In the Western world, I mean.
I was listening to a movie review podcast today (Yeah, It's That Bad, which helps me get through my ten hour days of decreasing the aggregate utility of humanity--their critical chops are sometimes suspect, but they're very funny; even jokes are oft-reused, as an MST3K fan it should come as no surprise I enjoy such callback-heavy style) and they were doing V For Vendetta.
Leaving aside the fact that, in a key scene, the film terribly undermines the comic and basically destroys the V character in the space of one shot, it's an okay movie, but how likely is it really? Indeed, how likely was it from the vantage point of ~1982 when Alan Moore wrote the source material? I have no idea, since I was not just not alive, I was not even British.
I cannot imagine any scenario where a country such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, basically any place you'd be likely to set a movie or book, would be very likely to be run by 40s-style throwback fascists that want to gas all the fags, coloreds, Jews (seriously?), or any discrete population group to death and all the women enslaved (e.g., Handmaid's Tale). China? Sure. Poland? Absolutely. But it just does not strike me as really very politically plausible in a real country, given the widespread support for tolerance of race, religion, sexual liberation, etc. At the least, you'd need quite a few points of cultural departure between A of now and the Z of the post-apocalyptic homo-hangin' future, which is lacking in many future dystopias that seem to have a higher GDP per capita than we do. There's also the bald fact that a genocide or even overt curtailment of civil rights against highly-conscious minority groups would be logistically and militarily difficult, especially for our pussy modern armies that can't even pacify real-enemy territory.
Thoughts? Is a new NSDAP a possibility any longer in the West?
Depending on the severity of the apocalypse....sure. V for Vendetta level? Probably not. Barter-town? Sure (perhaps a bad reference, being it was run by Tina Turner and a midget).
Just look to the modern UK and the amount of hate that gets stirred up against those on benefits, assylum seekers, etc...
It's possible.
I wouldn't say its plausible. But then a plausible scenario of a crazy regime popping up in African shit hole number 8 doesn't really appeal to a western audience as much as something terrible happening in their own country.
I'd be Robert Duvall in Handmaid's Tale.
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 09, 2013, 09:29:59 PM
Depending on the severity of the apocalypse....sure. V for Vendetta level? Probably not. Barter-town? Sure (perhaps a bad reference, being it was run by Tina Turner and a midget).
See? Diversity.
Quote from: TyrJust look to the modern UK and the amount of hate that gets stirred up against those on benefits, assylum seekers, etc...
I do want to distinguish between an immutable trait-based dystopia, which is what I don't find terribly convincing, and a class-based dystopia, i.e. Earth-Prime 2013.
Based on Tamas's snippets of Hungarian politics, such a dystopia is more than possible...
Quote from: Ideologue on April 09, 2013, 09:35:22 PM
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 09, 2013, 09:29:59 PM
Depending on the severity of the apocalypse....sure. V for Vendetta level? Probably not. Barter-town? Sure (perhaps a bad reference, being it was run by Tina Turner and a midget).
See? Diversity.
Quote from: TyrJust look to the modern UK and the amount of hate that gets stirred up against those on benefits, assylum seekers, etc...
I do want to distinguish between an immutable trait-based dystopia, which is what I don't find terribly convincing, and a class-based dystopia, i.e. Earth-Prime 2013.
Class is a large extent an immutable trait.
Its hard to become rich when you're poor, to lose you native accent, etc....
Quote from: ulmont on April 09, 2013, 09:59:33 PM
Based on Tamas's snippets of Hungarian politics, such a dystopia is more than possible...
Heh. I was just about to say I think Europe is making at least one as we speak.
Quote from: Tyr on April 09, 2013, 10:03:50 PM
Class is a large extent an immutable trait.
Its hard to become rich when you're poor, to lose you native accent, etc....
I would say it is pretty hard...but a great many orders of magnitude easier than changing your race.
The way things are now? No. If the economy goes to hell in a handbasket over a sustained period of time, or there is some other major disruption causing extended suffering, then obviously it becomes progressively more likely.
However, I would also argue that the point of dystopic literature isn't always to suggest that such a society is actually realistic at present, but also to point and and warn about particular phenomena in our actual society that the author deems worrying.
Of course it is possible. Ordinary people, following orders they think come from a legitimate authority, can easily sink into committing unspeakable acts. The true tragedy of people going along with such horrific orders is that they are not inhuman monsters but rather normal people doing what they are told. I am not saying such will happen, but the fact that we might kid ourselves that the Western States are beyond this shows we are in a self-congratulating mode that denies basic human social possibilities.
Quote from: PDH on April 09, 2013, 10:26:20 PM
Of course it is possible. Ordinary people, following orders they think come from a legitimate authority, can easily sink into committing unspeakable acts. The true tragedy of people going along with such horrific orders is that they are not inhuman monsters but rather normal people doing what they are told. I am not saying such will happen, but the fact that we might kid ourselves that the Western States are beyond this shows we are in a self-congratulating mode that denies basic human social possibilities.
But you do need a critical mass of people who are gung-ho, and probably a majority who don't give a shit.
