Talk:Degeneration (Nordau)

Links?
This article needs some internal and external links where the reader who is interested can go for more information. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 20:39, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Have the editors read the book?
I hope no one uses this article in order to know what Nordau's book entitled "Degeneration" truly contains. There is not a single phrase of the text here presented capable of showing the content of his treatise. Even the citations are used randomly and out of context. Nordau's work is entirely concerned about French, English and German Art (and Art only), which he considers (clinically!) degenerated. And to analyse this disease and the public who consumes the degenerated art, he applies to them the most recent discoveries of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, mostly supported by the researches of dr. Lombroso, an Italian scientist. There is not a single instance in the book where he states that "the people are becoming degenerated under the influence of the degenerated art", on the contrary. He does not say anything about the "people", which he calls Philistines, and which he considers perfectly healthy. What he studies and criticizes is the degenerated Art and the degenerated persons who surround it, individuals he describes as "rich and elitist only", in other words, men and women completely apart from the people. I do not know, therefore, what premise the article refers to by saying: "its basic premise remains that society (?) and human beings (?) themselves are degenerating, and this degeneration is both reflected (?) in and influenced (?) by art". And Nordau did not believe that "degeneration should be diagnosed as a mental illness"; simply because degeneration was already diagnosed as such! But the diagnose was restrict to patients. As the art was not a patient and therefore unable to be diagnosed as degenerated, that becomes his purpose and the goal of the book. Please, Wiki editors, read the book before writing about it. 2804:214:816B:4CAC:C759:C8DB:A15F:F323 (talk) 00:22, 19 May 2024 (UTC)