Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Notes on Nationalism (1945)

orwellfoundation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 224 posts

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#51

Post by BLKNSLVR »

harryvederci wrote: post #45
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just got finished watching The Great Hack* on Netflix. Demonizing "the other side", exactly as you've said, causes the polarisation that prevents even the consideration of compromise, resulting in political unproductivity that in turn erodes trust and forces us simple humans back into the basic pigeon holes that remain as the only effective politics, primarily: fear. The rational centre, however, is unprofitable, and…

Youtube (ugh[0]) link of the fragment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omc-5zj70M0 [0] Youtube is designed to suck you in and force feed you advertisements. Sorry, I couldn't find the fragment somewhere else.

Because I was too lazy to find the clip myself, I'll instead contribute by linking to the less user-hostile, but questionably legal (isn't that few words just indicative of the state of society we find ourselves in) Invidious clip:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=omc-5zj70M0

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#52

Post by janmarsal »

dash2 wrote: post #43
janmarsal wrote: post #18

Very Orwellian definition of nationalism, I must say. I always considered nationalism as the antithesis of imperialism. A nation should be ruled from their own land and by their own people. Not by foreigners from a far far away land. Almost makes you think Orwell was some kind of an imperialist (a reformist, but still) who tried to vilify nationalism in order to keep the British empire together. Good think that faile…

Orwell was very far from that. Read Burma Days.

I have, and as far as I know Orwell wanted to reform the empire rather than to dismantle it. That's what I meant by calling him a "reformist". I'm not an Orwell expert though and if someone knows for certain that Orwell was in favour of dismantling the Empire and supported the independence of the British oversee territories then please correct me.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#53

Post by technothrasher »

musha68k wrote: post #40
bigDinosaur wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I've talked to who watched Starship Troopers didn't think it was satire. To be fair, the enemy is literally not human which does make it harder to pick up on.

I remember watching it as a teenager back in 1997. I was the only one laughing in the cinema, it was just hilarious. It immediately dawned on me after though: why was no one else laughing, really? In Austria of all places. Hadn’t anyone else paid attention during history classes - at all? Continuously chilling yet I’ve never been really surprised by the creeping normalcy of fascist thought since the 90s - in part bec…

I had a similar reaction. It was so over the top as to seem obviously satirical, and indeed a poke in the eye to Heinlein's dangerously serious take on the subject matter. I forgave people for not having read the original Heinlein, but I couldn't understand how people didn't see the satire.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#54

Post by eklavya »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #46
eklavya wrote: post #16

It frustrates me to no end when people confuse patriotism with nationalism, some even cite this essay! They say despicable things (in my view) like "patriotism is the root of all evil" while enjoying the lifestyle/security provided by the altruistic patriotism of many others.

Using the article's definitions of patriotism and nationalism, I struggle to see who these supposed altruistic patriots are. Certainly not in the military, which is almost solely focused on obtaining more power and prestige for itself and the nation. While there may be some "patriots" in government or policing, it's hard to say that's the dominant ideology. And businesses obsession with money far outweighs any patrio…

You might have the good fortune to be born in a country in a stable region or with good neighbours. When life expectancy is not great in the initial active duty years (no foreign deployment, within border, defensive) I think it’s definitely not about power/prestige. It would be extremely ungrateful to state otherwise.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#55

Post by lottin »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #17
rramadass wrote: post #2

Given whats going on in the World now, Orwell's "Notes on Nationalism" is a pertinent read. We must be careful that we don't get carried away by Propaganda and start demonizing "the other side" reflexively. Summary on Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_Nationalism

Totally agree but it's too late, it already happened. It took only about 4 days of intense propaganda, for people to start asking for racial sanctions. People started demonizing Dostoevsky. Russians have lost their jobs all over the world for not publicly taking a stance against their own people. Next step is going to be the burning of russian books. Trust me, at this rate, it will come soon.

