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Notes on Nationalism (1945)

orwellfoundation.com

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Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#91

Post by cycomanic »

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…

Thank you for reminding me again of starship troopers. It is a great movie and in my experience has quite a bad rap amongst the "intelligentsia", mostly I think because people just go off the trailer and dismiss it as a "stupid alien action movie". When I discussed the satire, images etc with people they often look at me like I'm crazy.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#93

Post by systemvoltage »

hereforphone wrote: post #87
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.

There is no narrative. Humans prefer to function alongside those who hold similar values to their own. This increases efficiency (when the values are productive) and naturally results in a feedback loop that ideally will improve that value set. I know many of us have to go to HR training now and learn about the wonders of diversity, but there's a lot to be said (in nature and history) from shared values and culture.

> HR training now and learn about the wonders of diversity

That's kind of ironic because true diversity of thought is not tolerated.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#94

Post by systemvoltage »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #37
sjaak wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something else will replace it. Tribalism is built in to our ‘firmware’.

Unfortunately in the West I think this might be identity politics. There is very much a "us Vs them" attitude with the whole thing. To give an example I see a lot of LGBT "allies" with pin badges, flags, etc. To label oneself as being part of that group. Without flying the flags you are seen as an outsider.

I feel weird if I select the yellow emoji color since everyone on our internal slack is gung ho about their skin color. Same with pronouns, almost indirectly mandated at this point.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#95

Post by qiskit »

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.

I would love to see an example of true altruistic patriotism you speak of. All people are selfish and everyone works for their own self-interest. Nationalism/patriotism exists because of each individual's recognition of that self-interest. No altruism involved here.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#96

Post by Aidevah »

ImaCake wrote: post #78
Aidevah wrote: post #65

Insightful and relevant as ever, Orwell is always worth reading (and rereading). Sometimes I feel that his fictional works have unjustly overshadowed his enormous production of essays, so it's good to see these pop up on the front page once in a while. Also for those who might be mislead by the title, Orwell is discussing something much broader here: > But here I must repeat what I said above, that I am only using th…

I didn’t enjoy 1984. If you have been exposed to those ideas elsewhere the book just doesn’t work. I did however love his memoir of his time fighting as a socialist volunteer in the Spanish civil war [1]. Very insightful read and clearly shows where his thinking was going when he later wrote animal farm and 1984. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia

Absolutely, Homage to Catalonia is also one of my favourite works by Orwell.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#97

Post by [deleted] »

mrjangles wrote: post #72
Aidevah wrote: post #65

Insightful and relevant as ever, Orwell is always worth reading (and rereading). Sometimes I feel that his fictional works have unjustly overshadowed his enormous production of essays, so it's good to see these pop up on the front page once in a while. Also for those who might be mislead by the title, Orwell is discussing something much broader here: > But here I must repeat what I said above, that I am only using th…

I think what happens here is that Orwell is having a big stab at the intelligencia, and the intelligencia at the time (as now) hated nationalism. He is trying to point out all the ways their behavior is just like that of overzealous nationalists at the time, so he redefines the word so as the label all the intelligencia as the thing they hate. It makes for effective rhetoric. I think anyone reading this should keep i…

[deleted]

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#98

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #67

The original Lego Movie (2014) has a wonderful, cheerful, catchy, and quite literally and deliberately fascist theme song ( Everything is Awesome ). You could say the entire (surprisingly good) film is an explanation of why it’s not as good a thing as it seems to be. (Yes, that’s all kinds of ironic for what is at the same time essentially a feature-length commercial.)

>” The original Lego Movie (2014) has a wonderful, cheerful, catchy, and quite literally and deliberately fascist theme song (Everything is Awesome)”

I’m sorry, what? I know the label “fascist” gets thrown around with reckless abandon these days, but in what way is the everting is awesome song fascistic? To me it’s just a catchy children's song.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#99

Post by tenpies »

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…

The Man in the High Castle adaption by Amazon was fantastic in this. The Nazi cities were beautiful. They were orderly, clean, everyone was well dressed and nice. Infrastructure was top notch and there were only very small hints that something was off. It was the type of NIMBY paradise that the rich Californians would kill for.

What I have found to be a fantastic guiding principle for fascism in the West is the saying of a Peruvian dictator: "for my friends: anything, for my enemies: the law!". We're seeing this right now as the West has completely re-written the rules of The Game for the sake of hurting Russia and Russians. Going to be an interesting decade as the world re-shapes to adjust for the rule change and the West likely becomes more of an authoritarian fascist totality.

Re: Notes on Nationalism (1945)

#100

Post by agency »

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…

> In a 2014 interview on The Adam Carolla Show, the actor Michael Ironside, who read the novel as a youth, said that he asked Verhoeven, who grew up in the German-occupied Netherlands, "Why are you doing a right-wing fascist movie?" Verhoeven replied, "If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships but it's only good for killing fucking Bugs!"
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