I'd also argue that the "normal people" view of the Holocaust and other dystopic situations, e.g. the antebellum American South, either doesn't stick, because of ample opportunities to oppose the status quo before the full power of the state was brought against dissension, or proves too much, that the "normal person" is a coward and a monster himself. Which is, indeed, the belief I actually subscribe to, since I don't have a great deal of respect for the people of the past, morally speaking (though I am awed and troubled by their ability to at least feel passionately about things, fight overwhelming forces of authority, and die for their often-wrong beliefs, which is something else I don't think will ever happen again in the real West, probably because we don't let large numbers of mentally-sound people actually starve very much).
It's a different situation in the real West (to which Hungary and its shitty cohorts arguably do not belong)--there is no critical mass of people who are really gung ho about anything,* nor is there likely to be, while contrariwise the majority does give a shit about what would happen to their gay Kenyan Muslim friends and colleagues (and, one should not forget, family). The odds of this trend reversing seem remote, to say the least.
*Except maybe immigrants in the American SW. But that's different too, though because it's America, of course it winds up being racialized, when it's really about how IT'S 2013 NOT 1888 WE'RE FULL SO GO HOME.
Quote from: PDH on April 09, 2013, 10:26:20 PM
Of course it is possible. Ordinary people, following orders they think come from a legitimate authority, can easily sink into committing unspeakable acts. The true tragedy of people going along with such horrific orders is that they are not inhuman monsters but rather normal people doing what they are told. I am not saying such will happen, but the fact that we might kid ourselves that the Western States are beyond this shows we are in a self-congratulating mode that denies basic human social possibilities.
Yeah, pretty much this.
Moore might be a fine writer, but he suffers from a bit of Jos-ism. He thought that Britain turned into Nazi Germany the second Thatcher won the election.
It's certainly possible, but not very likely. I know I'd probably vote for a party that would brutalize homosexuals and persecute lawyers.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 09, 2013, 09:24:56 PM
Thoughts? Is a new NSDAP a possibility any longer in the West?
Sure. It's called "The South".
The fact that during Thatcher's rule many people thought that V for Vendetta scenario is possible (whether they were right or wrong), shows you why many people now are celebrating her death.
I know this feeling from the brief rule of PiS in Poland - they didn't really do all that much in retrospect, but the constant feeling of oppression and "what they will do next" was palpable and distressing. I probably won't celebrate Kaczynski's death, but mainly because I don't celebrate anyone's death (not even Saddam's or Pinochet's) but I will be happy for it.
Incidentally, Ide, I think you are pretty naive thinking that the West is not capable of bigotry and hatred like that in V for Vendetta any more. In fact, V for Vendetta is quite prophetic in that it predicts that muslims would be the likely target for such hatred, as opposed to the (less likely these days) "traditional" groups such as Jews or blacks.
Thing is the NSDAP type style goverment was never likely in the US, (and probably the UK though I know less about it). Groups that wanted to install something like that in the US or UK were met with hostility, less because of the racism but because thuggish militarism wasn't tolerated.
Now, oppression of a minority is possible, and possibly a nuclear genocide of a foreign people (like Iran), but not genocide of a local group.
In my opinion oppression in the US is less likely to come from the Federal government then a local government (or perhaps no government). Tyranny in the US tends to be grass roots in nature, starting with mobs terrorizing and intimidating and then have rights legally restricted by local governments.
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 12:50:04 AM
Incidentally, Ide, I think you are pretty naive thinking that the West is not capable of bigotry and hatred like that in V for Vendetta any more. In fact, V for Vendetta is quite prophetic in that it predicts that muslims would be the likely target for such hatred, as opposed to the (less likely these days) "traditional" groups such as Jews or blacks.
I dunno, man. Islam and America had its Reichstag Fire writ large on the Manhattan skyline. What happened? Not very much. Oh, sure, a few glorious, just wars of liberation, which involved no genocide and really a lot fewer deaths than comparable fights (contrast Vietnam). And certainly no camps here, no repression at home worthy of the Susan/Norsefire government (I do not remember the names in the movie), let alone Actual Hitlerism. Bush was our shittiest president since Hoover, the PATRIOT Act sucked, Obama's extrajudicial drone killings are iffy, and the ongoing erosion of privacy isn't good (if unavoidable for other reasons), but nothing really horrific occurred.
It may be different in continental Europe with your totalitarian tradition.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 12:53:07 AM
In my opinion oppression in the US is less likely to come from the Federal government then a local government (or perhaps no government). Tyranny in the US tends to be grass roots in nature, starting with mobs terrorizing and intimidating and then have rights legally restricted by local governments.
I think you'd have a hard time pulling it off even in the Southeast, unlike Money's glib comment Besides the fact that something like 1/3 of the population would be bound to resist, a good half of the white folks in general, and more than half of the able-bodied white folks capable of bearing arms, would either be passive or active resisters themselves. More to the point, due to this opposition, it would never get a point like that again, outside a very slow and unlikely cultural change to where racism, etc., were first socially appropriate, then could be legislated.
I will concede that if you somehow magically removed the U.S. government from S.C. for a protracted period, though, I imagine the result would be a civil war.
QuoteBut you do need a critical mass of people who are gung-ho, and probably a majority who don't give a shit
The bigger the latter group, the smaller the former need to be. Also do not underestimate the desire for order and efficiency.
