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Orwell on unhinged intellectuals — 17 Comments

  1. The one thing institutions of higher learning (or any learning, for that matter) don’t teach is common sense.

  2. Hello neo, sorry if this is not quite that thread, its just more current. Anyway, you might have already seen this. An answer to Sally Quinn about which world reality is real compared to the more “nuanced” and complex world of Obama:

    THE PEACE-AT-ANY-PRICE PERIL

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/08202008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_peace_at_any_price_peril_125232.htm

    “Putin believes in force. Just because we don’t share his values doesn’t mean he’s going to see the light.”

  3. A father of one of my childhood friends used to label such as “Intellectual Idiots”.

    When I became a young academic I found the phrase offensive. (like Neo I was a reg. Democrat at the time) Now I know it fits 98% of my colleagues. Orwell was spot-on.

  4. The question for those immersed in postmodern academia has to be…Just what valid education and experience has all this caused them to miss?

    Apparently a lot.

  5. The first time I read “Notes on Nationalism” I was astonished at how much of it could have been written yesterday. And the quote you include is one of my all-time favorite quotes of anyone.

    I haven’t read his “Homage to Catalonia”, but I did find this quote.

    “The fat Russian agent was cornering all the foreign refugees in turn and explaining plausibly that this whole affair was an Anarchist plot. I watched him with some interest, for it was the first time that I had seen a person whose profession was telling lies – unless one counts journalists.”

  6. Common sense is a domain of uneducated folks. Analitic thinking requires shedding off these shackles. But this can and does boomerang: outside their domain of expertise, intellectuals often are idiots.

  7. Harry, it seems that Putin is right in his belief in force. This is a more realistic worldview, than that of peacenics.

  8. Having somewhat enjoyed, for a while, adding the occasional comment from a perspective from outside the echo chamber choir of Neo-neo’s neo con acolytes, I became bored and wandered away as the focus shifted to relentless anti-Obama campaigning. Between a call for equality of the sexes in Olympics volleyball uniforms and a link to Orwell on nationalism I thought I’d toss in a comment, in part to reward Neo for stepping away from her campaign efforts long enough to find something else to say other than the world as we know it will end if Obama gets elected.

    Here are three quotes from the Orwell essay that (forgive me) reminded me most immediately of the neo-conservative variant of nationalism.

    “Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties.”

    “As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit. It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance. The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organization, fills him with uneasiness which he can relieve only by making some sharp retort.”

    “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them … The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

    It is no surprise that among those who comment here these very traits will be identified with liberals, leftists, Islamofascists, communists, et al and vilified without any sense of irony or acceptance that they apply so well to the stunted nationalism that is at the heart of the neo-conservative movement.

  9. Chris, these traits are no monopoly of nationalism, of course, they are so universal that can be called simply human nature. They characterize any ideological, ethnical, national, tribal, religious or party affiliation, any partisanship. But in the heart of neo-conservative movement lies not nationalism, but, quite the opposite, exaggerated universalism, alike Bolshevick internationalism. I would like to see neocons to admit more nationalistic position, and less messianistic zeal.

  10. So “nationalist” is the new insult du jour. I suppose now that Obama is desperately struggling to proclaim his patriotism, the left can’t use “patriot” as an insult any more.

  11. From Orwell’s essay:

    >>PACIFISM
    The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point.

    But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism.

    Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of western countries.

    The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British.

    Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts.

    Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransfered.

  12. And the intellectual pacifists have transferred their loyalty, all right –to the Islamofascists.

    Orwell was a frickin’ genius. He notes that the one thought a Pacifist can’t admit to his consciousness is the reality that those who refuse to fight have the luxury of doing so ONLY because there are others who fight on their behalf or in their stead.

  13. From time to time, usually in college where the opportunity was more likely, one could see weedy, wimpy guys practically drooling over big, powerful, violent jocks. It was not, I suppose, anything to do with sexual attraction. But about the knowledge of one’s inadequacy in the area of physical combat–even if fighting in self-defense on a large campus is pretty rare–and other raw, unnuanced physical capabilities.
    The loudest screamers to “kill, Bubba, kill” at the football games were the weediest, wimpiest guys who were forever talking about being “in the streets”.

    I hope the metaphor is clear enough.

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