Journal GMontag's Journal: On Orwell, the Good Guy Left and the Non-Thinkers 13
Hello gentle readers, fans, freaks and trolls.
The subject covers most of the topics that will be covered, but this is going to be a work-in-progress. I used the Books category, as it was the closest thing to a topic covering a man of letters and the people who use his name for snappy cocktail conversation. Comments are welcome until
Pretty much expanding on a few points from the now-famous "Things I have Learned Lately" Journal Entry, which were mostly covered with links and references in previous JEs. I might even be so bold as to run this through a spell checker on occasion too, ya never know.
The current plan is to use minimal, if any, linkage (because most people who read my Journal are good smart folk and it is insulting their intellect to provide a link to an author when they can copy and paste in their favorite search engine) and plenty of random observation.
Speaking of spell checkers, does anybody know of a good OS spelling and style checker that can use UK spellings and still use Harbrace style?
I will keep the references to Hitchen's bodily functions to a minimum, I promise.
Enough of that, on to the work.
On Orwell, the Good Guy Left and the Non-Thinkers
Mention the works of Eric Arthur Blair in a nest of Leftist Bush bashers and you will discover the functional meaning of the term "intellectual class." You will also witness a modern world, grass roots, peer enforced dumbing down of society to the brink of illiteracy straight from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. All of this with a large helping of big words used out of context.
That brings me back to Mr. Blair. He was a champion of using common language to express uncommon thought and trusted not a man who chose to use words too large to fit through a barn door. His observations in the early 20th century that writing in simple, common terms is much more honest in both theory and function are as true today as they were then. Most of what has changed is the mix of the molecules used by the self-styled intellectual class. Well, much of that has not changed either.
Put it to the test yourself, well if you are big enough to physically defend yourself in the company of cowards, and when the opportunity arises in a discussion of the United Nations inject the essay title Not Counting Niggers by Eric Blair and gauge the reaction. Don't be shy and say Not Counting N-words or any other cute obfuscation.
My instinct and my money say that you will be labeled a racist, then dismissed for bringing up an "unknown author". Never mind that this is one of the greatest works of anti-imperialist thought ever written. Never mind that it addresses real problems that persist today in nations with "empires" who are not represented by anybody back at the home base of the empire. If you reveal that is where you are going I predict a Star Wars discussion will break out, so resist the temptation. Thus is the stuff of the modern thinker.
You should see, in short order, that Ann Coulter is right and that the "intellectual class" is using classic "Doublespeak", coined by Blair, straight from 1984. She says their real name should be "the chattering classes", I prefer "chemically numbed babbling classes" but that doesn't roll off the tongue very well.
As a side note, Ms. Colter also describes her Libritarian fans as "Trekies who live in their mother's basements." Not as neat a package as "chattering classes", but every bit as descriptive. At the very least, the Libritarians do tend to actually think. Unfortunately they think they make a difference.
Back to the experiment. Add stimulus and observing the reactions. After you have been labeled a racist make sure that you mention Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Clemens. Your newfound foes may be threatening to call the police in short order. Better get your knuckles ready to hit the biggest one to extend your escape. The chattering classes do not like the works of Samuel Clemens because they know the exact number of times the word "nigger" is written in Huckleberry Finn, thus they are more enlightened than you.
Never mind that Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest most beautifully written and moving anti-slavery works ever penned in the English language. The chattering classes will have none of this. You need not mention the children's book Nappy Hair, unless you like to see big heads with tiny brains explode.
The experiment assumes, of course, that you are not in the company of Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair. Well, of course you are not because they would not be bashing President Bush and their criticism of his acts would remain within the confines of planet earth.
For some reason, the Bush bashing centers around style and ignores substance. This is purely predictable of course, because the other favorite topics of the babbling classes are style debates too. Be it the way Bush speaks - how dare he annunciate in a manner not approved in Lower Manhattan! - or the business of fur "looking bad on humans", the whole of their debates are emotional tripe perfectly suited for the Oxygen Channel and ill suited for the discussion of literature or public policy.
What happened to the thinking Left? They used to be counted in legions, but now they are an endangered species. I can certainly testify that my leaving the Left certainly did not impact their intelligence level as I was trapped in the same stupidity that they have now honed to a blunt stub. My real thinking about big issues did not begin until I was on my way out the door of the Anderson fringe of the Democrat Party.
The thinking Right has been around for quite some time. Yes, they become almost invisible when some Leftist posing as a Conservative is politically/intellectually executed, as was the case with Richard Nixon. However, William F. Buckley Jr., and his magazine continued the good fight, not giving any quarter to declining sales, etc.
Oh, PLEASE! Anybody reading this who thinks Nixon was some sort of "Conservative" probably burned his copies of "National Review" as soon as Prof. George F. Will began writing for the periodical. I will not entertain your nonsense any further.
Some have suggested and some have "charged" - as if their kangaroo court in a coffee house had any standing - that I must be an avid reader of Ayn Rand. This puzzled me at first as I had not known the name prior to the "charges" being read (this was when I was in my late 20's, before I accepted/knew that I was a Conservative). When a book title of her's was tacked to the strawman of "evidence" I admitted to knowing the title, but still had no idea who the woman was.
To this day I have not knowingly read a single paragraph of her work and only a moment ago (when researching the correct spelling of her name) discovered that she was Russian born. The William F. Buckley Jr., mentioned above, is nearly my only source of information on the woman. From his book tour for "Getting it Right" he read a few bits while at the "Barnes and Noble" in Washington, D.C. Seems to me that the Left has gotten her Wrong just as badly as they get everything else wrong. She is on my list of people to read, but I think I will read her after I read the Buckley historical novel.