Are the Western countries the least likely today to fall into such a state? Of course. Is it impossible for them to do so? Hells no.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 01:14:50 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 12:53:07 AM
In my opinion oppression in the US is less likely to come from the Federal government then a local government (or perhaps no government). Tyranny in the US tends to be grass roots in nature, starting with mobs terrorizing and intimidating and then have rights legally restricted by local governments.
I think you'd have a hard time pulling it off even in the Southeast, unlike Money's glib comment Besides the fact that something like 1/3 of the population would be bound to resist, a good half of the white folks in general, and more than half of the able-bodied white folks capable of bearing arms, would either be passive or active resisters themselves. More to the point, due to this opposition, it would never get a point like that again, outside a very slow and unlikely cultural change to where racism, etc., were first socially appropriate, then could be legislated.
I will concede that if you somehow magically removed the U.S. government from S.C. for a protracted period, though, I imagine the result would be a civil war.
I'm not thinking blacks in the South, but other small groups like Muslims. Though the South isn't impossible. Since the oppression is coming from terrorists they are difficult to resist. They don't have to shackle every black guy in the state, just kill enough to terrorize the rest. The goal isn't elimination or even slavery but suppression. It has been done before. You often see people arguing that that 2nd amendment is a safe guard against tyranny and keep the Federal government away, but the only time it's been used to by private individuals to defeat the Federal government was after Reconstruction when private militias destroyed Reconstruction governments and then suppressed African American rights.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 01:09:13 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 12:50:04 AM
Incidentally, Ide, I think you are pretty naive thinking that the West is not capable of bigotry and hatred like that in V for Vendetta any more. In fact, V for Vendetta is quite prophetic in that it predicts that muslims would be the likely target for such hatred, as opposed to the (less likely these days) "traditional" groups such as Jews or blacks.
I dunno, man. Islam and America had its Reichstag Fire writ large on the Manhattan skyline. What happened? Not very much. Oh, sure, a few glorious, just wars of liberation, which involved no genocide and really a lot fewer deaths than comparable fights (contrast Vietnam). And certainly no camps here, no repression at home worthy of the Susan/Norsefire government (I do not remember the names in the movie), let alone Actual Hitlerism. Bush was our shittiest president since Hoover, the PATRIOT Act sucked, Obama's extrajudicial drone killings are iffy, and the ongoing erosion of privacy isn't good (if unavoidable for other reasons), but nothing really horrific occurred.
It may be different in continental Europe with your totalitarian tradition.
Going to two wars over the death of 3000 people is imo a pretty freakishly disproportional reaction.
If there was an event that was really catastrophic, V for Vendetta style (as opposed to what was essentially a death toll equivalent of a couple of weeks of car crashes), I can see this turning pretty bad very fast.
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 02:40:34 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 01:09:13 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 12:50:04 AM
Incidentally, Ide, I think you are pretty naive thinking that the West is not capable of bigotry and hatred like that in V for Vendetta any more. In fact, V for Vendetta is quite prophetic in that it predicts that muslims would be the likely target for such hatred, as opposed to the (less likely these days) "traditional" groups such as Jews or blacks.
I dunno, man. Islam and America had its Reichstag Fire writ large on the Manhattan skyline. What happened? Not very much. Oh, sure, a few glorious, just wars of liberation, which involved no genocide and really a lot fewer deaths than comparable fights (contrast Vietnam). And certainly no camps here, no repression at home worthy of the Susan/Norsefire government (I do not remember the names in the movie), let alone Actual Hitlerism. Bush was our shittiest president since Hoover, the PATRIOT Act sucked, Obama's extrajudicial drone killings are iffy, and the ongoing erosion of privacy isn't good (if unavoidable for other reasons), but nothing really horrific occurred.
It may be different in continental Europe with your totalitarian tradition.
Going to two wars over the death of 3000 people is imo a pretty freakishly disproportional reaction.
If there was an event that was really catastrophic, V for Vendetta style (as opposed to what was essentially a death toll equivalent of a couple of weeks of car crashes), I can see this turning pretty bad very fast.
:rolleyes:
Nice reply to a valid point there.
Quote from: Tyr on April 10, 2013, 03:04:31 AM
Nice reply to a valid point there.
going to wars when you don't really know who to go war against (or rather, you know, but he is your ally so you kick the shit out of somebody else instead), is stupid of course.
But generally speaking like Marty did, in what kind of sick world should a state not revenge the killing of its 3000 citizens? Should the leaders and citizens just shrug saying "shit happens" and go on?
It would've been nice to see Martinus faceplant himself into concrete from the 103rd floor. Either tower, doesn't matter which one.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 01:14:50 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 12:53:07 AM
In my opinion oppression in the US is less likely to come from the Federal government then a local government (or perhaps no government). Tyranny in the US tends to be grass roots in nature, starting with mobs terrorizing and intimidating and then have rights legally restricted by local governments.
I think you'd have a hard time pulling it off even in the Southeast, unlike Money's glib comment Besides the fact that something like 1/3 of the population would be bound to resist, a good half of the white folks in general, and more than half of the able-bodied white folks capable of bearing arms, would either be passive or active resisters themselves. More to the point, due to this opposition, it would never get a point like that again, outside a very slow and unlikely cultural change to where racism, etc., were first socially appropriate, then could be legislated.
I will concede that if you somehow magically removed the U.S. government from S.C. for a protracted period, though, I imagine the result would be a civil war.
