5 ms·
While reading this, I can't help but to hear Charlie Chaplin's Great Dictator final speech in the background of my mind: "... We want to live by each other’s h
by jadbox 6y ago
While reading this, I can't help but to hear Charlie Chaplin's Great Dictator final speech in the background of my mind:
"... We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…"
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator- https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-spee...
- asgard1024 6y agoIt's like the best speech ever. And IMHO the idea to add Inception soundtrack to it makes it even so much better.
- zozbot234 6y agoThe whole point of that Great Dictator's Speech is the beginning, the "I'm sorry, I don't want to be a dictator" part. We need fewer wannabe-great-dictators in the world, and more successful tribal leaders striving to unite people via voluntary consensus, tolerance and moderation. That's just as true today as it was in the bad old 1930s.
- growlist 6y ago> tribal leaders striving to unite people via voluntary consensus, tolerance and moderation 'Citizen 99234832, we have received reports that suggest you are insufficiently consensual, tolerant and moderate. Please report to camp X101 for voluntary reeducation, or face the consequences.'
- kazagistar 6y agoYes, you have noticed that authoritarians sometimes use the veneer of freedom and cooperation to force obedience. Sometimes they just use strongman tactics. It doesn't change the fact that voluntary consensus and tolerance are, in fact good.
- growlist 6y agoInterested to know exactly how we are supposed to differentiate between the two. Should we rely on our completely unbiased and objective media (ORANGE MAN BAD)?
- praptak 6y agoIs your argument that freedom and cooperation cannot be objectively defined and measured, therefore we should stop trying to have more of them?
- feoren 6y agoExactly! How are we supposed to know whether killing people, flaying their skin, and consuming their flesh is good or bad!? Should we just rely on our completely "unbiased" and "objective" media (CANNIBALISM BAD, HERP DERP!). There's literally no such thing as truth! We are heroes for eating the flesh of small children!
- The_Double 6y agoBregman's point in his book is that the belief that everyone is greedy is more harmful than the greed itself.
- clairity 6y agothat doesn't jive with my initial take, although admittedly, i've only read the first few chapters so far and have yet to get back to it. i got the initial sense that the greed is harmful, and the beliefs around greed make it worse, so a little greed leads to a lot of bad feelings. it's not minimizing/forgiving of the actual greed in existence though. i'm in general agreement of the book's overarching thesis that people are mostly good. we wouldn't have a functioning society if that weren't true. it's just that our spidey senses are horribly tuned to the modern world of very few actual dangers, which are mostly hidden away in institutions (centers of power) rather than our neighbors to whom we tend to cast the suspicious eye.
- Tokkemon 6y agoSidenote, I added a score to this speech in my college days. I think it's pretty good. https://youtu.be/zT5p1N9AoQA https://youtu.be/zT5p1N9AoQA
- sriku 6y ago"And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. ….." .. so mixed on hearing that. On one hand, this gives so much hope under the direst of circumstances. On the other, it says a lot about human nature too .. which can steadfastly hold on to destructive beliefs and act on them till the last breath.
- moksly 6y agoIt could also simply mean that every reign has a natural end. Power inheritance tends not to go well in non-free societies, even if it does sometime manage to last a few lifetimes.
- httwer234234 6y ago> More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. The worst of deeds are done by those who think of themselves and their clan as the kind-gentle ones saving the world from evil [TM].
- aarongough 6y ago[citation needed]
- 082349872349872 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caedite_eos._Novit_enim_Dominus_qui_sunt_eius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caedite_eos._Novit_enim_Dominu.... ? (I have no idea to what extent catholic Priors considered themselves kind and gentle ca. 1200, however.)
- seneca 6y ago"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis
- arethuza 6y agoI agree with Orwell more on the motivation behind tyranny: "No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
- growlist 6y agoIt's funny how attempts at creating utopia always seem to end in horrific bloody violence.