Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

gutenberg.net.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 600 posts

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#341

Post by anigbrowl »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #297
hellgas00 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Any group with unpalatable views to the general public don't want to have their views expressed in the open" I agree. I disagree however with your bigger point. The American far right in particular has gone through great lengths to be hidden. They financial backing is hidden through shell corporations and with protections they fought to carve out with Citizens United. Davos is widely publicized and the press covers…

Drop me a line when you get time.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#342

Post by gjm11 »

magicalist wrote: post #270
alex_sf wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one that I live most of my time in, Norway, does not seem to have growing discontent The mass shooting and terrorism rate there increasing seems like a reasonable counter to that idea. Along with steady suicide rates despite massively increasing spending on it.

> The mass shooting singular > and terrorism rate there increasing er, no? > Along with steady suicide rates So not growing, then. I don't think anyone's going to argue Norway has solved society but let's not twist things to try to fit someone's off the cuff head canon.

Pretty sure it's meant to be parsed as "(mass shooting and terrorism) rate": that is, he's claiming that the rate of mass-shootings and the rate of terrorist atrocities are both increasing. I don't know whether either part of that is true, but if it's wrong what's wrong isn't that "mass shooting" is singular.

(And if, as grandparent claims, suicide rates are "steady [] despite massively increasing spending on it", that does seem like evidence of something getting worse. Again, I don't know whether it's actually true and I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't, but the criticism here doesn't seem fair.)

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#343

Post by pessimizer »

helge9210 wrote: post #269
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…

> he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the Communist To support Hitler Stalin ordered German Communists to not join forces with Social Democrats.

More like the center-left SPD failed to respond to the depression well (i.e. govern properly) and made alliances of convenience with the right and the Nazis to marginalize and ban Communists along with anyone else on the left.

That's how it's going to happen in the US, too: The governing center/center-left party expends all of its effort attacking the left, and becomes completely ineffective at governance through incompetence, corruption and self-dealing, losing the support of the voters. The far-right (rising in popularity) eats into the center-right through direct targeting of individuals and the rewards of conversion to a movement currently rising in popularity. Eventually a charismatic far-right speaker starts giving popular speeches indicting the corruption and incompetence of the governing center, probably during a deep economic crisis, and insisting that this corruption and incompetence is disarming the country in the face of the real existential threat that everyone from the far-right to the center-left agrees upon, which is the left. And the left is actually covertly foreign-based, funded by powerful Jews and enemy governments, so their opinions are actually a form of invasion. So we need to cleanse this country of the traitors, then take the fight to the countries that supported them.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#344

Post by dalbasal »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #323
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, a…

I must disagree.

Orwell is not the bible, or an if-by-whiskey politician. Everybody reads him differently because they're combining hearsay, random quotes and attributions.

If you read Orwell's essays or articles directly, he's extremely clear and unambiguous. The fact that people think Orwell agrees with them despite having polar opposite views is a testament to people's laziness, not Orwell's interpretability.

On capitalism as a belief system, Orwell was a critic. Not because of freedom, or lack thereof... but because he thought capitalist politics didn't offer enough hope. I can't find the quote but somewhere he goes into Socialist, Communist & even Fascist promises of a better future. Capitalism offered a very modest amount of hope on a very long timeline. Conservatism offered none, which is why (according to Orwell) Fascism succeeded it.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#345

Post by anigbrowl »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #7
swayvil wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him Hard to get more black and white than that.

Gp is referring to the redaction, not the language.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#346

Post by lostlogin »

jvalenzu wrote: post #217
notRobot wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations for other writings and analyses by Orwell?

Homage to Catalonia is his highly personal analysis of the events of the Spanish Civil War. It isn't at all comprehensive, but very plain spoken and perceptive and helps frame all of his fictional work.

His description of trench warfare and hand to hand combat is horrifying. I understood his views on communism better after reading the book.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#347

Post by philistine »

the_only_law wrote: post #74
Latty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see a lot of children playing Minecraft, or when older, Factorio on pacifist modes where they can focus on "the good bit" of building something. Historically war management was what was available, I remember enjoying building a city in Age of Empires more than the battles, and I think with the options available, while combat will always be popular and engaging, it does have alternatives some people enjoy more.

I'm waiting to see how Vic 3 turns out. Given the devs claim to focus on diplomacy and politics moreso than map painting warfare (much to the distaste of the paradox community) Ofc war is still an option, albeit the mechanics are rather high level and less micro involved than past games. If the mechanics are well designed in general I think I may find it really engaging.

Looking at Paradox's past promises and what was delivered, I expect the game to be just as focused on warfare as Europa Universalis IV.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#348

Post by sudosysgen »

watwut wrote: post #293
sudosysgen wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time of the KPD-SPD split, Stalin was not in power. In fact, the KPD split from the SPD in 1918, when the USSR was still being born. And far from taking orders from the Bolsheviks, they actually had a fair amount of influence on them. The idea that they split because the meek SPD was afraid of the Stalinists is revisionist history, and the SPD itself at various points in its history was far from above purges a…

Stalin took leadership of the country in 1924 and lost it when he died much much later. By the time of elections of 1933, Russia was full totalitarian and that is what communist party wanted for Germany.

Yes, and the SPD banned anti-war socialists and communists in 1918, and then ordered to have leaders of the KPD shot in 1920. As you surely know, 1920 is before 1924. The point being, the KPD and the SPD were irrevocably alienated from each other past the point of no return before Stalin took power.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#349

Post by Bud »

Very timely post given the threat of the fascist movement in the US right now.

Especially interesting that Orwell mentions the right to birth control, since that, too, is now being threatened and destroyed in the US. Orwell understood the link.

Re: George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

#350

Post by lostlogin »

lampshades wrote: post #184
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. America

You’d describe American governance as centrist?
Post reply on HN