4 ms·

Literature's power lies in it's low cost and broad viewpoints. And whatever topic became popular because they reflect the times. We must be in trouble, given O

by alliao 3y ago

Literature's power lies in it's low cost and broad viewpoints. And whatever topic became popular because they reflect the times. We must be in trouble, given Orwell became so popular. Extra so if powers that be deemed worthwhile to character assassinate someone who writes "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". It should have never gotten as popular as it did.

moate 3y ago
[flagged]
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Corollary to Betteridge's Law of Headlines: Any time a comment goes, "So you're saying...<ridiculous explanation>" the commenter is unable to say anything more intelligent.
- xkcd-sucks 3y ago
  i.e., fascism is a necessary precondition of anti-fascism
  - mistermann 3y ago
    It is not necessary for beliefs or stories about it though!
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      I believe the observation is that a counterculture is preceded by a culture to be countered. OP is drawing observations that this is a counterculture which is rising in popularity. As such, they claim that one or more current prevalent cultures must be those of which Orwell has written in opposition. At least, that’s my interpretation.
      - mistermann 3y ago
        Right, but that is only true to the degree that it is true. History is filled with humans fighting/worshipping imaginary things. At the level of realtime reality (especially, but not exclusively), the epistemic status of a proposition is often 100% irrelevant. Neuroscience, consciousness, culture, etc seems simple but they are actually the opposite, that is a key part of why the illusion is so convincing.
- DiscourseFan 3y ago
  The neoliberalism of the 80s was a conservative movement, but it was still liberal, it still allowed for the proliferations of basic freedoms, and people's lives (depending on where you lived in the world) either stayed mostly the same or improved dramatically. Now that neoliberalism is falling apart, and the world is careening towards an ecological catastrophe, and no established state government is able to manage the crisis, totalitarian powers are coming to prominence to fill in the gap for people's despair: but little do they know, these leaders (or at least the people actually running the show) don't even care about their people, they care about transforming the human world into a purely aesthetic, destructive, violent and chaotic place for the purposes of some sort of sublime limit-breaking enjoyment beyond what can be achieved under the regular conditions of capitalism--the ritual sacrifice of the entire world. Now, if you don't get duped by these Nazi types, then you'd want to figure out a way to resist that, but even democratic socialism and anti-fascism are not enough: recall that the Nazis only ever came to power because the German revolution failed, because the SDP (social democratic party) intentionally bombed it so they could retain parlimentary power, and employed who would later become the SA, the Freikorps, to do the dirty work and kill all the revolutionaries. In fact, the political ideology one would have to adopt under these circumstances could not be positively described, since all positivity gets swept under the totalizing system of neoliberal (or what the Frankfurt school called late) capitalism. The power of fascism is a kind of rationalizing of what is essentially irrational: the destruction of all humanity for a new machine god (call it AI or whatever you want). The rationality that overcomes this irrationality would appear within the irrational rationality as itself totally irrational. Something completely crazy, but in fact its so crazy that it starts to become the only thing that makes sense: demands that reach well beyond the stars. Its like Charles Fourier, who "claimed a shift in our local cosmic conditions would change the chemical makeup of the earth’s oceans, so that they would taste like lemonade."[0] It may sound absurd, but why is it more absurd than choosing to live in a society that is actively trying to kill you? [0]https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/get-thee-to-a-phalanstery-or-how-fourier-can-still-teach-us-to-make-lemonade/#ref12 https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/get-thee-to-a-phalanste...
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    What first appears as madness is a sane response to an insane world. (probably Erich Fromm)
nonrandomstring 3y ago
It's inspiring to imagine subversive writers bravely speaking truth to power, when the reality is they're just observing the mundanity of their own time, then later as world shifts into insanity their commonplace objections to ordinary injustice look like unspeakable challenges.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  Not saying that does not happen sometimes. In this case, Orwell was a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. I think that places him pretty strongly in the speaking truth to power and not hypocritically.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Definitely not hypocritically. I would never say that of Orwell who was the real deal. Just saying that most of us cannot see the implications of our thoughts in our own epoch. Most dystopian authors playfully hope they're wrong. So I think when Orwell penned his best anti-fascist works the world was already on an optimistic post-war trajectory, seeing an "arc of history that bends toward justice". Nobody had anticipated technofascism is its emerging forms.
    - nyokodo 3y ago
      > his best anti-fascist works Fascism has no false pretense of equality across races and peoples, which is clearly what Animal Farm was referring to, but Communism does. Orwell deliberately doesn’t name the ideology but clearly Fascism isn’t the only authoritarian ideology that Orwell was criticizing in his body of work.
      - nonrandomstring 3y ago
        Absolutely right. But what I've noticed is, it's acceptable to characterise technological authoritarianism and anti-humanism as "technofascism". Because we "all hate fascists" right? It's almost de rigueur. But naming it as "techno-communism" [0] or mentioning the Cosmist connection to techno-utopianism normally gets me marked down in these parts. Odd what waters flow underground. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_automated_luxury_communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_automated_luxury_communi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism
bazoom42 3y ago
> We must be in trouble, given Orwell became so popular. When an author is promoted by the CIA, it is probably not that subversive. Or perhaps it is subversive in a differet way than the reader think.

