591–600 of 600 posts
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I can't believe they flagged and censored my reply, which addressed that point of censorship. Are these people irony-proof?
If you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32127971 : users flagged that. It was an unsubstantive, flamey comment on an inflammatory topic—indeed the mother of all inflammatory internet topics—so I'd say they were right to do so. I don't see irony there. Plenty of low-value comments going on about "censorship" get rightly flagged. Indeed, if they didn't, that would be a loophole anyone could drive a truck throu…
What's the point of arguing?
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Why did you see this as confusing and convoluted? My interpretation is that he's saying the human psyche requires this and if a tame and healthy version of patriotism and national pride isn't provided by the centrist elements in society, then that vacuum will be filled by a populist demagogue who weaponizes it. It seems debatable but highly plausible.
I am not the person you are reacting to, and while I guess your interpretation of Orwell's intent is correct, Churchill's patriotism can at most be considered tame and healthy when directly compared to Hitler's. It was deeply rooted in a sense of superiority that not only nowadays is considered extreme, but even then (not by all obviously).
Agreed, and it's explicitly that British superiority which Orwell defends in the essay, carving out for it a special place separate from "nationalism" that communism, Trotskyism, Irish republicanism, zionism, etc. are condemned for.
I kind of like the controversial nuance though. It shows that these ideas aren't supposed to be scientific, absolute and such.
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Maybe the strange centrist form of government that the US had from about 1935 to maybe 1995.
Only if you were white middle class.
We belatedly changed the URL from https://bookmarks.reviews/george-orwells-1940-review-of-mein... to a copy of Orwell's text that doesn't shamelessly bowdlerize him. I mean, really—Orwell? I'm referring to the omission of this passage: " I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power—till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that h…
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> 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?
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By all means check out the film The Tenth Victim.
I've actually seen it, and even read Shekley stories it was based on. How is it relevant?
> > > 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 sort of strange centrist form of government might be able to strike a balance between our need for comfort and our need for adventure.
In The Tenth Victim, they fill the vacuum with a blood sport. Kind of like Rollerball, but without the corporate-level fascism.
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The words “communism” and “socialism” have particularly slippery modern meanings - they depend where you are internationally, in time, and your partisanship. I have read a lot of what he wrote, and I am still unsure what he exactly meant by socialism. I find his essay ‘On Nationalism’ difficult to follow, although very interesting. I love all his writings about his own experiences, because his observations are so exc…
The US is the only place where the word "Socialism" isn't used properly. The rest of the world understands it perfectly well.