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The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

charliechaplin.com

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Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#291

Post by cmrdporcupine »

vpribish wrote: post #88

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base.

Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism, which were the dominant alternative at the time. Many people who had a lot to lose from the rise of the worker's movement, the Weimar Republic, the SDP, etc. very "rationally" supported the Nazi party. Look up e.g. Fritz Thyssen. Similar story in Italy, and very explicitly strongly so in Spain.

My point isn't that fascism is a good or reasonable ideology. But that many people's reasons for supporting it weren't just emotional. Also that their support for it wasn't necessarily or primarily racial in origin, but based in strong anti-communist, nationalist beliefs, instead.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#292

Post by TaylorAlexander »

qingcharles wrote: post #44

I always liked this version with music added: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo I remember sharing a jail cell with a 19-year-old Mexican kid once and we were talking about the guards being assholes and he said "they're like machine men"; and I said "with machine minds and machine hearts?" and he was like "YES! You know it?!" -- it was a good moment, we spent the next few days trying to remember the whole s…

This speech reminds me of the anarchist Errico Malatesta. Some of his comrades tried to call him the “Lenin of Italy” and he said he never wants to be the ruler of others, and that no matter how good his heart is if he were put in that position he would be corrupted by power just as everyone else would be. This video covers it: https://youtu.be/KYI-Bra-hP0

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#293

Post by hydrok9 »

goles wrote: post #142
questinthrow wrote: post #2

I'd wager it's more like we don't think at all and feel only anger. At least online that is.

Given the amount of bad encounters I've had driving post-2020, and interacting with strangers, I think it's seeping into the real world as well. The way people act and speak in public feels noticeably different than even a few years ago, let alone 10-20. People are very short with each other now. Even more disturbing, I think I can feel the change in myself too at times.

I have a theory that the covid experience is behind this. We all got used to being implicitly afraid of people because of social distancing. We also became so incredibly angry about people either forcing us to do things like wear masks or about people not doing those things. On top of that we were encouraged to drive our personalities into the internet even further, and we became even more used to being isolated from other people and being able to have all of our needs fulfilled without having to actually connect with a human being. In short we were encouraged to dehumanize each other and we really haven't stopped thinking that way because it's way more convenient to not have to take other people's feelings into consideration.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#294

Post by pvg »

concordDance wrote: post #261
dang wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

For calibration purposes so i can get a better feel for the threshhold for "substantial", could you tell me whether the unsubstantive proportion is more like 1%, 10%, 50% or 90%? (I'll understand completely if you don't have the time to reply though)

0% race science apologia is a good metric to aim for in comments.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#295

Post by pitaj »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #291
vpribish wrote: post #88

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base.

Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism, which were the dominant alternative at the time. Many people who had a lot to lose from the rise of the worker's movement, the Weimar Republic, the SDP, etc. very "rationally" supported the Nazi party. Look up e.g. Fritz Thyssen. Similar story in Italy, and very explicitly strongly so in Spain. My point isn't that fascism is a good or reasonable id…

> Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism

Not really. Many of the founding fascists were socialists, including Mussolini. It wouldn't be wrong to call fascism a type of or derivative of socialism.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#296

Post by cmrdporcupine »

pitaj wrote: post #295
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism, which were the dominant alternative at the time. Many people who had a lot to lose from the rise of the worker's movement, the Weimar Republic, the SDP, etc. very "rationally" supported the Nazi party. Look up e.g. Fritz Thyssen. Similar story in Italy, and very explicitly strongly so in Spain. My point isn't that fascism is a good or reasonable id…

> Fascism was in large part a reaction against communism and socialism Not really. Many of the founding fascists were socialists, including Mussolini. It wouldn't be wrong to call fascism a type of or derivative of socialism.

They were ex-socialists, if really holding those convictions at all. Mussolini was only interested in himself.

Nobody believes this line you're spreading other than right wingers in the US.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#297

Post by willsoon »

nicoburns wrote: post #283
jvm___ wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convince someone buying a new iPhone to buy last years model or half the GB of what they can afford. That's the greed that's ingrained in all humans. "Humans take the perceived path of the most pleasure." is true in every human interaction I've witnessed or can think of. We're all greedy by default. I think Agent Smith was right when he was talking to Morpheus, humanity is a virus that consumes all the resources in t…

> We're all greedy by default Perhaps, but we’re also all generous by default. Which wins out is determined by some combination of upbringing, circumstance and individual nature. There are many people in this world who will give away things they dearly need to those who also need them.

Maybe bc they fighting they own greed. Maybe it works!

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#298

Post by derbOac »

hermitcrab wrote: post #236

"Greed has poisoned men's souls" Greed used to considered a sin. Now it seems to be seen as a virtue by some. It's not enough to have a Ferrari - you need to have a whole garage full. It's not enough to have a yacht - it's got to be a super yacht.

I think the "greed is good" speech represents a sort of counter movie speech along the lines you're pointing to:

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwa...

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#300

Post by willsoon »

vpribish wrote: post #256
lewhoo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic principles over Fascistic enterprises. That may be, but it also seems perfectly logical to claim democracy is broken because a voice of an educated person carries same weight than that of a high school dropout. All you need to do is extend this logic a bit. I think it is because of our emotions, empathy or maybe something else that we see that this "flaw" in demo…

I appreciate your contribution to the conversation, but have to disagree : "Had fascism succeeded" is kinda of an impossibility. it's bad at doing things and internally eats itself as soon as it gets power. Fascism is not just as if it was a choice of haircut, it's cancer

It's true. Fascism is something to die for... Not something to live for.
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