As Buckley says in "Getting it Right", Robert Welch could be thought of as a candy maker in the same way that Lincoln could be thought of as a railsplitter. Not familiar with a name up there? Somehow, the only historical figures who the Left allows into a discussion are Stalinists or Leftists who disavowed Stalin. The latter are called "the Right" in: Political Science classes; most American papers whose titles end in "Times"; "news radio" on networks who do not have an "A" in their abbreviation and on all but one cable news network (the one outlier does not do much better, but better). Simply blaming these organizations for our own ignorance will not do. Anybody who wishes to discuss these topics needs to educate themselves.
As for the "charges", they were accusations of reading, but not reading what the accusers liked. My defense was that my views are independently mine no matter who thought of and wrote about them independent of my thoughts. Of course I was immediately "convicted" of stating falsehoods as no person could possibly "do that," i.e., all thought "had to be handed down from on high" or some such rubbish.
Yes, this brings me back to the topic of the self-imposed illiteracy on the non-thinking Left. They can not possibly read everything, what they have read is all that exists and if their heroes like it it is true, if their heroes dislike it it is false. Perhaps this is the origin of the "independent thinker" movement. Anoint someone an "independent thinker" and follow them like a messiah. Especially if he denounces religion.
I am reminded again, by Dannon, of the tossing about of the term Fascist by everybody to the Left of Phyllis Schlafly as some sort of label for anybody who they do not agree with. Obviously these people would not know a Fascist if the Fascist were poking them in the eye with a bundle of sticks. For one thing, the Fascists of the past put Socialism into brutally efficient practice everyplace they took over. Perhaps it is just Socialist jealousy ?
Whatever it is it makes little sense, especially when the folks who want to decentralize government seem to be the only ones who get accused and convicted by the coffee house tribunals.
Another observation, that I shall clumsily jam in here for now, and pray for a way in post-production to blend it in, is this notion that just because most of the 9/11/2001 terrorists were born in Saudi Arabia that we should be attacking them. No, I did not hear this from Pat Buchanan (although I would not be surprised). I did not hear this from an ex-Regan administration official or anybody else who labels themselves a Conservative (justified or not).
I hear this nonsense on a regular basis from Leftists on the Left-of-FOX cable channels. I hear them on the Pacifica radio network. I hear them on other radio shows. I must admit, hearing this nonsense did surprise me in the sense that I did not think the people speaking would display that level of stupidity. However, I think that I finally solved the puzzle without purchasing a vowel.
The folks who are proposing this nonsense first argue that we should not have invaded Iraq, which is understandable because they support Socialist Dictators. They then try to turn the focus, doing their pathetic imitations of Noam Chomsky, onto the Saudis, who they do not like anyway. Might have something to do with that royalty business. From their chatter I glean that this is the case, although they make no effort at proving a case. They just toss out sayings that might make a good bumper sticker gathering dust at an old Stuckey's.
Now, backing up a bit, these are the same folks who would in a second chastise you or I, and quite rightly by-the-way, for saying anything like this about any other nationality. Especially any other nationality predominately darker than the Irish. For some reason, this "value" of theirs, that the whole of a people is not to be blamed for the antics of a few members, goes right out the window (in this case, through the windows in NYC and Arlington, VA) as soon as a culprit has been identified as having a genetic link to someplace they hate.
Never mind who the 9/11 hijackers were actually working for, oh no! It is their birth certificate that matters now!
That is all for now, will continue throughout the month.
Ha (Score:2)
In my head, that came out in Stan Lee's voice.
What happened to the thinking left (Score:2)
Re:What happened to the thinking left (Score:2)
Pretty much everything Orwell wrote was ridiculed at the time. The two worst were his writings on the Ukrane famine, where Durante and other Stalin lovers were taken as gosple and the truth-tellers were painted as liars. Same with hiswritings of the Spanish Revolution/Civil War. On both counts it was not until Ronald Regan defeated the Soviet Union and the archives were opened thaat
Re:What happened to the thinking left (Score:2)
The intellectuals on both sides are mostly gone from the public eye. Instead we have humorists and propogandists, and the occasional intellectual who is either ridiculed or ignored.
We've seen a rise in mindless Bush bashing at the same time we've seen a rise in mindless liberal bashing. People don't rally behind rationality without passion, and passion tends to preclude logic and at times reality. When your au
THe right isn't really much more thinking (Score:2)
There's a marginal difference.
The striking thing about Eric Blair is that he was a committed leftist (though more of the anarchist than socialist side). It's striking how many people who use Orwell (on the left and the right) never actually read anything he wrote.
Not accusing you of being in any of those ignorant classes, btw.
Re:THe right isn't really much more thinking (Score:2)
Speaking as a conservative whose read ~all of the collected works, I'm going to disagree with part of this.
One thing you have to keep in mind about Conservatism is that it is not an ideological movement in the sense that leftism is (indeed, a famous definition of Conservatism is ``the negation of ideology''). Among other things, this means that Conservatives should be (and the great Conservative thinkers, from Burke to Russel Kirk, to Reagan, to Kristol and Podhoretz have always been) ready to look at a
Re:THe right isn't really much more thinking (Score:2)
I thought this was a critique of my JE and I was searching desperately for something that criticized what I wrote, LOL!
Finally checked parent and noticed who you were talking to
Re:THe right isn't really much more thinking (Score:1)
Heh. :-)
No, the JE is right on, IMHO. :-)
Re:THe right isn't really much more thinking (Score:1)
Well, look at that -- only an hour and 38 minutes to come up with that one.
Your trolls are getting smarter, GMontag -- not smart as in ``level of intelligence unmatched by petri-dish specimens'', but smarter, nonetheless.
Re:THe right isn't really much more thinking (Score:2)
Unfortunately he decided to stay in the relative safety of Ruby Tuesday's until long af