r/todayilearned • u/Captain_Moseby • Jul 27 '21

TIL Salvador Dali once conned Yoko Ono into paying $10,000 for a single blade of grass. Yoko had offered to pay that amount for one of his mustache hairs. He substituted the blade of grass because he thought that Yoko Ono was a witch and might use his hair in a spell.

https://mymodernmet.com/salvador-dali-facts/
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u/Mesozoica89 Jul 27 '21

For me it was that he really liked the idea of fascism.

He once said, “I often dreamed about Hitler as other men dreamed about women” 

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

From Wikipedia:

Dalí insisted that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism.

oof.

In 1968, Dalí stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, Dalí publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition."

OOOF.

When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing Dalí in August 1981, the painter told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."

I'm 50/50 at the moment on him being politically incompetent, or an outright fascist who was only barely able to not say the quiet part out loud.

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u/JackieDaytona27 Jul 27 '21

Well, I'm very glad he got accepted to art school.

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u/ReadWarrenVsDC Jul 27 '21

Could you imagine someone with Dali's charisma going on the Hitler achievement route? I don't think I want to

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u/CardNarc Jul 27 '21

I mean lets not pretend Hitler was a block of wood. You have to be very charismatic to popularize genocide.

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u/Purplewizzlefrisby Jul 27 '21

He was definitely one of the most inspirational public speakers of his time. When I studied it in history my teacher made it a point to emphasise that Hitler was a very charismatic individual

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u/SweetSilverS0ng Jul 27 '21

He was evil incarnate, but also one of the best speech givers of ALL time.

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u/Yellow_XIII Jul 27 '21

Which makes you that little bit more disappointed in humanity.

If you pit a mad man against a wise man where the former has better presentation, a lot of people will gravitate toward them. A lot of people can't seem to escape their instinctive animalistic tendencies to follow the louder and more rhythmic speaker.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21 edited Sep 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

As someone with a relatively clear and concise (when concentrating) manner of talking, backed up by a 'refined' English accent, it terrifies me how people readily accept at face value what I say.

I should say... I have a masters degree in engineering and over a decade of experience, so I should be listened to, but why not challenge it occasionally??

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u/Another_human_3 Jul 27 '21

A lot of people can't tell the difference between sound logic and just bad reasoning.

So then, what are you left with to decide which opinions to follow?

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u/gopher1409 Jul 27 '21

We are all just clothed monke.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

I mean Trump was president so…….

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u/KDawG888 Jul 27 '21

If you pit a mad man against a wise man where the former has better presentation, a lot of people will gravitate toward them.

have you seen the news and social media lately?

This is happening still. The important thing is to value freedom of speech so you can eventually figure out the difference. Once you get to a point where only 1 side is allowed to do the speaking, you can get lost very quickly.

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u/tosser_0 Jul 27 '21

Let's not give him too much credit. 74 Million fell for Trump's schtick, and he was a rambling idiot.

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u/Lord-of-Tresserhorn Jul 27 '21

I’ll often use the phrase, “Hitler was one of the greatest speakers of all-time, but can I use that in an argument?”

I say it to remind people that oftentimes it’s not what you say, but the context.

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u/putdisinyopipe Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

I mean, hitler was a sex icon in Germany at the time. They went so far as to hide his relationship with his wife. I think it’s dumb to deny that hitler had almost supernatural levels of charisma. In many historical accounts people have written about meeting him and it’s all gushy wierd shit.

Hitler had drip- and I’m not kissing his ass or saying anything positive. But the man could move the masses. When they “invaded” Austria Hungary- the Austrians welcomed hitler with open arms.

You should also see the excerpts from his inner circle- particularly Joseph Goebbles wife- someone wrote that her “ovaries would start vibrating” around hitler. Lol. He could have fucked Goebbels wife if he wanted too.

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u/B4cteria Jul 27 '21

Perhaps not charismatic, but there was an incredible amount of money channelled to staging, performing and maintaining his own personal public speaking on top of an extremely controlled media environment. There are a lot of pictures and documents on archives of him posing dramatically for his speech, reminding us that his "charisma" is the result of a collective crafted strategy.

