3 ms·

As something parallel, I was talking online to someone about various patches I was considering adding to various "going out" jackets. I was explicitly warned t

As something parallel, I was talking online to someone about various patches I was considering adding to various "going out" jackets. I was explicitly warned to add at least two (2) different antifa patches, lest I be taken for a Nazi and beaten up. The conversation got weird at that point and I realized that I was being told to have something uniform added and give symbolic compliance or I would be physically abused ... by people who thought they were against fascism.

poszlem 4y ago
You witnessed something that is sometimes called the "Havel's greengrocer". > Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite! Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it. Havel returns repeatedly to this motif to show the contradictions between the "intentions of life" and the "intentions of systems", i.e. between the individual and the state, in a totalitarian society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Havel's_greengrocer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav... If you'll ever hear people comparing modern "woke" movements to the communists of the past (especially Mao's Red Guards) , those similarities are precisely why.
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite! Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty it reminds me of news anchors complaining about a politicians flag pin being on the wrong side (showing disloyalty) or lack of cristmas decorations/saying "happy holidays" as being anti-religion... then you have everyone being hyper worried about completely trivial things.... or is that a different phenomenon?

poszlem 4y ago

You witnessed something that is sometimes called the "Havel's greengrocer". > Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite! Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it. Havel returns repeatedly to this motif to show the contradictions between the "intentions of life" and the "intentions of systems", i.e. between the individual and the state, in a totalitarian society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Havel's_greengrocer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav... If you'll ever hear people comparing modern "woke" movements to the communists of the past (especially Mao's Red Guards) , those similarities are precisely why.

andrekandre 4y ago
> Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite! Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty it reminds me of news anchors complaining about a politicians flag pin being on the wrong side (showing disloyalty) or lack of cristmas decorations/saying "happy holidays" as being anti-religion... then you have everyone being hyper worried about completely trivial things.... or is that a different phenomenon?