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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

#321

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

hellgas00 wrote: post #283
throwaway5752 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Any group with unpalatable views to the general public don't want to have their views expressed in the open. There isn't some grand parallel to be had here. The meetings in Davos are never televised despite their influence on the masses. Recently the Washington Post Doxxed the LibsOfTikTok account creator, who's only crime was posting the views of socially liberal people on tiktok. Once your uncommon views become mai…

> Recently the Washington Post Doxxed the LibsOfTikTok account creator, who's only crime was posting the views of socially liberal people on tiktok.

Puhleeze. Can totally understand the anger at what WaPo did, but I call major bullshit on "who's only crime was posting the views of socially liberal people on tiktok."

Libs of TikTok regularly took things egregiously out of context, like I remember watching a post of hers and thinking "damn, that's fucked up", and then went and investigated the full source material, which in no way said what she intended, and got mad at myself for falling for Libs of TikTok's false outrage in the first place. She's the poster child for arguing in bad faith.

She also regularly republished obvious troll accounts as fact - anyone remember the insane "litter boxes in schools" troll posts? And then when called out on the obvious bullshit, instead of simply saying "yeah, I was wrong", goes into some ridiculous defense of "well, there must be some truth there somewhere because the school board didn't immediately denounce it."

There are plenty of commenters that accurately, and fairly IMO, point out some of the most egregious excesses of the progressive left. Libs of TikTok is not one of them.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#322

Post by derbOac »

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…

I think the substitute are explorers, where the enemy is the unknown. Tin astronauts works.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#323

Post by moritzwarhier »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #240

Orwell omitted a few details: Hitler never had a majority in the Reichstag/german parliament - he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the Communist. I mean a popular front, like in France of 1936 would have stopped them. The German soial dems and communist were mortal enemies, because the social dems shot a lot of communists in the aftermath of the Kapp putsch. Also Hitler had the massive suppo…

I think I agree with you.

I don't think that the integrity of elections and democracy are the main point of this essay.

Orwell wrote a lot about authoritarianism, and as you say, "communism" was the prime example at the time.

What he hints at here is not only the fragility of democracy. It's about the fragility of civilization.

It's about the "will to power" as defined by Nietzsche, and the power of belief systems, as well as the primal underpinnings of our society.

This essay makes me think about the authoritarian side of capitalism, "freedom" (to take what you can), slavery and many more topics.

My takeaway is that our contemporary masquerade of "capitalism=freedom=human rights" is nothing but an illusion of a select few.

But that's what makes Orwell great, everybody reads him differently.

I'm well aware that Orwell is favored for "anti-socialist"/"pro-freedom" stances and I have read 1984 and Animal farm.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#324

Post by 8jef »

notch656a wrote: post #272
8jef wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is a way for mindless and aggressive men to do whatever they really crave (which is escaping from a state of victimhood), without much justification and little immediate consequences to themselves, mostly under cover of patriotism. To kill and rape for fun and pleasure, and hopefully die fast, absolutely ecstatic. To such men, please note: life never really ends, and you and your offspring gets eternally impacted…

War is a terrible waste. On the other hand, an able bodied man not willing to use destructive faculties to defend young and old against perpetrators of violence is as irrational as the able bodied man who refuses to use constructive faculties to provide necessities of life to same.

Defensive action is for the most part formidable and magnificent. The stuff that builds and creates heroism, myths and legends. Never miserable or soulless, unless it goes beyond its original purpose.

Every reality has at least two versions of it, or more.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#325

Post by Bud »

notRobot wrote: post #216
rossdavidh wrote: post #186

So, there's a lot to be said about Hitler and fascism and propaganda and all the other fascinating topics Orwell brings up here, but I'd just like to point out how routinely excellent Orwell's analysis is. Of course I mostly see the best bits brought out and dusted off, no doubt he did mediocre stuff as well, but it is worth noticing how often it turns out that Orwell, nearly a century on, still has plenty in his wri…

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Since nobody else has brought them up yet, I would recommend ALL of Orwell's Essays, which can be had in various editions.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#326

Post by p1peridine »

Interesting read.

Speaking of dystopian fiction authors; Aldous Huxley wrote the well-known book "Brave New World". [0]

Doing a quick search for MK-ULTRA on Wikileaks one can find this now unclassified transcript from 1974:

> ... AND OTHER CULTS LIKE IT ARE NOT RELIGIOUS, BUT WERE DELIBERATE SYNTHETIC CREATIONS PART OF A SERIES OF PROJECTS THAT INCLUDED THE MK-ULTRA OPERATION, THAT WAS RUN THROUGH BRITISH INTELLIGENCE CONTROL OVER A SECTION OF THE CIA, WAS RUN THROUGH ALDOUS HUXLEY AND GREGORY BATES OUT OF PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA. [1]

Wonder if BNW is a blueprint, rather than a fiction book. Thoughts?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20201109003500/https://wikileaks...

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#327

Post by theptip »

Bostonian wrote: post #11

The Journal of Finance just published this paper: "Financial crises and political radicalization: How failing banks paved Hitler's path to power" https://www.bis.org/publ/work978.htm .

The recent biography of Keynes (“The Price of Peace” by Carter) spends a lot of time discussing similar theories put forth at the time; Keynes was very critical of the Treaty of Versailles as he considered it an inevitability that crushing the German economy post-WW1 would produce a nationalist demagogue.

Indeed, the treatise by Keynes after which the biography was named provided a technical argument for that thesis.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#328

Post by oxfeed65261 »

Bud wrote: post #325
notRobot wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Since nobody else has brought them up yet, I would recommend ALL of Orwell's Essays, which can be had in various editions.

See “ESSAYS AND OTHER WORKS: A selection of essays, articles, sketches, reviews and scripts written by Orwell. This material remains under copyright in the US and is reproduced here with the kind assistance of the Orwell Estate.”

“Politics and the English Language” is a particular delight.

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#329

Post by throwaway202022 »

rr808 wrote: post #68

Does anyone know why Hitler hated Stalin and communism so much? The article alludes to how Russia was always the main target, and he was friends with industrialists, but I've never seen a good reason why.

Because Jews are the primary enemy in Nazi ideology, and the idea of communism being a Jewish plot was an existing antisemitic belief well before Hitler was a known entity in Germany's political scene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#330

Post by Barrin92 »

thrown_22 wrote: post #69
pydry wrote: post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

>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...

extensive family policies and benefits during a time of extreme economic insecurity in Germany, rather than ideological or martial aspects of Nazism. Same reason the more conservative, less capitalist, more social and Christian wing of the Conservatives in Germany today (the CSU) is more popular with women than her larger sister party, the CDU.
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