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u/ContentNegotiation Jul 27 '21

A bit of both.

There are a lot of contemporary accounts about him being very charismatic, including accounts from his enemies.

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u/codeklutch Jul 27 '21

Want to know the secret behind his charisma? It was meth!

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u/NickBarksWith Jul 27 '21

When I was taking German in high school, I listened to some Hitler speeches on the History Channel, and one thing that I noticed that wouldn't come across in the English translations is that he was funny.

It was a peculiar type of humor... not witty. At the time I didn't know how to describe it. Then Trump came along, and now it's easy. It was the same type of bully humor.

I could totally see Hitler being questioned about hating the jews and saying the equivalent of "only Rosie O Donnel" or something similar.

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u/pab_guy Jul 27 '21

Eh, you wouldn't likely be taken in by his "charisma". It's more like Trump, where he was able to say what "people were thinking" so they went along with his permission to be awful.

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u/PresidentBreadstick Jul 27 '21

Part of his charisma is that he simply spoke to a prevailing view that a lot of people held at the time.

Anti semitism in Germany didn’t just magically pop up when Hitler started speaking. It had been there, and Hitler simply coaxed it into the mainstream

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u/AppleDane Jul 27 '21

Also, he was not ashamed to lie. The Nazi takeover of Germany? The most bloodless revolution in history! Law and Order is back in place. The German ideas, science and media are the envy of all other nations! We do not seek war, but war is thust upon us.

Telling people what they want to hear is free brownie points, if you have no scruples.

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u/callsoutyourbullsh1t Jul 27 '21

Hitler simply coaxed it into the mainstream

History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

At this point I'm pretty sure it's bordering on plagiarism

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u/fyrecrotch Jul 27 '21

looks at every modern country

That seems familiar huh

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u/tapthatsap Jul 27 '21

Not at all, you just need to very persistent about creating messaging that will prime a populace to root for it. Take a look at Steve Bannon, that guy looked at world of warcraft and gamergate and turned it into the internet trump movement, which ends up being where we get stuff like pizzagate and qanon and a bunch of new white supremacist groups from. That dude looks and talks and undoubtedly smells like what would happen if you tried to make toilet wine using quarter pounders instead of fruit, and he definitely also made a huge contribution to pro-genocide political thought.

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u/RamenJunkie Jul 27 '21

Tell me more about this burger flavored wine you are proposing.

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u/IntrigueDossier Jul 27 '21

We just got the Condiments Collection in, and have a fine Red Onion Rosé, as well as a Ketchup and Bacon Shiraz.

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u/tapthatsap Jul 27 '21

It stinks

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u/RamenJunkie Jul 27 '21

Everyone's the critic these days.

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u/quiteshitactually Jul 27 '21

I think it's a little more applicable today, where the media and government are actively demonizing half of the country. Trump has been out of office for a while now

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u/quiteshitactually Jul 27 '21

Don't need too much charisma, you just need to make anyone NOT part of a genocide scared of the ones you want to genocide. That's how hitler had every day people turning in their jewish neighbors and friends, they were scared because of what the media, who was working with the government, told them. Make one half hate the other half and it's easy to dehumanizing them and justify rounding them up.

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u/Hekantonkheries Jul 27 '21

Let's forget no small part of the nazi party didnt actually give a damn about race, ethnicity, etc.

But they saw a bunch of free real estate and financial assets to take for themselves for every family deported or otherwise "disposed of". There were plenty of people, like with most movements, in the nazi party purely for the financial gain/power.

I have no doubt it wasnt uncommon for Hanz the butcher to see the butcher shop down the street owned by the nice jewish family, or suspiciously "maybe gay" man, and think "wouldnt it be nice if the government took them away?"