Frankly, I can't imagine a reasonable scenario where a totalitarian government could come to power in the U.S. as a whole, at least not in the near-to-mid term future (say within the next 70 years or so). But I can imagine somewhat reasonable scenarios where the central government fell apart and feuding local/regional governments took power, and some of those might likely be totalitarian in nature (though I'd expect their authority to be limited geographically to areas smaller in size than most states).
Quote from: Tamas on April 10, 2013, 03:07:27 AM
But generally speaking like Marty did, in what kind of sick world should a state not revenge the killing of its 3000 citizens? Should the leaders and citizens just shrug saying "shit happens" and go on?
Please don't try and defend America if you're going to say things like this.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 09, 2013, 10:49:23 PM
But you do need a critical mass of people who are gung-ho, and probably a majority who don't give a shit.
No, you need a sense that the previously acceptable is wrong, failing, or no longer applies and willingness on the part of the extremes to take advantage of this.
Quote
I'd also argue that the "normal people" view of the Holocaust and other dystopic situations, e.g. the antebellum American South, either doesn't stick, because of ample opportunities to oppose the status quo before the full power of the state was brought against dissension, or proves too much, that the "normal person" is a coward and a monster himself. Which is, indeed, the belief I actually subscribe to, since I don't have a great deal of respect for the people of the past, morally speaking (though I am awed and troubled by their ability to at least feel passionately about things, fight overwhelming forces of authority, and die for their often-wrong beliefs, which is something else I don't think will ever happen again in the real West, probably because we don't let large numbers of mentally-sound people actually starve very much).
You really misunderstand culture, how society normalizes behavior, and the need of people to belong to that society. As I said, the ugliness of the "normal people" point of view is not that they were moral cowards and that they knew better and were weak, but rather that the obscene acts became the norm, and the extreme thinking became the center.
Quote
It's a different situation in the real West (to which Hungary and its shitty cohorts arguably do not belong)--there is no critical mass of people who are really gung ho about anything,* nor is there likely to be, while contrariwise the majority does give a shit about what would happen to their gay Kenyan Muslim friends and colleagues (and, one should not forget, family). The odds of this trend reversing seem remote, to say the least.
*Except maybe immigrants in the American SW. But that's different too, though because it's America, of course it winds up being racialized, when it's really about how IT'S 2013 NOT 1888 WE'RE FULL SO GO HOME.
Again the naivete helps this. The "it can't happen here" mentality is the social self congratulations or an understood morality and self-awareness that will not let it happen is precisely what societies do - naturalize actions so they become the norm. A disruption, for modern western culture I would say a series of economic disasters, could easily destroy the comfortable normal and make the extremes far more likely to happen.
Quote from: garbon on April 10, 2013, 08:27:42 AM
Quote from: Tamas on April 10, 2013, 03:07:27 AM
But generally speaking like Marty did, in what kind of sick world should a state not revenge the killing of its 3000 citizens? Should the leaders and citizens just shrug saying "shit happens" and go on?
Please don't try and defend America if you're going to say things like this.
What did I say wrong? That the murder of 3000 civilians warrant a response from their state?
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2013, 08:43:32 AM
No, you need a sense that the previously acceptable is wrong, failing, or no longer applies and willingness on the part of the extremes to take advantage of this.
That's pretty much what he said! :lol:
QuoteYou really misunderstand culture, how society normalizes behavior, and the need of people to belong to that society. As I said, the ugliness of the "normal people" point of view is not that they were moral cowards and that they knew better and were weak, but rather that the obscene acts became the norm, and the extreme thinking became the center.
Way to tell him off! You don't need to address his argument, just tell him what he doesn't understand. I don't think your argument here is true of, say, Nazi Germany (people knew what they were doing was wrong, but they feared the consequences of not following orders). There certainly have been societies where "obscene" acts were the norm (the Crusaders who took Jerusalem in 1099 were from such a society), but I don't think there have been any modern ones.
QuoteAgain the naivety helps this. The "it can't happen here" mentality is the social self congratulations or an understood morality and self-awareness that will not let it happen is precisely what societies do - naturalize actions so they become the norm. A disruption, for modern western culture I would say a series of economic disasters, could easily destroy the comfortable normal and make the extremes far more likely to happen.
I think you underestimate the extent to which the West is a single society, and thus the likelihood that a single even or single series of events would bring the extremists into power in a western country. I'd agree that this is entirely possible in pre-modern and non-western societies, though I don't think it was their "naivety" that allows this - it is allowed by the idea that the power of government comes from the ability to coerce, rather than from the consent of the governed.
Quote from: Tamas on April 10, 2013, 09:24:55 AM
What did I say wrong? That the murder of 3000 civilians warrant a response from their state?
This is garbo you are talking to. Just let it go.
I would argue, however, that the military actions in Afghanistan were justified more by the desire to avoid future acts of terror than to avenge previous acts of terror. That doesn't counter what you are saying, but I think it adds an important caveat to what you are saying.
Quote from: Tamas on April 10, 2013, 09:24:55 AM
Quote from: garbon on April 10, 2013, 08:27:42 AM
Quote from: Tamas on April 10, 2013, 03:07:27 AM
But generally speaking like Marty did, in what kind of sick world should a state not revenge the killing of its 3000 citizens? Should the leaders and citizens just shrug saying "shit happens" and go on?
