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George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

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Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#171

Post by alex_sf »

likeclockwork wrote: post #163
alex_sf wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I know what you meant to do here, and I still agree. You do not get to choose whether someone else is violent or not. If you aren't prepared for violence, you can only be a victim of it.

I guess you appreciate any opportunity to restate your beliefs. I was just suggesting that offering war as a solution to the problem of already being at war is pretty circular.

I appreciate an opportunity to provide clarity when it seems like a point was missed.

Whether it's circular or not isn't a meaningful property when bombs are dropping.

In that spirit of providing clarity: what is your answer to the un-translated question I asked?

> What exactly is your solution to the sort of naked aggression by Hitler in WW2? Is war not a solution to that problem?

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#172

Post by michaelchisari »

alex_sf wrote: post #144
michaelchisari wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| Humans are not peaceful by nature You can't make a broad sweeping generalization like this. There have been so many peaceful, even pacifist civilizations throughout history. That they have been wiped out or dominated by the violent ones is a valid historical point, but it doesn't disprove that human "nature" can just as easily be peaceful, given the right conditions. Failing to protect yourself from external violen…

That's semantics imo. If pacifism results in extinction, then any revision of human nature that involves it is irrelevant. Humans don't exist without violence.

It's not semantics at all. "Human nature" implies a universal, inherent state. If we have peaceful, pacifist civilizations regularly cropping up throughout history, then saying that human nature is violence just simply isn't true. It doesn't matter if the violent civilizations come to dominate. That the peaceful societies exist at all (let alone are abundant and common) means that argument falls apart.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#173

Post by pohl »

whoopdedo wrote: post #154
tomkat0789 wrote: post #30

I think he highlights some fundamentally toxic aspects of human nature with this bit: “The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do.” The engineer in me wishes we could substitute the soldiers with construction workers or something, but I can’t deny enjoying war games growing up. These da…

The answer to this is sports. War is competition through violence. When you remove the violence you get peaceful competition. It satisfies the tribal urge to fight things different than you, but also encourages healthy behaviors. Respect for your opponent. Accepting loss. Recognizing your weaknesses and working to improve them.

I'm with you in the abstract, but where I live there's toxic culture around sports that made it unpalatable for me as a kid. Back then what turned me off was belligerent parents on the sidelines yelling at the children, but the symptoms actually go way beyond that one little thing. (Conflating excellence with dominance is another example.)

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#174

Post by nabla9 »

> clumsy writing of Mein Kampf,

Mein Kampf is clumsy but offers real insights into propaganda. He really thought about it. He clearly understands the value of propaganda in the war: "propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found."

When Hitler talks mass psychology and propaganda, he says something very insightful even if it's inconvenient to hear for some. He calls masses feminine. When he talks to his followers, he talks to a beast that knows to be emotional and irrational. Rational reasoning is useless. Just emotion, repetition, never backing down, or admitting mistake.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#175

Post by numpad0 »

yrgulation wrote: post #29
superb-owl wrote: post #9

> Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice This fact has been the downfall of every utopian ideology, and ignoring creates a vacuum that fascist regimes readily fill. I wonder what…

> I wonder what sort of strange centrist form of government might be able to strike a balance between our need for comfort and our need for adventure. Any government that will satisfy my need of adventure and struggle in colonising the solar system and exploiting the endless amounts of resources it has and harnessing the virtually unlimited energy of our star will have my vote. But people prefer tribal adventures and…

> adventure and struggle in colonising the solar system and exploiting the endless amounts of resources it has

My hesitation won't last a minute before voting for such an adventure, but I think I cannot really rule out a rogue entity in such expedition that could cause a "kinetic winter" situation on Earth, that has to be first addressed(or taken as a managed but ultimately inevitable risk) before we would be able to do this.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#177

Post by warent »

varjag wrote: post #162
whoopdedo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this is sports. War is competition through violence. When you remove the violence you get peaceful competition. It satisfies the tribal urge to fight things different than you, but also encourages healthy behaviors. Respect for your opponent. Accepting loss. Recognizing your weaknesses and working to improve them.

Nope, usually you get the cult of war and cult of sports together as a bundle.

Do people regularly mass murder each other over sports? Because that's the stakes we're talking about here in context.

Brawling and screaming over a sport is much preferred to bombing and poisoning.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#178

Post by brazzy »

bitwize wrote: post #33
tomkat0789 wrote: post #30

I think he highlights some fundamentally toxic aspects of human nature with this bit: “The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do.” The engineer in me wishes we could substitute the soldiers with construction workers or something, but I can’t deny enjoying war games growing up. These da…

> The engineer in me wishes we could substitute the soldiers with construction workers or something, LEGO® Minifigs?

While there are no modern LEGO soldiers, there are Knights, Ninjas and Pirates, all equipped with weapons.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#179

Post by flipbrad »

superb-owl wrote: post #9

> Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice This fact has been the downfall of every utopian ideology, and ignoring creates a vacuum that fascist regimes readily fill. I wonder what…

It's also an observation made by Agent Smith in the Matrix. It's even observable in the schoolyard, with kids subjecting themselves and others to utterly avoidable drama, for no discernible reason

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#180

Post by [deleted] »

nabla9 wrote: post #174

> clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, Mein Kampf is clumsy but offers real insights into propaganda. He really thought about it. He clearly understands the value of propaganda in the war: "propaganda demands the most skilled brains that can be found." When Hitler talks mass psychology and propaganda, he says something very insightful even if it's inconvenient to hear for some. He calls masses feminine. When he talks to his…

[deleted]
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