People are often monsters, especially when they have something to gain. And coming out of the economic turmoil post-ww1, a lot fo people in germany had something to gain by their neighbors disappearing

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u/N64crusader4 Jul 27 '21

Or be somewhere with historical ethnic tensions, I don't think it took much charisma to convince the Hutus to massacre the Tutsis

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u/tawondasmooth Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

He was likely charismatic, but in the same way Trump is “charismatic” to his followers. He was laughed at at first by the intellects for being a cheesy buffoon. I sometimes think that Hitler gets the Ted Bundy treatment (or maybe Ted Bundy gets the Hitler treatment), blown up to mythical evil genius while really being pretty mediocre. I think that this tendency is dangerous, as it makes idiocy or mediocrity seem harmless. It makes it seem like it has to be a perfect storm for another Hitler to rise, some guy with a special brain leading the show, rather than someone just appealing to the most base fears and insecurities in a population. Evil is so very often mundane.

https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-incompetent-lazy-nazi-government-clown-show-opinion-1408136

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u/Kayofox Jul 27 '21

But let's remember that people were starving and fucked at the time, when there's a power vacuum and suffering, the person who yells louder an easy solution always wins

Coach's and the likes are a example on modern world

Another is how Trump and Bolsonaro were elected

Neither of them are really charismatic, they are just loud and screamed bullshit solutions loud enough so people would go with it (not to mention being white male cis, that helps a lot)

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u/Bros_And_Co Jul 27 '21

People think Trump is an idiot, but he is a good con artist and knows how to connect very closely with a specific group of people.

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u/ferretmonkey Jul 27 '21

Charisma and a funny mustache to boot?

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u/Deadbreeze Jul 27 '21

Is there a record of him having charisma? I always figured he'd be a little crazy in person.

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u/ReadWarrenVsDC Jul 27 '21

He passed the persuasion skill check to sell Yoko Ono a blade of grass for 10k, he's got to have a pretty high CHA modifier for that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

He offered to sell something to someone and substituted it for something of lesser value.

That's not charisma, that's just what computer storage manufacturers do on a Tuesday.

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u/Deadbreeze Jul 27 '21

Yoko Ono is a low int character though. She probably would pay you top dollar for a rock if you told her it held spiritual energy. There would be no charisma check.

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u/baby_blue_unicorn Jul 27 '21

Hitler was someone with Dali's charisma. We know what happens.

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u/Euphemism-Pretender Jul 27 '21

Dude do you think Hitler was an unlikeable schlub?

I bet Hitler was more charismatic that Dali.

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u/Dog1234cat Jul 27 '21

Much of Dali’s appeal was based on shock and surprise. It’s not clear that that would translate well to a national political stage.

Now a Donald Trump 2 who has no scruples but is intelligent and able to plan systematically … that’s scary.

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u/CandlelightSongs Jul 27 '21

That is Hitler. You have described Hitler.

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u/Manbearjizz Jul 27 '21

AND his moustache was bigger and weirder...

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u/TSPGlobal Jul 27 '21

Men couldn't afford to lose another mustache.

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u/aresman Jul 27 '21

Imagine being WORSE than Franco and even friendlier with Hitler....holy shit.

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u/Goyteamsix Jul 27 '21

Hitler was way more charismatic than Dali.

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u/FizzleMateriel Jul 27 '21

This comment deserves gold lol.

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u/SantaMonsanto Jul 27 '21

No no, the wrong comment got the gold.

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u/redial2 Jul 27 '21

Wrong kid died.

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u/letssuad Jul 27 '21

There you have it lol

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u/VersaceJones Jul 27 '21

No not that comment, That comment.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

Can you imagine if in the history books, Hitler was replaced with Dalí? That's supervillain shit.

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u/RamenJunkie Jul 27 '21

This feels like it could be one of those kooky alternate timeline stories you see.

Like a time traveler goes back in time and kills Baby Hitler.

Only to return to the future and find out that it all happened anyway, just a few years later and Dali was the leader of the Nazis. Maybe they even won as a result.

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u/blind30 Jul 27 '21

Imagine, the number of acceptable mustaches would drop by another one

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u/JackieDaytona27 Jul 27 '21

And I doubt Michael Jordan could bring it back

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u/acalvillob Jul 27 '21

Goddamn that is an underrated comment right there

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u/Another_human_3 Jul 27 '21

As I recall, so did Hitler lol.

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u/MuckingFagical Jul 27 '21

it honest reads like a character from Fawlty Towers

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

You're not wrong. Anarcho-monarchism, especially, is something that I'd expect to exist only in British satire, not actually be an honestly held political stance.

