George Grosz. Cain, or, Hitler in Hell. - Olga’s Gallery

I have a lifelong fascination with all things German, “outsiderish”, and confrontational, so it’s no surprise that I love George Grosz. Dadaist, anti-capitalist, anti-Nazi; Grosz was a deeply disillusioned and cynical artist with plenty of real-world activity to react against visually.

Unfortunately, this was also a pretty accurate description of most Weimar era progressives, and led directly to the major criticism against them: that they were conditioned as permanent critical outsiders and thus unable to transition into an effective governing class. Had they been more efficient at running a democracy, Hitler’s populist rhetoric may never have found a sympathetic audience and his first attempt at “revolution” (which ended in scorn and a jail sentence) may have been his only footnote in history.

I guess there’s probably a lesson here: if you want to change the world through political means, your time is better spent on day-to-day efficiency than criticism. Leave that to the artists, who, after all, are far better critics than a bureaucrat could ever be.