So Iran has banned Music, and Jay Nordlinger of NRO draws a parallel to Lenin, who apparently never touched the stuff, for fear that it would awaken human feeling, which was anathema to his work. He also makes mention of the oft-quoted fact that the Nazis were great lovers of art and music. How do this circle be squared?
For me, it bespeaks a difference between a totalitarianism of asceticism, and a totalitarianism of passion. Communism would be the paramount example of ascetic totalitarianism; one characterized by purification of the human spirit. The true Communist suffered for his ideology, was nailed to it like a cross, and was supposed to bear his ills with a martyr's patience. This may be one of the reasons why we tolerate Communists more than other shades of tyrant: Trotsky, Lenin, and Che were perfectly willing to share the misery they imposed on others.
Hitler, on the other hand, had no truck with self-denial. His Nietzsche-derived creed demanded just the opposite, that the desires of the self were holy, and to feast upon the weak was glorious and right. Hence, the Nazis devoured all that was good in every land they conquered, and took the pleasure of this enjoyment as proof of its truth.
Iran strikes me as being more in the ascetic vein, as Khomeni's condemnation of America as the Great Satan is of a kind with the denunciations of Babylon in the Book of Revelation. With all that in mind, the only question becomes "What took them so long?"
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