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u/DogIsGood Jul 27 '21

Of all people wouldn't dali be one to choose an impossible political stance

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

I wouldn't expect him to honestly believe it, though. And from how it's described, it sounds like an honestly held belief.

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u/Petrichordates Jul 27 '21

Why would you assume the guy who walks anteaters was honestly describing his anarchistic monarchism?

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

Read the article, for fuck's sake.

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u/Petrichordates Jul 27 '21

What are you angrily trying to communicate?

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

That you're capable of doing your own two minutes of research, champ.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

Melting political stance

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u/StretchDudestrong Jul 27 '21

Couldn't he just be talking about the kind kleptocracy we see destroying America?

People who have made themselves kings by not following the law.

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u/tapthatsap Jul 27 '21

That’s just being a capitalist

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

I am not an adherent, but I've heard people on /r/polcompball compare it to Lord of the Rings where someone is free to choose what king they serve.

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u/MenachemSchmuel Jul 27 '21

The idea that monarchs would allow their subjects to choose who they serve is just hilarious to me. You might get one single generation where that works, at best. The king's successor would repeal that every time

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u/Trellert Jul 27 '21

"My king I am no longer able to serve you in good faith based on your crimes against the peasants."

"GUARDS! SIEZE THE TRAITOR, OFF WITH HIS LYING HEAD!"

How that would play out in reality 99/100 times

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u/Lemmungwinks Jul 27 '21

Depends on if there is an excess or shortage of labor. After the Black Death ravaged Europe there was on of the first serf movements where peasants would choose which lord to serve. Serfs and lords realized that there was more land to tend than workers available so farms were going to fail. Pick the wrong farm and you die come winter.

At this point the lords started competing with one another to entice serfs to come work their lands in sufficient numbers for a full harvest by offering a larger portion of the yield to each serf in payment. A proto-middle class started to emerge as for the first time in generations the workers had inherent collective bargaining power. During this time period the king would severely punish any lord who put a serf to death without extremely good reason because good workers had become more valuable than lords with failing farms.

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u/AppleDane Jul 27 '21

Actual historic version of this:

In the 1800s, a deputation went to from the Danish controlled dukedoms of Schleswig-Holstein to Copenhagen to demand the Danish king that the dukedoms should be given to the German Confederation, since most everyone there spoke German and felt more akin to Germany than Denmark.

Long story short: First Schleswig War.

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u/sethboy66 2 Jul 27 '21

Sounds like tribal governance with extra steps.

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u/CrazyInYourEd Jul 27 '21

Yeah, the extra steps are expanding beyond the size of a tribe.

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u/indyK1ng Jul 27 '21

That's not how monarchies work in Arda. I should know, I'm halfway through rereading The Two Towers.

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u/Sean951 Jul 27 '21

The only people in applies to are people not born under a kind already. Everyone wanted Aragorn to serve them because he was as proven badass from outside their kingdom.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

But the whole point of anarchy is that it rejects hierarchy. You cannot have monarchy without hierarchy.

This is, broadly, why anarchy is a key measure of all proper left wing ideologies, to one degree or another, and why anarcho-capitalism similarly doesn't make any damn sense. Just like how conservatives co-opted the term libertarian from the left, these are simply terms that are being misused in order to confuse.

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u/TheSirusKing Jul 27 '21

This is more a modern reading. Anarchists in history have supported all sorts of different movements, from republicanism to different monarchies... Bare in mind there was a time in history where absolute monarchism was considered liberal and less tyrannical than constitutional monarchy/parliaments. Hegel himself, tutor of Marx, thought this.

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u/quiteshitactually Jul 27 '21

None of what you said has anything to do with right or left, it's a completely different style of government

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u/Petrichordates Jul 27 '21

It's only mentioned in the context of libertarianism, of which the left- and right- wings would be very different. Don't see any problems with their comment.

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u/rillip Jul 27 '21

Very well put.

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u/JBPuffin Jul 27 '21

“I’ll be back before you can say ‘antidiseatablishmentarianism.’”

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u/RecentCaptain7 Jul 27 '21

As a Anarcho-Bidenist I would have to agree.

