Degeneration (German: Entartung, 1892–1893) is a two-volume work of social criticism by Max Nordau.[1][2][3]
Within this work he attacks what he believed to be degenerate art and comments on the effects of a range of social phenomena of the period, such as rapid urbanization and its perceived effects on the human body[clarification needed]. Nordau believed degeneration should be diagnosed as a mental illness because those who were deviant were sick and required therapy. He wrote, ‘The clearest notion we can form of degeneracy is to regard it as a morbid deviation from an original type. This deviation, even if, at the outset, it was ever so slight, contained transmissible elements of such a nature that anyone bearing in him the germs becomes more and more incapable of fulfilling his functions in the world; and mental progress, already checked in his own person, finds itself menaced also in his descendants.’[4].[3] These comments stemmed from his background as a trained physician, taught by the Parisian neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.[3][peacock prose]
^Nordau, Max Simon (1896). Entartung. Wellcome Library. Berlin : C. Duncker.
^ abcPeters, Olaf (Spring 2016). "Fear and Propaganda: National Socialism and the concept of "Degenerate Art"". Social Research. 83 (1): 39–66. doi:10.1353/sor.2016.0015.
^Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration. p. 16.
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