Even if we accept that the society featured in the book is purely based on Nazi germany(& we need not considering that totalitarianisms share so many features). It is clear that Eurasia is an evolution of the Soviet Union, and the book implies that all three nations on the planet are as bad as each other in terms of lack of freedom. The target of Orwell is clearly totalitarianism both of facist & communist varieties. That is why 1984 can be enjoyably read by people partial to freedom because it has its worthy target and does not stray into promoting socialism. Unlike Animal farm which contains a criticism of capitalism as well as Bolshevism.
It is clear that Eurasia is an evolution of the Soviet Union
As Orwell considered the Soviet Union to be National Socialist, this hardly changes the assessment. For that matter, he was right; the Sovs were Nazis; just Russian cultural Nazis instead of German Biological types. Really, NSDAP is the exception; very few National Socialist governments are racialist.
I bet that everyone in this thread knows that George Orwell never embraced capitalism. So that’s a moot point. What I meant is that Orwell was anti-authoritarian by the time of his death. Although I haven’t read Homage to Catalonia yet, from what I understand he was highly impressed by the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in Barcelona and elsewhere. Of course, his philosophy was not without contradiction in my view. But I was concentrating on the anti-authoritarian aspect of his philosophy.
What I meant is that Orwell was anti-authoritarian by the time of his death.
‘Anti-authoritarianism’ is a contentless leftoid position which leads to exactly this same sort of inane contradictions that AnComs and Orwell show. There is nothing wrong with authority or authoritarian structures; the problem is when they’re not justified by contract and property.
“I can’t read or play video games unless they point out the correct use of property and contracts instead of silly sci-fi cliches!”
There is a purpose to 1984 and it is not to point out his utopia. But a distopia.
Even if he wanted property and contracts and John Galt speeches and murray rothbard quotes in his book, it would be irrelevant to that novel. Anti-authoritarian is meaningful, because you must recognize that no a priori archon exists, before you can get to an anarchist society. The authoritarian position is one in which kings, Gods, social contracts, etc. exist naturally and a priori. Anarchism is a preference against this irrational postion.
I don’t see anything wrong with 1984 as a critique of authoritarianism. But again it is dystopic.
Unless you’re willing to say “There’s nothing wrong with Big Brother! Big Brother owns all the property, so he can watch all the people whenever he wants. It might have been in the contract. And he can torture people if he wants if it is on his property! And they can go to war with Eurasia all they want, because Eurasia interfered with their property rights! And they can change the language, because they own the past with intellectual property rights which they had in a contract. When you own property in the past, there is no reason why you shouldn’t own the present. Freedom is slavery, because you have to be a slave before you can get enough money to own property and property is the definition of freedom. War is peace, because you need weapons to defend your property and get peace. Ignorance is strength, because the free market only gives you the efficient knowledge you need to do your work in the division of labor. Most people need to be strong, not learn things. This book is anti-capitalist!” Which is clearly absurd and dogmatic, but certainly it is possible to make these points.
He supports the Civil Rights legislation as providing for true ‘equality of opportunity’.
He’s a NeoCon, which means Lovestonite/Troktskyite.
He’s constantly pushing ‘human rights’ BS.
The accusations he makes against Progressives are all left-wing crap, like saying they are against ‘real’ democracy and are all secretly racist (totally ignoring the huge swath of Progressives who were not).
He is basically nothing but a Social Democrat engaged in typical smearbund tactics.
Glenn Beck is pretty much a leftist too, though he’s cranky/fringy enough to stray into a bizarre caricature of right wing and libertarian ideas from time to time. His imaginary history of the 'black Founding Fathers’ is especially hilarious.
Excepting Pat Buchanan, American ‘conservatives’ pundits are all basically left-wing idiots; which is no surprise as the American tradition is left to its core.
I think neo-Trotskyite is thrown around too often. Ironically, it has less meaning than your diagnosis of ‘anti-authoritarian’ or ‘leftoid’.
Also, you are calling these people leftists as if there is anything necessarily good about being conservative. Or libertarian, for that matter. And that you must scoot them into a category in order to save ‘conservativism’ or ‘libertarianism’. Which you take to be principled or rational; which is false. Why not just admit that for the most part they are all three unprincipled?
And I don’t think very many people are ‘idiots’. I think most of them realize that they belong to a certain class or place within the ruling class that they feel comfortable with. People like Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich have good education and probably a brain in their heads, but there is basically no budging them in terms of rational principles. Anarchism or any philosophical principles will bounce right off them the same as any other group within politics. For every good article Pat Buchanan writes, he writes many times more that are ridiculous and full of his own superstitions about nationalism, economics, Jesus, white people, or the constitution. Which is about the same ratio of crap to legitimate points that Noam Chomsky or others write. And far less useful or insightful than say Orwell.
Uh, no, they descend directly from Trotsky and have the same Anti-Stalinist, everyone is a fascist, social democrat, human rights internationalist agenda of the Trotskyites.
However, most NeoCons are more akin to Jay Lovestone, the American Communist Party/American Socialist Party guy who became an anti-Soviet fanatic and ended up working for the CIA.
The leftist gestalt is general egalitarian and universalist. Some people describe it as collectivist, but I think the left is generally ambivalent on this point; there is a strain of economic collectivism but the Right is probably more socially collectivist and identarian; whereas the left often pushes a sort of atomistic individual free of all those things like culture, a sense of specific identity and provincial discriminatory tendencies.