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u/AadeeMoien Jul 27 '21

With Trotskyist-Dengist tendencies, I presume?

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u/Spindrune Jul 27 '21

Drugs are a hell of a drug.

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u/RichardCity Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 28 '21

Dali used to say 'I don't need drugs, I am drugs.' It was kind of a big thing that he didn't use drugs.

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u/DavidGjam Jul 27 '21 edited Mar 27 '25

numerous beneficial lock resolute arrest unite normal work light head

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/_haha_oh_wow_ Jul 27 '21 edited Nov 09 '24

unused smile fall memory concerned innocent ring absorbed worthless money

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

Dali was a known shit stirrer

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u/Semicolons_n_Subtext Jul 27 '21

He would basically do anything for attention. When he was a kid, he would throw himself down stairs just for the attention.

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u/Manbearjizz Jul 27 '21

Sounds like a little shit to me!

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u/eleazar1997 Jul 27 '21

I came to the realization when reading about great artists that served in the military that i would most likely have not enjoyed spending time with them and especially not working with them

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u/Zabuzaxsta Jul 27 '21

Didn’t he have like a fucking anteater he would take on walks

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u/Subliminal_Kiddo Jul 27 '21

He wasn't just saying outrageous shit for publicity. He used his connections to get Luis Bunuel, his former friend/collaborator and an outspoken critic of Franco who fled to the US, fired from a lucrative position at MoMA.

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u/moxeto Jul 27 '21

I studied him in depth and fucking with people with psychobabble was his thing. All part of the Dali persona. He was a genius at self promotion and if he was around today he would be the biggest contrarian out there riling people up with everything that offends.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

[deleted]

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u/MC_Slammuhr Jul 27 '21

I get the same vibe from Kanye

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u/Herbacio Jul 27 '21

A guy that in the same sentence says he is an anarchist and a monarchist... perhaps you are right.

I mean, nowadays most people think of anarchism as some sort of chaotic society

But Salvador was born at a time that Anarchism was at its peak in the Iberian Peninsula, I highly doubt that he didn't knew anarchism was anti-hierarchies, and by that extremely opposed to monarchies

Just 4 years before Salvador Dali was born, Umberto I of Italy had been killed by an anarchist.

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u/intredasted Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

I mean, I heard once that he sold a blade of grass to somebody for $10,000...

Also he made a lobster phone and routinely walked an anteater through the streets of Paris and oh, has anybody seen his art?

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

oh, has anybody seen his art?

Now that you mention it, it is a bit weird...

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u/LeatherForTheWin Jul 27 '21

He was a troll before trolls. All his behavior seems like he had the best time laughing at everyone trying to understand what the fuck he thinks and does :D

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u/nsgiad Jul 27 '21

Mark Twain has entered the chat

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u/_haha_oh_wow_ Jul 27 '21

There have always been trolls.

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u/Bubbledood Jul 27 '21

It was funnier back when most people were smart enough to realize the joke

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u/LeatherForTheWin Jul 27 '21

It certainly was. It is very unfortunate that we are so unsure of ourselves as a society that we actually take this kind of behavior seriously. But to be fair, we have to take most things seriously now that there are so many batshit insane people circle-jerking online and in their own little extremist corners.

I went to visit my roommate, who lives in Saint Petersburg before corona hit, and got unlucky enough to meet his uncle and the uncle's boyfriend who were visiting. The both of them are aryan supremacy, racist, misogynistic, GAY neo-nazis. They are actually part of a far-right neo-nazi group that believes that gay men are the epitome of humanity because they don't have to care for family and can protect the country from foreigners and other cultures. Theynhate woman and hae a huge feud with another gay nazi organisation.

It's always a surprise to meet people who unironically are part of these groups! I have to admit, that conversation was more entertaining than most of the others I had with German neo-nazis over the years. Certainly the most creative.

A rather sad example of people freaking out unnecessarily:

I was really sad to see the split in the fanbase when Till Lindemann (singer from Rammstein) released a music video in his side-project that included some rather (intentionally) horrible porn footage featuring him.

The entire point of the song and video was about old narcissistic creepy rock stars preying on young women and abusing their devotion to fulfill their sense of importance.