Please don't try and defend America if you're going to say things like this.
What did I say wrong? That the murder of 3000 civilians warrant a response from their state?
I don't think the main motive was revenge (though if it was, more the pity to us as bloodlust isn't becoming for a supposedly enlightened state). I think acting against an organization that might have tried to make further attacks is sufficient reason alone.
In any case, my point was to illustrate that a society that started two wars over something ultimately not very significant would be capable of going on a rampage if, say, someone detonated dirty bombs in two major cities. Not sure why this prompted Tamas to go on some erratic tangent.
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 09:58:14 AM
In any case, my point was to illustrate that a society that started two wars over something ultimately not very significant would be capable of going on a rampage if, say, someone detonated dirty bombs in two major cities. Not sure why this prompted Tamas to go on some erratic tangent.
But they'd also be capable of not doing that.
Besides, 9/11 was pretty significant. At least as significant as the act that started the Great War, and probably more significant than the act that started World War Two.
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 09:58:14 AM
In any case, my point was to illustrate that a society that started two wars over something ultimately not very significant would be capable of going on a rampage if, say, someone detonated dirty bombs in two major cities. Not sure why this prompted Tamas to go on some erratic tangent.
A society that had
not started two wars over something not very significant would
also be capable of going on a rampage if someone detonated two dirty bombs there. Not sure what prompted you to go off on this banal tangent.
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
Dirty bombs are overrated.
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 11:13:43 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 09:58:14 AM
In any case, my point was to illustrate that a society that started two wars over something ultimately not very significant would be capable of going on a rampage if, say, someone detonated dirty bombs in two major cities. Not sure why this prompted Tamas to go on some erratic tangent.
A society that had not started two wars over something not very significant would also be capable of going on a rampage if someone detonated two dirty bombs there. Not sure what prompted you to go off on this banal tangent.
Well, my response was meant in a context.
Ide said pretty much that "we (Americans) had something as horrible as 911, yet we did not do much, so I don't see how we would persecute a minority". I pointed out that both parts of his premise ("911 was horrible" and "we did not do much") were false. I did not intend to get into a debate over anything else.
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 11:27:57 AM
Well, my response was meant in a context.
Ide said pretty much that "we (Americans) had something as horrible as 911, yet we did not do much, so I don't see how we would persecute a minority". I pointed out that both parts of his premise ("911 was horrible" and "we did not do much") were false. I did not intend to get into a debate over anything else.
Ah. You were making a false analogy, not a generalized statement. I withdraw my comment, then.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:14:36 AM
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
I agree with this trite generalization. Who wouldn't?
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 11:45:12 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:14:36 AM
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
I agree with this trite generalization. Who wouldn't?
Ide for one. Thanks for coming out and playing
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 09:58:14 AM
In any case, my point was to illustrate that a society that started two wars over something ultimately not very significant would be capable of going on a rampage if, say, someone detonated dirty bombs in two major cities. Not sure why this prompted Tamas to go on some erratic tangent.
I don't understand the proportionality thing at all. If you have to retaliate, you do it completely. The point is to make the attacker unable to strike again. The only question is whether or not to retaliate with force in the first place.
So long as we have Tim around to keep a vigilant eye on the news and provide insightful commentary and Martinus around to start facebook groups and tackle people evil can never triumph again.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 10, 2013, 12:28:35 PM
Quote from: Martinus on April 10, 2013, 09:58:14 AM
In any case, my point was to illustrate that a society that started two wars over something ultimately not very significant would be capable of going on a rampage if, say, someone detonated dirty bombs in two major cities. Not sure why this prompted Tamas to go on some erratic tangent.
I don't understand the proportionality thing at all. If you have to retaliate, you do it completely. The point is to make the attacker unable to strike again. The only question is whether or not to retaliate with force in the first place.
I dont get the proportionality thing either. But I suppose a better/different point to make would be was there a need to attack. I wouldnt characterize it as "retaliation" but rather a threat emerged in dramatic fashion and had to be dealt with in some way. I would argue that the war in Afganistan was necessary to remove the Taliban's secure bases there. People may forget that the initial war effort was very successful and it has been forcefully argued that it was through a series of blunders that the initial military success was not followed by a complete destruction of AQ in that region (eg letting taliban fighters back into Packistan etc).
Iraq was a different matter. That war was started to remove weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. It was only after it turned out there were no such things that the spin doctors went to work to try to link Iraq with AQ but that turned out to go no where either. There are a lot of things to condemn regarding the war in Iraq but Marti's point misses the mark by a long way.
Pay back was at the very least part of the deal. You fuck us up, we fuck you up.
Quote from: garbon on April 10, 2013, 09:39:52 AM
I don't think the main motive was revenge (though if it was, more the pity to us as bloodlust isn't becoming for a supposedly enlightened state). I think acting against an organization that might have tried to make further attacks is sufficient reason alone.
I don't see how you can discount revenge completely as a motive though since previous smaller scale attacks had not resulted in such a massive response; moreover the purely precautionary argument for the War begs the question of why the USA let the Taliban etc. rule much of Afghanistan for several years prior to 9:11 given the previous attacks as well.
I'm not saying that it was the main motive, just that it should not be discounted as part of the motivation simply because we should be "too civilised to think that way".