By 'racial' sanctions, you mean sanctions aimed at Russian citizens? There's nothing 'racial' about that.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#56

Post by goodpoint »

prox wrote: post #8

Starship Troopers (1997) is an interesting movie that is basically a “war propaganda” movie seen from the viewpoint of a fascistic government. The whole point of the movie is to make the enemy seem like “the other” , and in this case these are actual alien bugs in the movie. All of the human characters in the movie are beautiful and everything on “our” side as we view it is shiny and “the good side” Paul Verhoeven al…

Many people are so used to nationalist propaganda that they don't see it's a parody.

Pretty scary.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#57

Post by goodpoint »

nirui wrote: post #49
progre wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book (one of my favourites) is a little diffrent. There the perspective is that of the mobile infantist. The classic hero arc but in a fashist world. Like in the movie, there is no enlightenment or revolution though, just the story of a regular directionless Joe who finds his true self and a purpose in life in the Mobile Infantry. The movie is brilliant in a diffrent way. It's basically satire on all levels. Paul…

Contrary to common believes, that a fascist society must visually similar to what been portrayed in a WW2 movie, a real fascist society now days hides behind layers of outlooks that makes them look normal. People in a fascist society may work a well-paid job in a clean glassy high-rise, and their government and law might be structured like a normal one. The most obvious difference between a fascist society and a norm…

> People in a fascist society may work a well-paid job in a clean glassy high-rise

Just like under fascism in Italy and Germany. Most people would spend their attention on work and entertainment, often avoiding discussing politics and ignore dissenting voices outside of the overton window.

Sounds familiar?

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#58

Post by jdrc »

avodonosov wrote: post #11

I heard an opinion that identification of oneself with a group based on some principle (ethnicity / religion / class, etc) is a mechanism produced by evolution, allowing humans to form lager groups than the number of individuals one can personally know. In contrast, for example, to apes. Chimpanzees can only form group up to 150 members. BTW, on wars between chimpanzees: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanz…

wish we go back to forming groups of 150, each of them equipped with a nuclear head and some servers.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#59

Post by XorNot »

musha68k wrote: post #40
bigDinosaur wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people I've talked to who watched Starship Troopers didn't think it was satire. To be fair, the enemy is literally not human which does make it harder to pick up on.

I remember watching it as a teenager back in 1997. I was the only one laughing in the cinema, it was just hilarious. It immediately dawned on me after though: why was no one else laughing, really? In Austria of all places. Hadn’t anyone else paid attention during history classes - at all? Continuously chilling yet I’ve never been really surprised by the creeping normalcy of fascist thought since the 90s - in part bec…

I think that's the mark of effective satire though - or it can be, I'd say there's a spectrum. Some satire needs to call itself out to the audience - make it clear what it is going after, and why. Others is the latter half of it - and Starship Troopers is definitely in this category - play it so straight that you do have to actually key in to it, and it might not hit right away.

I was early teens when I watched it, so while the "do you want to know more?" definitely hit as a "okay this is kind of absurd" we were definitely there for action and bugs exploding. But it certainly hit different when I revisited it and you realize just how effective a satire it is at pretty much every level.

And I think that's the important part: you can totally miss the point of the movie, and that's basically critical to it's message: it is written and structured as fascist propaganda, and the fact that that can seem reasonable if you accept it uncritically is the message - it's a whole movie which very subtly is pointing out that fascism and its death cult heroism worship is exactly that, but because we dressed it up to look pretty while making what's happening abundantly clear on screen (you die horrifically in a pointless war), you're almost thinking this is reasonable.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#60

Post by jdrc »

supercucklchaim wrote: post #19

The world needs to be rid of Nationalism sooner rather than later. The narrative is changing slowly but surely. Our ability to use the internet, aside from obvious propaganda, has made the world smaller yet more interconnected than ever.

nationalism is surely on the decline, but we can't replace it with nothing.
Post reply on HN