honorentheos wrote:Suppose a hypothetical conservative poster on the board asked if you view love of country as inevitably leading to fascism? Would you agree and argue patriotism is a slippery slope leading to oppression?
How odd that you bring up "fascism" given the context of Orwell - who wrote - "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist".
identity of any sort inescapably leads to self-preservation which inevitably leads to oppression. Fascism is just one of the available rest-stops on that journey. Other popular tourist sites on that trail is democracy (eg the trend to favor strong leadership over personal freedom).
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
subgenius wrote:How odd that you bring up "fascism" given the context of Orwell - who wrote - "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist".
Ha! You're kind of taking Orwell out of context here, subgenius. Orwell was a notorious anti-fascist. If you're going to quote Orwell, you should also point out that he thought the so-called 'right' was bereft of intellectuals.
In My Country Right or Left , Orwell wrote:It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense “Left”. Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was TE Lawrence.
edit: Removed the link to the Google Books result that was screwing up the page. Search Google Books for keywords "Orwell last intellectual TE Lawrence" and take the second link.
subgenius wrote:identity of any sort inescapably leads to self-preservation which inevitably leads to oppression. Fascism is just one of the available rest-stops on that journey. Other popular tourist sites on that trail is democracy (eg the trend to favor strong leadership over personal freedom).
At some point in your own individual progression you developed a theory of other minds. Mirror neurons engaged and you developed some capacity for empathizing with others. Along those lines you came to define your identity as a large enough circle that became inclusive of other human beings. How big that circle became is certainly up for debate but it appears somewhere between infancy and now it gained a population of more than one. So, maybe you can extrapolate from that where the flaws are in your thinking.
I also don't know what encyclopedia set you dusted off to pull your definition of democracy from but, "favoring strong leadership over personal freedom" it ain't. Back in the days of ancient Greece, in subbies version of history, the men would gather to have their king tell them how to vote and the results were always 200% for the king's proposals I guess.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa
subgenius wrote:How odd that you bring up "fascism" given the context of Orwell - who wrote - "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist".
identity of any sort inescapably leads to self-preservation which inevitably leads to oppression. Fascism is just one of the available rest-stops on that journey. Other popular tourist sites on that trail is democracy (eg the trend to favor strong leadership over personal freedom).
I am not completely sure but my first impression is that these comments illuminate the thought patterns subgenius employs. At least for me there has been a mystery in why subgenius thinks some of the things he does. I now feel less puzzled.
Thanks for calling my attention to that, Honor. Nothing I can really find there to disagree with and as we fleshed out here I think you and I are quite close on our worries with what a Sanders presidency might entail.
"If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation." -Xenophon of Athens
I can't help but think of Eric Hofer's The True Believer when I watch the rallies around Trump and Sanders. Ideologically, I don't feel very far from Sanders. But behaviourly I find myself as far from what he does as can be. Mass movements concern me. #notmeus isn't a slogan without undertones anymore than make America great has roots in history that should have been more concerning to people who instead sat out 2016 and then bitched about the SC turning conservative or something similar when also bitching about Hillary in the same breath. I don't know.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth? ~ Eiji Yoshikawa