The left is obsessed with rightsist nonsense (and most libertarians carry this bad habit from the classical liberals, who were in large part a left-wing movement), they are ‘anti-authoritarian’ - which means in practice opposed to people imposing or incentivizing ‘wrong’ values or choices on people - they are generally Millinarians.
The modern, European-originated left is basically derived from various Christian heresies who took the ‘brotherhood of man’ and ‘equality before God’ stuff seriously; the late middle ages saw many heresies of a Communist bent (Rothbard is good on these), and classical liberalism was born out of the religious dissenters of various Protestant stripes; as were the Pietists who gave birth to the radical republicans (and Republicans); ‘radical republican’ of course means basically the same thing as ‘social democrat’, which is what Marx was called at the time the Republican party was founded; then the Progressive Christian and Social Gospel movement and on into German and American Progressivism. The modern liberals are akin to the Unitarian Universalists and Low-Churchers in England, both in literal origin and in social theology.
Leftism is basically a Christian heresy that’s scrapped God and replaced it with ‘man’. This is why I can’t stand Dawkins and his ilk.
The stupidest people gravitate into language arts. Too much time spent pushing crap out of their heads, too little time taking anything in. There’s very little worth reading when any message is intended.
What I mean about Trotskyism is that I think that on the one hand what you are talking about is a fringe group. And on the other hand, no one refers to themselves as neo-Trotskyist. Though, there are probably people who read and love Trotsky who are a very different group. Opposition to Stalinism doesn’t mean anything. Most people opposed Stalin because he was communist and atheist and a dictator. Not because of Trotsky who only incidentally opposed him.
My criteria for being conservative would be the following. Not the arbitrary ‘calling people fascists’ or using tactics similar to leftists. People use what works. Or are trying to dodge leftist attacks by appropriating these tactics. This is in addition to the fact that many, many people really are fascists today – far more than during the heyday of fascism even. But they were fascists then, too. Don’t you think that many conservatives and liberals deserve to be called such?
Here are the criteria:
Private/public lifestyle or beliefs that are conservative and/or religious.
Fetishism of capitalism and the free market
Opposition to intellectuals or intellectualism (optional)
Belief in American exceptionalism
Vocal opposition to high taxes; especially on the upper income earners
Founding Fathers and ‘original constitution’ lovefest
Opposition to abortion and/or other things which conflict with religious dogma.
Belief that wolves are at the door
So, I think you can use traditionally leftist tactics to accomplish all these things. And hence they’re not a leftist, but still a conservative. If you are one or all of the above – which many ‘conservatives’ – you are not going to pass as a leftist. Even social democracy is promoted for two reasons: it is the only way to pay to push your own agenda so easily (through taxes and force) and it is the only way to spread what they consider to be moral universals that the US promotes as an ‘exceptional nation’. This is in addition to having countries ‘safe’ to American capitalism and making sure good Christians can travel abroad with their bibles in Arabia. It isn’t for egalitarianism unto itself or multiculturalism or some leftist program. In fact, it is very unlikely that even Democrats have a worldview rather than a nationalistic one. As for Pat Buchanan, he has all the same characteristics that make one a conservative like George Bush, Limbaugh, Savage, Beck, Hannity etc. And supports them about for the same reasons. I don’t see why he should be apart from the ‘idiots’ or people lumped in with leftists mistakenly. He deviates occassionally, but it doesn’t change his basic worldview which is conservative like the others.
“The stupidest people gravitate into language arts. Too much time spent pushing crap out of their heads, too little time taking anything in. There’s very little worth reading when any message is intended.”
This doesn’t make sense. Language arts degrees depend on reading a higher amount of material than other degrees. That’s not to say there is a tried and true amount of input-to-output ratio. As many people think too much using other people’s thoughts.
Also, Lew Rockwell ‘gravitated’ towards this area and has a degree in English.
My experience is that humanities people tend to reflect on matters more than others. While many people in other degrees do almost no thinking beyond their immediate gratification or interests, unless they have some extra-curricular use for what they learn. Which is not very often. About zero percent of engineers are Wittgensteins, after all. Statistics say that almost 45 percent of people who leave colleges today never read another book in their lives. And you can almost to an axiom know who is and who isn’t.
It makes no sense. He didn’t say that material was garbage. He said they never hardly read, but just write. Which is nonsense. The likelihood that someone in language arts has read something is more likely than other degrees. Remember that we are comparing to other ‘fields’.
And what material is bullshit? Poetry? Novels of western culture? Says who? According to what criteria? All of it is subjective.
Emotive compared to who? All the rational people out there? In what field? What does whimsical mean? What is the field for rational people who read the right things and think the right things? You think even economics fits that description? Get real.
I just mean that all the ‘real hard’ things are not filled with geniuses. It’s not like people in engineering or ‘hard hat work’ for that matter are avoiding intellect purposefully and consciously. Most people are savants in non-thinking and non-reflective work. Then there are people who do thinking work. To which a small percentage of those thinkers are on the right track. Largely, thanks to a niche that was created by the tradition of humanities. It’s not idiots gravitating towards anything. This is just a baseless slander. And not even compared to anything. Since no one has specified where all the brains are going. Or what options brains even have when most people will ignore them.
10k? Specific interwar ideology? Where has this definition been given? List of the 10k people?