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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Oct. 27 - Nov. 2, 2014 - Less Wrong
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The key word is "successful".
To become a successful romance writer in Nazi Germany would probably require you pay careful attention to certain things. For example, making sure no one who could be construed to be a Jew is ever a hero in your novels. Likely you will have to have a public position on the racial purity of marriages. Would a nice Aryan Fräulein ever be able to find happiness with a non-Aryan?
You can't become successful in a dirty society while staying spotlessly clean.
So? Who said my goal was to stay spotlessly clean? I think more highly of Bill Gates than of Richard Stallman, because as much as Gates was a ruthless and sometimes dishonest businessman, and as much as Stallman does stick to his principles, Gates, overall, has probably improved the human condition far more than Stallman.
The question was whether "being a writer in Nazi Germany would be any worse than being a writer anywhere else".
If you would be happy to wallow in mud, be my guest.
The question of how much morality could one maintain while being successful in an oppressive society is an old and very complex one. Ask Russian intelligentsia for details :-/
Lack of representation isn't the worst thing in the world.
if you could write romance novels in Nazi Gernany (did they have romance novels?) and the novels are about temporarily and engagingly frustrated love between Aryans with no nasty stereotypes of non-Aryans, I don't think it's especially awful.
What a great question! I went to wikipedia which paraphrased a great quote from NYT
which suggests that they are a recent development. Maybe there was a huge market for Georgette Heyer, but little production in Germany.
One thing that is great about wikipedia is the link to corresponding articles in other languages. "Romance Novel" in English links to an article entitled "Love- and Family-Novels." That suggests that the genres were different, at least at some point in time. That article mentions Hedwig Courths-Mahler as a prolific author who was a supporter of the SS and I think registered for censorship. But she rejected the specific censorship, so she published nothing after 1935 and her old books gradually fell out of print. But I'm not sure she really was a romance author, because of the discrepancy of genres.
What do your lovers find attractive about each other? It better be their Aryan traits.