The Morally Retarded Lorin Maazel, Part 2

Lorin Maazel could really use a publicist who understands the concept of “stop digging.” Just when we thought we’d put this flame war behind us, he goes off again, in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page. With time for further reflection and careful editing, here’s how he rephrases his central point:

If we are to be effective in bringing succor to the oppressed, many languishing in foreign gulags, the U.S. must claim an authority based on an immaculate ethical record, toughened by economic clout. Woe to the people we are trying to help if we end up in a glass house. [Wall Street Journal]

Immaculate? By that standard, only Jesus Christ’s mother is qualified to talk about Darfur, and a certain conductor who is now on this third wife clearly lacks the moral credentials to speak of Gitmo.

The other thing about the piece that just strikes you is what a banal, pseudointellectual poseur Maazel is. Having spent so much time surrounded by admirers and sychophants has taken an obvious toll on him. He even feels qualified to pronounce on matters other than music, despite his factual ignorance of those matters. Strip away the Chanel vocabulary in which his thoughts are clothed and those thoughts are stick figures.

We would then be unable to defend our human-rights record with honor, would weaken our position dramatically, and could be of little help to the people who might require our aid in their time of need.

Which, of course, is exactly Maazel’s goal. Maazel, goaded on by the beleagured Christopher Hill and buoyed by self-importance, politicized this visit with breathtaking idiocy. When rightly attacked for it, he then decries those who would politicize music. What Maazel really means is that he does not want to be held responsible, in his own small way, for the actions of a regime he chose to defend. Maazel doesn’t care about Gitmo — to Maazel, Gitmo is just a shiny shield for blinding the eyes of fools.

Maazel will soon miss an opportunity to bring some “succor to the oppressed” when, during his audience with the North Korean elite and their Supremo, he will fail to make one brief, extemporaneous comment: “General Secretary Kim, please release the prisoners in Camp 22.” It would be that simple. I would be the first to forgive his recent stupidities. But I’m betting that the devils on Maazel’s shoulder –vanity, arrogance, and cowardice — will talk him out of it, assuming that the angels even suggest it.

I was originally willing to accept the N.Y. Phil’s visit as mostly harmless. The succor with the baton has talked me out of that. Still, there is a silver lining. A Nexis search turns up page after page of denunciations of Maazel’s moral retardation, and those denunciations necessarily remind readers about the things that are going on in North Korea.