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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

#161

Post by notch656a »

landryraccoon wrote: post #134
sillysaurusx wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, war is simply fun. It’s appealing to males in particular, and our testosterone tends to lock in the intoxication. There’s a reason that Battlefield is one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time, and that it’s very hard to find any videogame that doesn’t involve some kind of warfare. (There are dozens of wonderful counter examples: Minecraft, celeste, undertale, sim city, stardew valley. But for ever…

> Eh, war is simply fun. Well an idealized version of war that’s designed to glorify it could be fun. Is actual war fun? Is the Ukraine war fun? I doubt it’s fun for any of the participants. It’s not fun for Ukrainian soldiers, it’s not fun for Russian soldiers, and it’s not fun for Russian or Ukrainian civilians. Maybe it’s fun for some onlookers that like to cheer and spectate, but I would argue that speaks more to…

Eh it is fun to an extent. When I fought with the YPG I saw a lot of Kurds jumping with exuberance cheering at the enemy "he tried to shoot me" and then joyfully shooting back. Many wars are mostly intense boredom, punctuated by occasional bouts of terror or joy. Also there's a weird sort of release from the typical responsibilities of life -- _all_ you have to do is fight (which as fucked up as it sounds, can be more simple than worrying about the next side hustle / the wife / the kids). If you're on a rear-guard type of situation it's mostly drinking chai and smoking cigarettes.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#162

Post by varjag »

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.

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

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#163

Post by likeclockwork »

alex_sf wrote: post #117
likeclockwork wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets translate your question. What exactly is your solution to the sort of [war] by Hitler in [war]. Is war not a solution to [war]?

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.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#164

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

michaelchisari wrote: post #116
refurb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much this. Humans are not peaceful by nature. And when one group of humans want something another group of humans don’t want them to have, violence is the ultimate option to solving that conflict. Thankfully many countries see the cost of solving conflict through violence and seek to avoid it, but it’s always there.

| 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…

> 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 [...]

The violent societies have also been wiped out and dominated by other violent ones. Or have caused their own collapse by other means. So violence has not yet shown itself to be a successful strategy for societial survival.

Survival, it turns out, is a game one cannot win. Everything and everyone comes to an end eventually, even the universe itself apparently. Justification of violence on the sole grounds of continued survival is therefore very suspect.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#165

Post by psi75 »

landryraccoon wrote: post #134
sillysaurusx wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, war is simply fun. It’s appealing to males in particular, and our testosterone tends to lock in the intoxication. There’s a reason that Battlefield is one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time, and that it’s very hard to find any videogame that doesn’t involve some kind of warfare. (There are dozens of wonderful counter examples: Minecraft, celeste, undertale, sim city, stardew valley. But for ever…

> Eh, war is simply fun. Well an idealized version of war that’s designed to glorify it could be fun. Is actual war fun? Is the Ukraine war fun? I doubt it’s fun for any of the participants. It’s not fun for Ukrainian soldiers, it’s not fun for Russian soldiers, and it’s not fun for Russian or Ukrainian civilians. Maybe it’s fun for some onlookers that like to cheer and spectate, but I would argue that speaks more to…

> Is actual war fun? Is the Ukraine war fun? I doubt it’s fun for any of the participants. It’s not fun for Ukrainian soldiers, it’s not fun for Russian soldiers, and it’s not fun for Russian or Ukrainian civilians.

War seems to rewrite the brain. People are miserable and bored most of the time, are terrified while in combat, and come back with psychological issues we're still just beginning to understand. It's hell. And yet, people do get addicted to the mayhem and the rush. The mercenary life is attractive to a lot of people. There's still a lot being debated here, but one of the theories about PTSD is that much of the damage is done (or, at least, is made permanent) when people return to civilian life. Having been exposed to life-or-death situations, they find daily life to be low-stakes and artificial; the time in which they were most alive as in combat (even if they hated the experience and what it did to them).

Still, I agree that actual war is not at all "fun".

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#166

Post by sealeck »

hef19898 wrote: post #120
thrown_22 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I sometimes wonder if I were not very smart, girlfriendless and a delivery rider if it wouldnt appeal to me too. How do you explain that 45% of votes for Nazis came from Women? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Nazi_Germany#Nazi_fem...

You mean that 55% of pro Nazi votes, and thus a majority, were male? And that the NSDAP had, at least when the election was free, nowhere near a majority, so a vast majority of women actually voted against them? Well, I think because women just didn't like em that much.

The point that is being made is that the Nazi's electoral support base had a _lot_ of women, and the question is "how did a party which had a patriarchal ontology of society attract support from women". Your comment is missing some evidence - the Nazis did not achieve a majority in a number of elections, but to conclude that women as a category specifically disliked them (given that many men also voted against them, likely for much the same reasons as women) is not evidenced by this.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#167

Post by nazka »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #112
zozbot234 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids just don't know any better. I would imagine that those who actually spent some of their childhood in a war zone would have a very different perspective. What's toxic is when grownups end up glorifying war or thinking of it as a solution to hard problems.

Eh, war is simply fun. It’s appealing to males in particular, and our testosterone tends to lock in the intoxication. There’s a reason that Battlefield is one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time, and that it’s very hard to find any videogame that doesn’t involve some kind of warfare. (There are dozens of wonderful counter examples: Minecraft, celeste, undertale, sim city, stardew valley. But for ever…

Sometimes it's a little too much. And it starts to be a little dumb. One time on an Assassin's Creed I was like wow why kill that guy?? It wasn't even for the part to gather info. That was so unnecessary (even for the story itself). Can I just talk to him and persuade him first or something?

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#168

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#169

Post by inglor_cz »

landryraccoon wrote: post #134
sillysaurusx wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, war is simply fun. It’s appealing to males in particular, and our testosterone tends to lock in the intoxication. There’s a reason that Battlefield is one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time, and that it’s very hard to find any videogame that doesn’t involve some kind of warfare. (There are dozens of wonderful counter examples: Minecraft, celeste, undertale, sim city, stardew valley. But for ever…

> Eh, war is simply fun. Well an idealized version of war that’s designed to glorify it could be fun. Is actual war fun? Is the Ukraine war fun? I doubt it’s fun for any of the participants. It’s not fun for Ukrainian soldiers, it’s not fun for Russian soldiers, and it’s not fun for Russian or Ukrainian civilians. Maybe it’s fun for some onlookers that like to cheer and spectate, but I would argue that speaks more to…

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

Robert E. Lee

There definitely seem to be combatants that enjoy at least some aspects of war. If you look at the historical military literature, including poetry, it is not all just negative.

It is true that with increasing industrialization of war during the last 150 years, the overall tenor has changed.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#170

Post by bombcar »

schroeding wrote: post #151
zozbot234 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids just don't know any better. I would imagine that those who actually spent some of their childhood in a war zone would have a very different perspective. What's toxic is when grownups end up glorifying war or thinking of it as a solution to hard problems.

(Second-hand) Anecdata: My Grandpa was born in '39, was 6 when the war ended and lived very close to a big city / region that was bombed regularly by the Allies from '42-'45. He was old enough to remember this and the (light) fighting when the Americans arrived. After the war, he and the local kids played with live guns that the German soldiers just threw away. They used a Flak (anti aircraft cannon) as a carousel, p…

Adults are often more traumatized by it than children are; for them it's just the new normal, and something to play with.
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