie Tyler made it work for her, but many others aren't as lucky.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I am the person who linked it. It has a powerfully ironic and moving effect, using (as someone else pointed out) about a third of a Lit page worth of words. However, it was written during a period when our culture was more elevated and the average person more literate. It is challenging for today's readers.

I am of the opinion, and I realize that it is a controversial one, that we are living in a cultural dark age right now. Ask yourself, would our citizenry tolerate our government's behavior, launching one senseless war after another, if that were not the case?

"The Gift of the Magi" was published in 1905. Here's how Major-General Smedley Butler described US foreign policy of that era:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

There's a lot to be said for high culture, but I haven't seen any sign that it's effective at creating peace. If anything, culture can fuel war by providing casum bellum: "our culture is more advanced than theirs, so we have the moral duty to spread it, by force if necessary". It's not an accident that the Nazis paid so much attention to historic German culture.

Oscar Wilde had an interesting essay on roughly this topic: the Victorians believed that beautiful artistic sensibilities went hand in hand with morality, and were very confused by the case of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, an accomplished artist and critic who was also a serial poisoner. (See also: Caravaggio, Cellini.)