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2013, 08:43:32 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 09, 2013, 10:49:23 PM
But you do need a critical mass of people who are gung-ho, and probably a majority who don't give a shit.
No, you need a sense that the previously acceptable is wrong, failing, or no longer applies and willingness on the part of the extremes to take advantage of this.
Why do you need that? Was there a sense in the American South in 1860 (or 1850, or 1800, or 1700) that the previously acceptable was wrong, or no longer applied? Do you really think dystopic societies can emerge solely from extreme political breaks? Just because that happened with the NSDAP or the Montagnards does not mean it provides the sole pattern upon which a horrorshow polity can exist. They can emerge, also, completely organically, based upon the prevailing morality of the time and, for the simplest reason, because they can. See also, China's stable periods, classical Greece, Republican
or Imperial Rome, and Islamic countries--any.
Quote
You really misunderstand culture, how society normalizes behavior, and the need of people to belong to that society. As I said, the ugliness of the "normal people" point of view is not that they were moral cowards and that they knew better and were weak, but rather that the obscene acts became the norm, and the extreme thinking became the center.
So, given twelve years, or fewer, and most normal people can be converted into either active killers or passive enablers. Is there any way that this is actually distinct from moral cowardice, which can be readily defined by willing to accept enormously negative consequences for others as long you're left alone? I seriously refuse to believe that the German people, or American whites, were unable to grasp the complex moral questions involved in the Holocaust or slavery because their society taught them these things were okay. I also know for a fact that some and many, respectively, were able to grasp these questions just fine, and they did stuff to oppose their evil governments, but in the former case there just weren't enough of them, who cared enough and were organized enough, to successfully defeat the Nazis from the inside.
QuoteAgain the naivete helps this. The "it can't happen here" mentality is the social self congratulations or an understood morality and self-awareness that will not let it happen is precisely what societies do - naturalize actions so they become the norm. A disruption, for modern western culture I would say a series of economic disasters, could easily destroy the comfortable normal and make the extremes far more likely to happen.
And I think that's 100% wrong, because the pre-Holocaust West was perfectly capable of doling out holocaust-level horrors to outgroups even when they were "comfortably normal" by the standards of their time. Something genuinely changed in our societies after the Holocaust; you could argue that it was a culmination of the process that probably started with the Thirty Years War, if not the Protestant Reformation, but World War II (granted, if you ignore the course of the war and its results in the East, which in fairness is what FDR, in his pragmatic wisdom, in fact did) was the most clear-cut contest of two competing visions of what the West's moral foundation should be, and it turned out that the vision founded upon inclusiveness and human rights and airpower won. Subsequently, you get 60 years of enormous social progress where, despite some lingering bigotry in all our hearts, the overwhelming consensus is that people should be secure in their persons, effects, and beliefs, and not be enslaved or put in gas chambers or told what to do with their bodies or whatever.
Economic disasters, short of extinction events, really unlikely to change that, unless you think being really poor is going to suddenly mean that you want to road drag your black neighbor or make women you don't even know carry pregnancies to full term. Also, p.s., we are in an economic disaster. Where are the pogroms. The modern-day NSDAP come to upset our terribly fragile liberal applecart?
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 12:20:52 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 11:45:12 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:14:36 AM
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
I agree with this trite generalization. Who wouldn't?
Ide for one. Thanks for coming out and playing
I never said that. My point was that such vigilance is now highly integrated into our political and ideological systems, in such a way that it would be very difficult to remove it.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 05:42:06 PM
Also, p.s., we are in an economic disaster. Where are the pogroms. The modern-day NSDAP come to upset our terribly fragile liberal applecart?
It's the worst economic condition the West has been in since the Great Depression, but compared to the Depression, or some of the economic collapses of the 19th century, we're living in an incredibly prospersous time.
EDIT:
QuoteI never said that. My point was that such vigilance is now highly integrated into our political and ideological systems, in such a way that it would be very difficult to remove it.
OTOH, I agree with Ide on this point, at least as long as we assume that Western countries don't break apart into smaller political units. If/when places like Detroit, eastern Kentucky, or the Vendee become independent states, those bets are off.
That explains the lack of any serious dissent, not the lack of bigotry.*
*Not to say that bigotry is lacking, but you know what I mean.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:14:36 AM
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
I agree also, but unlike grumbler, I don't think it's trite :)
Quote from: Valmy on April 10, 2013, 12:55:44 PM
So long as we have Tim around to keep a vigilant eye on the news and provide insightful commentary and Martinus around to start facebook groups and tackle people evil can never triumph again.
:lol:
Why doesn't that make me feel any safer? :unsure:
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 05:42:06 PM
...
Economic disasters, short of extinction events, really unlikely to change that, unless you think being really poor is going to suddenly mean that you want to road drag your black neighbor or make women you don't even know carry pregnancies to full term. Also, p.s., we are in an economic disaster. Where are the pogroms. The modern-day NSDAP come to upset our terribly fragile liberal applecart?
I've gotten the impression that the bolded bit has been coming back fairly strongly if incrementally in the US.
Part of the problem, Ide, is not that those involved in the elements of the Holocaust could not grasp the moral wrongness of the acts, but rather the group morality and belonging became more important than the actions. It was not that an internal morality was broken or that cowardice made the right course of action unpalatable, but more that the socialization of humans gives multiple levels or types of morality - and the weighing of actions within such a balance does not always come out clean and neat.