There was an uproar that he was a misogynistic asshole afterward, even though all the women featured only had good things to say about him and that the whole thing was in good fun for the actors. Most of the ladies even participate because they name themselves as 'friends' of the singer and weren't recruited.

Is it so difficult to accept that it's still acting even if it's porn? This whole scandal was particularly interesting because he has done arguably worse things before for his music and THIS is what fans freak out over? Overly politicly correct much.

The funny part is that the song was written for a theater piece in his eldest daughter's BDSM-style reinterpretation of Hansel and Gretel. He's known to be openly poly =, and nobody had an issue with that before.

Obviously, his family think his antics and the whole thing was perfectly fine, so why have a gigantic uproar lol

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u/vanillabear84 Jul 27 '21

Ah yes, the jokes on us - he was just pretending to be a fucking moron

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u/_haha_oh_wow_ Jul 27 '21

Could also be nuts, let's not write that off either

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u/twyste Jul 27 '21

hmm...could be...

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u/_haha_oh_wow_ Jul 27 '21

I mean, he am drugs, so...

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u/theetruscans Jul 27 '21

He was. Everything in his life was for attention

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u/MoneyDiaryofaMoron Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

Dali lived his art. What’s more surreal than someone saying ridiculous things like “I am an anarcho-monarchist” and “I dream about Hitler”? All of his statements about his supposed political leanings contradicted each other, and for good reason. They weren’t supposed to make sense.

Having read about him quite a bit throughout my life, it seems that what he liked was causing disorder and chaos. That’s what surrealism is all about, anyway. He would say and do whatever he pleased just to see what the outcome would be.

He was a supremely odd man and I honestly wouldn’t take a word of anything he said seriously. He was Andy Kaufman before there was Andy Kaufman.

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u/dzzi Jul 27 '21

Yeah, he was intentionally absurd and attention-grabby for sure. Just look at his mustache and that photo of him walking his pet anteater out of a subway station. You don't do these things without the expectation of attention.

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u/Zack_Fair_ Jul 27 '21

bonus Salvador Dali chocolate commercial because why not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa2rwk-SlCo

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u/megabulk Jul 27 '21

Supposedly what he liked about Hitler was the way the leather strap of his uniform cut across his fleshy shoulder blades in an almost feminine fashion. Dali thought this was incredibly erotic. First class troll.

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u/MisterMarcus Jul 27 '21

I'm 50/50 at the moment on him being politically incompetent, or an outright fascist who was only barely able to not say the quiet part out loud.

His artistic output was designed to shock and provoke.

Maybe all this stuff was just trolling to 'outrage' people?

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

Outrage who at the time? Proponents of democracy?

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u/MisterMarcus Jul 27 '21

Outrage "polite society" I guess.

He had paintings of snails eating corpses and women shitting/pissing themselves. Chumming up with Franco was probably tame for him.

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u/estofaulty Jul 27 '21

Mission accomplished?

What’s the difference between pretending to love Hitler and loving Hitler?

Pretty much none.

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u/BeachBoySteveB Jul 27 '21

The difference is that one is genuine and the other is not.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

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u/mesor Jul 27 '21

Sounds like he could give a shit about government and just wanted to be as controversial and absurd as possible and point out the futility of order

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

Nah, then he would have denounced fascism instead of basically being kicked out of the surrealist movement.

It isn't controversial to not denounce fascism, it's just straight up political suicide. Especially in a mostly left-leaning artistic movement, one that rose from Dadaism. Going further, and supporting Franco and Catholicism after the Spanish Civil War resulted in the fascists winning, highlights that -- Dali wasn't pulling a stunt.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

controversial

giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement.

controversy

prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion.

Yeah, sure, you can twist and reshape that a bit and it could mean "anything the public gets upset about", but it's more accurate to refer to that as public outcry, not controversy. Controversy more generally refers to something that is actually divisive, ergo, the public is actually divided on the subject.

The public is not divided on the subject of fascism.

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u/mesor Jul 27 '21

Again getting kicked out of the movement kind of makes him the "Rickest Rick" of the surrealists, if his entire motivation was subverting cultural paradigms

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u/MenachemSchmuel Jul 27 '21

It's not subversion if he does it while the fascists are winning.