by alliao 3y ago

moate 3y ago

[flagged]

AlbertCory 3y ago
Corollary to Betteridge's Law of Headlines: Any time a comment goes, "So you're saying...<ridiculous explanation>" the commenter is unable to say anything more intelligent.
xkcd-sucks 3y ago
i.e., fascism is a necessary precondition of anti-fascism
- mistermann 3y ago
  It is not necessary for beliefs or stories about it though!
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    I believe the observation is that a counterculture is preceded by a culture to be countered. OP is drawing observations that this is a counterculture which is rising in popularity. As such, they claim that one or more current prevalent cultures must be those of which Orwell has written in opposition. At least, that’s my interpretation.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      Right, but that is only true to the degree that it is true. History is filled with humans fighting/worshipping imaginary things. At the level of realtime reality (especially, but not exclusively), the epistemic status of a proposition is often 100% irrelevant. Neuroscience, consciousness, culture, etc seems simple but they are actually the opposite, that is a key part of why the illusion is so convincing.
DiscourseFan 3y ago
The neoliberalism of the 80s was a conservative movement, but it was still liberal, it still allowed for the proliferations of basic freedoms, and people's lives (depending on where you lived in the world) either stayed mostly the same or improved dramatically. Now that neoliberalism is falling apart, and the world is careening towards an ecological catastrophe, and no established state government is able to manage the crisis, totalitarian powers are coming to prominence to fill in the gap for people's despair: but little do they know, these leaders (or at least the people actually running the show) don't even care about their people, they care about transforming the human world into a purely aesthetic, destructive, violent and chaotic place for the purposes of some sort of sublime limit-breaking enjoyment beyond what can be achieved under the regular conditions of capitalism--the ritual sacrifice of the entire world. Now, if you don't get duped by these Nazi types, then you'd want to figure out a way to resist that, but even democratic socialism and anti-fascism are not enough: recall that the Nazis only ever came to power because the German revolution failed, because the SDP (social democratic party) intentionally bombed it so they could retain parlimentary power, and employed who would later become the SA, the Freikorps, to do the dirty work and kill all the revolutionaries. In fact, the political ideology one would have to adopt under these circumstances could not be positively described, since all positivity gets swept under the totalizing system of neoliberal (or what the Frankfurt school called late) capitalism. The power of fascism is a kind of rationalizing of what is essentially irrational: the destruction of all humanity for a new machine god (call it AI or whatever you want). The rationality that overcomes this irrationality would appear within the irrational rationality as itself totally irrational. Something completely crazy, but in fact its so crazy that it starts to become the only thing that makes sense: demands that reach well beyond the stars. Its like Charles Fourier, who "claimed a shift in our local cosmic conditions would change the chemical makeup of the earth’s oceans, so that they would taste like lemonade."[0] It may sound absurd, but why is it more absurd than choosing to live in a society that is actively trying to kill you? [0]https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/get-thee-to-a-phalanstery-or-how-fourier-can-still-teach-us-to-make-lemonade/#ref12 https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/get-thee-to-a-phalanste...
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  What first appears as madness is a sane response to an insane world. (probably Erich Fromm)

nonrandomstring 3y ago

It's inspiring to imagine subversive writers bravely speaking truth to power, when the reality is they're just observing the mundanity of their own time, then later as world shifts into insanity their commonplace objections to ordinary injustice look like unspeakable challenges.

mejutoco 3y ago
Not saying that does not happen sometimes. In this case, Orwell was a volunteer in the Spanish civil war. I think that places him pretty strongly in the speaking truth to power and not hypocritically.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  Definitely not hypocritically. I would never say that of Orwell who was the real deal. Just saying that most of us cannot see the implications of our thoughts in our own epoch. Most dystopian authors playfully hope they're wrong. So I think when Orwell penned his best anti-fascist works the world was already on an optimistic post-war trajectory, seeing an "arc of history that bends toward justice". Nobody had anticipated technofascism is its emerging forms.
  - nyokodo 3y ago
    > his best anti-fascist works Fascism has no false pretense of equality across races and peoples, which is clearly what Animal Farm was referring to, but Communism does. Orwell deliberately doesn’t name the ideology but clearly Fascism isn’t the only authoritarian ideology that Orwell was criticizing in his body of work.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      Absolutely right. But what I've noticed is, it's acceptable to characterise technological authoritarianism and anti-humanism as "technofascism". Because we "all hate fascists" right? It's almost de rigueur. But naming it as "techno-communism" [0] or mentioning the Cosmist connection to techno-utopianism normally gets me marked down in these parts. Odd what waters flow underground. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_automated_luxury_communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_automated_luxury_communi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cosmism

bazoom42 3y ago

> We must be in trouble, given Orwell became so popular. When an author is promoted by the CIA, it is probably not that subversive. Or perhaps it is subversive in a differet way than the reader think.