People have done things they know is wrong when the group says they are all right (at least given the circumstances) for as long as there have been people. Often it is the action of people outside of this communal group that are able to record, stop, or attempt to alter the actions. Inside the group the community can and does overwhelm.
I have to say that the present economic problems, while the greatest in 80 years, are not the type of thing to lead to such behavior. Had the mechanisms to restart internal credit, etc not been in place and 2008/9 had seen a total credit and financial meltdown, then such a scenario would have been possible. It takes time to enculturate, it takes time to exchange or add to their mores and possible actions. The devil is in the increments, not the sudden takeover.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 05:47:50 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 12:20:52 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 11:45:12 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:14:36 AM
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
I agree with this trite generalization. Who wouldn't?
Ide for one. Thanks for coming out and playing
I never said that. My point was that such vigilance is now highly integrated into our political and ideological systems, in such a way that it would be very difficult to remove it.
Whatever you point may have been, what you said was:
QuoteI cannot imagine any scenario where a country such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, basically any place you'd be likely to set a movie or book, would be very likely to be run by 40s-style throwback fascists that want to gas all the fags, coloreds, Jews (seriously?), or any discrete population group to death and all the women enslaved (e.g., Handmaid's Tale).
Why does a bigoted dystopia have to be totalitarian?
And those two ideas are logically incompatible how?
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 07:42:50 PM
Why does a bigoted dystopia have to be totalitarian?
No shit. It could be utilitarian.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:43:07 PM
And those two ideas are logically incompatible how?
Want to run that by me again?
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:43:07 PM
And those two ideas are logically incompatible how?
This was in reply to CC, not Razgo.
Okay, that clears things up.
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
I would look good in a black uniform.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:02:18 PM
I would look good in a black uniform.
it'd go well with the chrome on your walker :P
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
I dunno. I'd think I'd enjoy being put in a Japanese-American internment camp.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:03:10 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:02:18 PM
I would look good in a black uniform.
it'd go well with the chrome on your walker :P
Porkchops go in the ovens.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 08:03:22 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
I dunno. I'd think I'd enjoy being put in a Japanese-American internment camp.
yellow fever aside it would no doubt suck.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:04:13 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:03:10 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:02:18 PM
I would look good in a black uniform.
it'd go well with the chrome on your walker :P
Porkchops go in the ovens.
worth it!
Also :wub: for using Porkchop.
Uhm... Still worth it. Plus he'll entertain me with stories about the time he met the king of Siam.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 12:20:52 PM
Ide for one. Thanks for coming out and playing
I hope he reads your post, because otherwise he won't know that he disagrees with your trite generalization. Thanks for telling him what he believes.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Not to mention blacks were in a pretty bad situation for most of US history, but nobody calls 1850's America "Totalitarian".
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:08:42 PM
Uhm... Still worth it. Plus he'll entertain me with stories about the time he met the king of Siam.
Only reason you was called porkchop was that it fit the oven theme.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 08:09:01 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Not to mention blacks were in a pretty bad situation for most of US history, but nobody calls 1850's America "Totalitarian".
Quentin Tarantino probably did.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:10:45 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:08:42 PM
Uhm... Still worth it. Plus he'll entertain me with stories about the time he met the king of Siam.
Only reason you was called porkchop was that it fit the oven theme.
I'll still take it :D
:mad:
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2013, 06:03:58 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2013, 11:14:36 AM
I think we are being recklessly blind if we dont recognize that intolerance continues to exist in all Western democracies and if we kid ourselves into thinking that the sins of the past could never be repeated again.
I agree also, but unlike grumbler, I don't think it's trite :)
If that's not trite to you, then I am shocked. Were you actually recklessly blind before he posted?
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:03:10 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:02:18 PM
I would look good in a black uniform.
it'd go well with the chrome on your walker :P
Lulz, cripple slam.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:13:16 PM
:mad:
much like money and women in real life, on languish I'll take what I can get :D
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 08:11:23 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2013, 08:09:01 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Not to mention blacks were in a pretty bad situation for most of US history, but nobody calls 1850's America "Totalitarian".
Quentin Tarantino probably did.
He's a lot older then I thought. Tyranny need not come from a all powerful central government. It can come from smaller local governments, or no governments at all. It can come from private individuals with littler or no state mandate.
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2013, 07:04:03 PM
Part of the problem, Ide, is not that those involved in the elements of the Holocaust could not grasp the moral wrongness of the acts, but rather the group morality and belonging became more important than the actions. It was not that an internal morality was broken or that cowardice made the right course of action unpalatable, but more that the socialization of humans gives multiple levels or types of morality - and the weighing of actions within such a balance does not always come out clean and neat.
People have done things they know is wrong when the group says they are all right (at least given the circumstances) for as long as there have been people. Often it is the action of people outside of this communal group that are able to record, stop, or attempt to alter the actions. Inside the group the community can and does overwhelm.
I have to say that the present economic problems, while the greatest in 80 years, are not the type of thing to lead to such behavior. Had the mechanisms to restart internal credit, etc not been in place and 2008/9 had seen a total credit and financial meltdown, then such a scenario would have been possible. It takes time to enculturate, it takes time to exchange or add to their mores and possible actions. The devil is in the increments, not the sudden takeover.