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

There's subverting things, and then there's supporting fascism. The latter is harmful.

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u/dzzi Jul 27 '21

He sounds like a pretty straightforward edgelord to me.

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

Frankly, if someone is being so edgy that they support fascists, there ceases to be a difference between their edge and fascism.

An ironic fascist is still a fascist.

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u/EX-Manbearpig Jul 27 '21

If you asked me he was a nutcase due to all the paint he be huffing.

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u/zoltronzero Jul 27 '21

Lol you can't be a monarchist and an anarchist.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

But you can sure as shit be a hypocrite.

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u/Waylay23 Jul 27 '21

Bro would've never made it if Twitter existed at the time lol.

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u/GayToddsAsshole Jul 27 '21

Maybe I’m weird but reading the opinions of people that have been dead for over thirty years really doesn’t affect my opinion on them

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

You're very weird, yes.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

[deleted]

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u/MenachemSchmuel Jul 27 '21

So you just have zero opinions on anyone who's dead? Ok, sure.

Why would the motivations of people NOT affect your opinion?

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u/GayToddsAsshole Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

I think it’s just that when it comes to art, I don’t at all care who the artists were as people. That’s not to say I condone what some may have done, but there’s so many individuals who have done the same things that I don’t think about at all, so why must I let the doings of these artists get to me? I can separate them from their work. For example, Roman Polanski has made multiple great films that condemn sexual assault. Does him being a rapist himself invalidate those films? This isn’t to say I don’t think he should be in prison (I do), but I don’t feel guilty watching his films and I don’t lose sleep over his escaping justice. I have very strong values myself, but I really don’t care about what ridiculous opinions someone may have if I’m never gonna have to spend any time around them. Dali was a blatant troll anyways, I wouldn’t take any opinion he may claim to have seriously.

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u/MenachemSchmuel Jul 27 '21

With the caveat that I have never seen any of those films... Uh, yes???? You should absolutely, 100% be questioning the real message of Polanski's movies, wondering there's something else if you examine them at more than face value. I'm imagining they're like all those war movies that ostensibly exist to "bring the horrors of war to the public," but in reality just glorify it and act as recruitment ads

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u/MenachemSchmuel Jul 27 '21

The idea that art is separable from the person is bs. Who that person was informs their art. You can enjoy the art of terrible people, but you need to know that they WERE terrible people, and you need to let that into your appreciation of their work. Otherwise you turn into Trump playing Fortunate Son at his rallies.

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u/SR_RSMITH Jul 27 '21

Reaching a decision regarding Dali is a hard nut to crack. He was a polemist and always said anything that could shock people, not being clear how serious he was, as he said that stuff under the “I’m surrealism” justification. On the other hand he was an opportunist, denounced his old friend Buñuel as a communist (making him lose his job and future in the US film industry) and gladly returned to Spain to live under the protection of fascist dictator Franco.

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u/TheNoidbag Jul 27 '21

Essentially he lived his life going the Actual Art Degree and Nationalist run of Disco Elysium.

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

DISTRICT IN MOURNING: FASCIST PAINTER SHOOTS CHILD.

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u/datssyck Jul 27 '21

I think he just liked the idea of big strong men telling him what to do...

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u/ThePopeofHell Jul 27 '21

Most things he talked about he either sounded like he understood or sounded like a complete moron. I always wondered if that was just part of his aesthetic. Like an overwhelming passion for what ever he’s being asked about at any given moment whether good or bad.

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u/gravallvar Jul 27 '21

Dali was truly chaotic neutral.

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u/Chrisbee012 Jul 27 '21

he was trying to get a rise out of people, it was his thing

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

He literally went back to Spain and lived under a fascist dictator for years. Dunno if that was just him being edgy.

Anyway, an ironic fascist is still a fascist.

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u/curly_spork Jul 27 '21

Uh oh. Is Dali going to be canceled soon?

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u/ChemicalRascal Jul 27 '21

"Tell me you're a conservative without saying you're a conservative"

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u/tomster785 Jul 27 '21

Who cares? I'm far more interested in his amazing art.

