Things are a lot more subtlety in broadly "Indosphere" (or atleast its old version before all the rampage of Islam and Western colonization).
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
The grievance is also often created by the govt.
The most obvious depravity was Leopold’s depredations of the Congo, but many many examples exist. The generational trauma on society is hard to fathom. And of course the arming and covert intervention of Soviet & western proxies during the Cold War fueled unrest and hostility.
I'm reasonably acquainted with history in all of those places. What happened in Africa happened. The results are speak for themselves.
In no way did I say that the depredations of past tyrants and conquerers didn't take place or were insignificant. If Ceasar's accounts of Gaul are even partially true, his armies probably butchered a sizable percentage of the human race in that campaign and the years to follow. The Spanish conquest, subjugation and genocide of Latin America utterly obliterated mesoamerican culture and was sweeping in the size and scope of it's brutality.
So why is Africa different? Well, for the most part it took place in the immediate pre-modern and "modern" era. There were coastal outposts previously, but the colonialists really exploded in the latter half of the 19th century. Disease wasn't a factor as it was in the Americas, but technology had a far greater impact -- tribesman vs. machine guns and steam engines ends the way it ends. You also had a different focus, private interests were interested soley in raw material extraction. Cultural imposition wasn't a priority -- it was extract value above all.
I would encourage you to read about the Congo. "The Rest is History" podcast did a series a few months back that is a good introduction. Nasty business.
Africa is not a single place you can generalize across in regards to sources of ethnic strife or anything else.
Today, carefully crafted messages lead people to self-select propaganda. The stereotype of the MAGA uncle is the result of an appeal to fear, resentment and nostalgia.
I'm sure everyone knows what Voltaire said about this: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Is there any chance we can return to the idea that people can disagree with us without being dead to us afterward?
We've forgotten about the impact of the big life changing technology of 100 years ago -- the radio. Radio demonstrated that mass media with extended reach can only be tamed by the leash of state authority. I'm in my 40s and remember boring radio of the 1980s and earlier. You might ask yourself... why was radio so boring? Why did it turn into a wild west in the 90s, then into weird right wing blah?
The reason is simple -- and it happened before. If you look back to the 1920s and 1930s, you had figures like Huey Long and Father Coughlin developing massive reach and exterting problematic influence. Cults of personality like Ron Paul and ultimately President Trump are really the same model. Getting out of it and saving the naive uncles depends and further media consolidation and regulation.
My guess is that's one of the reasons why the web plutocrats are moving so blatantly to establish dominance -- the free money era will get shut down by the kickback of MAGA's eventual demise.
I feel more and more we are slowly moving into a future between 1984 and Brave New World.
This comes in many forms. Political fundraising, pretense for holding onto/expanding power, greasing the cogs of the prison or military industrial complex, etc.
Peace benefits ordinary citizens, but that's not the concern of the white house right now...
We keep doing somersaults over dead writers lengthy works when it’s the simple shit in front of our eyes. Including the festering pile of shit HN has become because of dang’s bullshit.
Don’t need Trump or Putin or Mao or Bibi or any other high powered asshole. The ones we have here are more than enough, and they’re no different than these high and mighty pricks.
Examples:
-The beliefs you hold about the world and others, much which was shaped by childhood media;
-When Bush tells you Iraq has WMDs;
-When the car commercial comes on, showing you a scenic vista and for a moment you forget yourself;
-When you believe X, but the commenters in article comment sections sway the opposite (bots);
to name a small handful. Sounds too far fetched?
Here is the machine magicians program for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo_e0EvEZn8
Do you see the zone in this machine, where magick can exist? It's the zone where you experience #FF00FF as magenta (if you're not colorblind). People really see what they expect to see, not what is there in front of them unless they really spend some effort!
What do they want to see? They want to see what you set them up to want to see.
mc32•7mo ago
How in hell is any adult supposed to read any book of consequence if routine things trigger them? Moreso for such an iconic book that criticizes crass authoritarianism.
[1]https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putting-trigger-warnings-george-or...
perching_aix•7mo ago
> The new introductory essay describes the novel’s protagonist Winston Smith as “problematic” and warns modern readers may find his views on women “despicable”.
How is this different to something like the PEGI or ESRB labels? Because to the extent that I can tell, nohow, apart from being more verbose, although I wasn't able to find the actual text.
And how is an additive change censorship? Like that's a new one, even for me.
mc32•7mo ago
Are they going to place trigger warnings on erotic novels for adults too, now?
perching_aix•7mo ago
This trigger warning stuff in my view is literally just content labels with some political coating on top. Reminds me to folks rediscovering vending machines in the form of overly complicated and brittle AI robotized fast food restaurants.
p_ing•7mo ago
perching_aix•7mo ago
XorNot•7mo ago
RedShift1•7mo ago
perching_aix•7mo ago
tom_•7mo ago
(EDIT: after stepping away from the keyboard, I was struck by the question of how many men of any orientation would want to read erotic novels anyway! - when they could just load up private browsing mode and watch more videos of people doing their favourite nasty shit than they'd ever be able to muster the urge to view to completion. But my view is that the question was dumb enough as posed already without needing to think about it any more. But maybe there's more to unpack here, if anybody is so inclined, which I'm not - though I'll admit that I've instinctively taken a male perspective here, even though that was never specified. Apologies.)
fallingknife•7mo ago
farts_mckensy•7mo ago
bloak•7mo ago
You're not wrong about Orwell being posthumously enlisted as an anti-Soviet propagandist, but "Animal farm" is beautifully written and makes perfect sense to a reader who knows nothing about (and has no interest in) the early history of the Soviet Union.
p_ing•7mo ago
relaxing•7mo ago
The study on coping approaches shows how avoidance leads to maladaptive outcomes, but it also says that exposure in itself isn’t helpful either.
What is helpful is learning how to process and express your emotions, but the study does not address whether english class is the place to be taught good coping strategies (because it’s not, obviously.)
djeastm•7mo ago
rustcleaner•7mo ago
Dear quantum field I've awoken into a nightmare!
thrance•7mo ago
You should probably read 1984 again, Orwell wasn't concerned by "trigger warnings". He was afraid of an authoritarian force creating and maintaining an alternate reality they can change on a whim, to manufacture consent for whatever they want to do. Like how Trump said he would be "the most peaceful president ever" but now screams about how Tehran should be evacuated, to presumably level it to the ground. Or how he said he would take care of the economy, utterly destroyed it and now claims it's doing better than ever.