I think you grossly underestimate the power of communications in the modern age. The communities you argue for aren't really primary any more in the West. Communities are as digital as they are physical in today's Western world. The power of people "outside of this communal group" aren't really outside it any more, at least in the West.
I suppose there could be some series of events that topples Western technology and ushers in a new Dark Age, but I can't think of any that are not wildly improbable.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Did Canada do that? The US didn't.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 07:53:01 PM
I guess a bigoted dystopia need not be totalitarian, but if I felt like it I could make a colorable (lol) argument that any bigoted dystopia is going to have at least a bit of a totalitarian cast to it.
Oh, I think it would have to have more than a tinge of totalitarianism to it. Otherwise, information technology is going to blow apart the myths that bigoted dystopias require to have legitimacy.
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 08:23:38 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Did Canada do that? The US didn't.
fine, america interned like 100,000 people of a racial group.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:29:22 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 08:23:38 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Did Canada do that? The US didn't.
fine, america interned like 100,000 people of a racial group. Happy Little Boat?
Okay. So long as we use actual facts and not made-up "facts" in our discussions. At least you 'fessed up immediately. That was the honorable thing to do, and I commend you for it.
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 08:32:17 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:29:22 PM
Quote from: grumbler on April 10, 2013, 08:23:38 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 07:58:55 PM
Canada and America interned an entire racial group not 70 years ago.
Did Canada do that? The US didn't.
fine, america interned like 100,000 people of a racial group.
Okay. So long as we use actual facts and not made-up "facts" in our discussions. At least you 'fessed up immediately. That was the honorable thing to do, and I commend you for it.
The intent of that post was clear, but i apologize for the personal attack, it was uncalled for and i'll remove it.
Double down on the name calling eggplant.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 10, 2013, 08:37:00 PM
Double down on the name calling eggplant.
can't take it back now. you've porkchopped me in the thread*, and porkchop i shall remain!
* kind of sounds like a dirty sex act, doesn't it? :D
Disgusting.
LULZ, "Porkchop" and "Eggplant". It's like being on the force with Inspector Ed Luger, NYPD.
Are "porkchop" and "eggplant" actual slurs, or just made-up ones on Languish?
Personally, I dunno what was wrong with "dago."
I can use it. It's our word.
No it isn't you cracker honky.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 08:44:58 PM
Are "porkchop" and "eggplant" actual slurs, or just made-up ones on Languish?
Personally, I dunno what was wrong with "dago."
I can use it. It's our word.
Yes. Porkchop comes from pork and cheese (portuguese -> pork and cheese? get it, get it?). It's a thing in canada anyway. Eggplant is a slur for italians. Sicilians namely. Play on on eggplants being black on the outside and white on the inside while sicilians are white on the outside but have black and muslim heritage.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.promoboxx.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2012%2F10%2Fthe_more_you_know.jpeg&hash=a26c7e675941f5e368486b71d1847fb03b6ca527)
Quote from: katmaiNo it isn't you cracker honky.
Don't be mad that my bloodline retained a lack of pigment, bro.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:48:33 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 08:44:58 PM
Are "porkchop" and "eggplant" actual slurs, or just made-up ones on Languish?
Personally, I dunno what was wrong with "dago."
I can use it. It's our word.
Yes. Porkchop come from pork and cheese (portuguese -> pork and cheese? get it, get it?). It's a thing in canada anyway. Eggplant is a slur for italians. Sicilians namely. Play on on eggplants being black on the outside and white on the inside while sicilians are white on the outside but have black on muslim heritage.
Not to mention the tainted blood of Greeks.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:48:33 PM
Yes. Porkchop come from pork and cheese (portuguese -> pork and cheese? get it, get it?). It's a thing in canada anyway. Eggplant is a slur for italians. Sicilians namely. Play on on eggplants being black on the outside and white on the inside while sicilians are white on the outside but have black and muslim heritage.
Long used for our fellow brothers in Christ of African decent. Or so I've been told.
Quote from: HVC on April 10, 2013, 08:48:33 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 10, 2013, 08:44:58 PM
Are "porkchop" and "eggplant" actual slurs, or just made-up ones on Languish?
Personally, I dunno what was wrong with "dago."
I can use it. It's our word.
Yes. Porkchop comes from pork and cheese (portuguese -> pork and cheese? get it, get it?). It's a thing in canada anyway. Eggplant is a slur for italians. Sicilians namely. Play on on eggplants being black on the outside and white on the inside while sicilians are white on the outside but have black and muslim heritage.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.promoboxx.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2012%2F10%2Fthe_more_you_know.jpeg&hash=a26c7e675941f5e368486b71d1847fb03b6ca527)
Thought the eggplant thing was a wacko reverse slur from CDM, since Italians in the US historically slurred blacks as [phonetically] "mumulyans" (~eggplants in Italian) for their color. :huh:
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 10, 2013, 11:58:33 PM
Thought the eggplant thing was a wacko reverse slur from CDM, since Italians in the US historically slurred blacks as [phonetically] "mumulyans" (~eggplants in Italian) for their color. :huh:
So many of my gifts are lost on this crowd. You people so don't deserve me.