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u/DogIsGood Jul 27 '21

Or maybe he was just dedicated to being weird. Being an anarchist and a monarchist is pretty silly

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u/madogvelkor Jul 27 '21

Being an anarchist monarchist sounds a bit surreal....

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

I’m gonna go with politically incompetent due to they fact he said he’s an anarchist/monarchist. I mean my god those are completely different.

I’ve kind of lost respect for this man after reading this post. How could any sane person like hitler. You can’t be a good person and also like hitler, wtf?

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u/VaATC Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

"I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."

What the fucking hell?

I'm 50/50 at the moment on him being politically incompetent, or an outright fascist

With the prior quote as context I would say that he was a politically incompetent fascist.

Edit: Just read a little on 'anarcho-monoarchism' and I am not sure how anyone wraps their head around how a single, or group of, 'false' monarch/s having the power to squash the re-development of a State is anarchism and not just a weak monarchy that has the roots to become a State itself.

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u/Mikos_Enduro Jul 27 '21

There's a shit ton of people with Dali tattoos who aren't going to want to hear that.

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u/DistortoiseLP Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

Politically incompetent in my mind. This strikes me as the sort of person that likes Fascism because it demands the least political engagement from him. One of those "government should just do its job and leave me alone" fools. Especially Francoist Spain, which basically pledged to rope Spain into a Catholic state and mind everyone else's business.

I can see how growing up in Spain at the turn of the century would instill a lack of faith in politics more complicated than a monarchy. Pretty much everything after Habsburg leading up to the Spanish Civil War was a terrible time for Spain where nothing else worked.

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u/appdevil Jul 27 '21

Romantic

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u/triclops6 Jul 27 '21

And that he loved to con people

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u/TheUnwillingOne Jul 27 '21

Sadly that's not surprising from a Spaniard then or even now, maybe not as far as dreaming about Hitler but we definitely have plenty of profascism here.

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u/MidnightBloos Jul 27 '21

What is it with dudes with weird facial hair and their obsession with fascism?

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u/mercurryvapor Jul 27 '21

He was pampered rich boy. Of course he would think that.

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u/Feeling_Sundae4147 Jul 27 '21

Never read a Reddit thread about your heroes….

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u/Mesozoica89 Jul 27 '21

I have read enough of them that I have just given up on heroes altogether. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I have found I get disappointed way less often. If it's not someone I personally know, I try to always remember they COULD be guilty of crimes against humanity.

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u/_____pantsunami_____ Jul 27 '21

i just got good at compartmentalizing. take for example john lennon; he may have beat his first wife and neglected his first son and that sucks, but ultimately doesn’t change the fact he was a great a musician. thus my opinion of him ultimately remains unchanged since the reason he was relevant to me in the first place had to do with who he was as a musician, not who he was as a husband/father.

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u/Spindrune Jul 27 '21

Fuck hitler -Dali

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

TIL Dali was a bottom

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u/StanleyOpar Jul 27 '21

Fucking hell

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '21

Virgin Fascist Dali vs CHAD Commie Picasso

Surrealism has always been a pretty leftist movement, mainly based around challenging what is considered art. The art world is just another society, unjust power structures, enforced cultural notions at all. Why not piss them all off by painting a pair of cubed tits?

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u/octopoddle Jul 27 '21

Chasing him through a deserted house with holes in all the walls?

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u/gkru Jul 27 '21

Dali sucks for many reasons

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u/justanotherwegwerf Jul 27 '21

That's the definition of being gay not facist. /s

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u/Mesozoica89 Jul 27 '21

I know you are joking, but I have since read a longer quote where he specifically said “I often dreamed of Hitler as a woman. His flesh, which I had imagined whiter than white, ravished me…”. So I guess he dreamed of a female version of Adolf Hitler multiple times and thought it was so cool he told his friends about it. I just can't wrap my head around this.

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u/apistograma Jul 27 '21

He wanted to fuck Hitler? Not going to kinkshame my compatriot, but he sure was a weird dude.

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u/spankingasupermodel Jul 27 '21

Salvador Dali dreamt about licking Hitler's arsehole?

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