tim bray's q really goes to the old benda problematic, no?
...nuthin essentially to do with anti-semiting
...tho equally misconcieved and endlessly humbugged since.
 
mostly intellectuality's used to rationalize pusillanimity,
moral heroism's a rare commodity, s'all.
...ibsen's "enemy" captures it in bourgeois miniature,
...cap'n ahab/john brown
...julius & ethel
...chomsky fer sure
 
but the q in re the betrayal of the intelligentsia
in fascist europe,
and esp the case of ep,
is vastly otherwise than the uncomplicated one
the holocaust industry would have it.
 
living in the wasteland of a botched civ,
one that had just, as in verdun and the somme ,
sent the flower of its ute thru a meat-grinder,
to emerge into the hedonistical vulgarity of the 20's,
and then the despair & squalor of the depression,
...ie in so all-encompassing an enormity of moral dementia,
even were he perfectly aware of it,
how distinguish the obliquity of another pogrom?
 
praps, it could be conceded that ep,
like ahab, understood
(albeit ever so partially, with his "usura" metaphor),
and felt the need for resistance gainst,
the great leviathan of capitalist imperialism.
(...compared with defending the ghetto,
the weightier battle...maybe)
...hazarded his all and lost.
eh?
 
bob