Lots of people like the music of Michael Jackson, even though they have doubts about his past.

On the whole, I agree with the statement that "To take offence here is to confuse the aesthetic with the ideological".

Anybody can be a knee-jerk and condemn Ferry without thinking.

A little research will reveal some doubt about Riefenstahl's collaboration. Her images and the techniques she invented were ground breaking and revolutionary. And Speer's architecture? Come on now! Some of it's pretty. Some of it's beautiful.

For those of you that want to knee-jerk and paint me as a Nazi or a Nazi apologist, know that I'm a Jew, a Jew that has no illusions about the Shoah. I grew up with children who's parents had numbers tattooed to their forearms.

It's fine to untangle the aesthetic from the ideology.

Unfortunately, it's always easier to believe - and to feel - than it is to think.

Yeah, if he's doing work for a major Jewish-owned company, it's probably a fair bet that his admiration for the fascist aesthetic doesn't extend to their theories on racial hygiene. His remarks could be regarded as ill-considered, but on the other hand, those Schutzstaffel cats did have pretty some swank threads.

If enjoying the Nazi aesthetic is a crime, Paul Verhoeven is in a lot of trouble.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

George Lucas could probably use some punishing, too, for that matter.

Inspiration can come from anywhere. I can find beauty in things regardless of source, and even when I hear music I don't like I often pick up something from it that I assimilate (or assimilates itself) into my own music. I love Errol Flynn's acting and the music of Wagner really moves me; both were possessed of mindsets that contradict my own views. Their artistry, however, transcends all that.

Same goes for pageantry, pomp and circumstance. Somehting can be a display of beauty despite content.

His comments were a little bit simpering but the guy is all about style and his comments should be viewed in that context. Even if he had been a Nazi in the war he would have been in his bedroom posing in his outfit rather than fighting I suspect!

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A beautiful asshole is still an asshole, yeah?

Not that I blame the guy, but his comments weren't very well considered. Imagine an American talking about finding beauty in the slave trade or something...

Board of Deputies of British Jews? Couldn't we get a kneejerk quote from a more mainstream Jewish group P.O.ed at the move?

Normally the Simon Wiesenthal Center is the first of the Jewish spokesgroups to lose their sense of humor whenever someone does something that could possibly be read the wrong way. That they haven't considered this press release worthy says to me that people had to look pretty hard to find someone offended by this. Anyone who's studied modern media knows that Leni Reifenstal and the rest were considered masters of propaganda, and to claim that modern media's techniques aren't influenced by them is laughable. As much as we all may hate the Nazis and what they stood for, saying they were skilled at manipulating people and presenting an image doesn't make you an anti-semite.

Sure, Roxy Music has 1 hit.

And Def Leppard had 10.

Your point was?

In the back of my mind, I remembered reading about something like this recently and now I do remember.

From an article about Siouxsie & The Banshees

Ferry is from the same era, but I don't remember him dressed up like a punk!

"The Schutzstaffel Collection", by Hugo Boss...

You can take plantation tours all over the place and "beautiful" is often the word used to describe them.