Interesting article about why blogging is good, even if no one reads it. The guy makes some very solid points, and I know, because I have some first-hand knowledge in this area…
If you’re reading this, you’re undermining my point.
July 2010
As a fan of both Gilbert and Sullivan and Mass Effect…
…this pleases me to no end:
The internet is a dangerous place.
I wanted to look up one of the “death quotes” from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 about nationalism for a post I’m working on. Unfortunately, I accidentally wound up on a forum at this place. (No, I’m not going to link to their actual site.)
Apparently, they believe that Call of Duty is pushing “globalist propaganda” (which us normal people call “being against insane racists”) and are, of course, outraged by it.
This could make for an excellent ad campaign for Activision: “Fight neo-nazism! Buy Call of Duty!”
Bad by Nature.
I meant to blog about this at the time, but I didn’t, so here it is now:
A week after the Gulf oil spill started, Rush Limbaugh said:
“You do survive these things. I’m not advocating don’t care about it hitting the shore or coast and whatever you can do to keep it out of there is fine and dandy, but the ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there. It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.”
Which, like virtually everything Limbaugh says, upset people. But he is right–sort of. But he also makes a huge mistake.
It has always seemed to me that people draw a distinction between “natural” and “unnatural”, but really they shouldn’t. After all, are machines not made from naturally occurring elements? People have merely interacted with these elements to produce a new organism which produces different output. It is as natural a reaction as one could wish.
Strictly speaking, anything which can be said to exist is “natural”, precisely because if it were not natural it could not exist.
Limbaugh seems to assume that because the oil will be absorbed “naturally”, it is okay. When in fact the planet’s reaction–perfectly natural though it may be–may have dire long-term consequences for the living creatures currently inhabiting it.
So yes, it is literally impossible to harm “nature”. Nature is everything. The worst we can hope to do is to alter our environment so as to make it unlivable. (Which, by the way, I don’t think the oil spill has come close to doing.) But the point is that just because something is “natural”–which everything is–has absolutely no relevance to whether it is good for human life or not.
Fascism isn’t just people being mean, part 2.
As I have said, smart people often fall into the trap of believing this. But it is not true: for many terrible things were done in the name of communism; but communism was an explicitly internationalist movement. Fascism is an explicitly nationalist movement.
It is worth pointing out that during the Nazi’s rise to power, they fought against the communists. Fascism and communism are both cruel, but they are very different in terms of their core philosophy and assumptions.
This is why I have such sympathy for the libertarians; their philosophy serves as a safeguard against the evils of both nationalist fascism and internationalist communism.
DOWN WITH GEORGE ORWELL! DOWN WITH GEORGE ORWELL!
“The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction… The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.”–George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Part 2.
Well, Darryl Campbell argues that people are getting what they already know out of reading Orwell’s books, and not in a good way. He writes:
“Never mind that, for most of his life, Orwell advocated nothing short of a socialist revolution in England! As far as these people were concerned, Orwell’s works amount to nothing more than an anti-government, anti-change screed.”
“Orwell’s works… cannot really be understood without some semblance of historical and intellectual context.”
He argues persuasively, and I do agree that people may be reading more of libertarian philosophy into Nineteen Eighty-Four than was really Orwell’s intention. He was a bitter, disillusioned Socialist, not a Capitalist. However, I do disagree with Campbell on Animal Farm.
Animal Farm is not really political. It’s based off of the Soviet Union, but that’s just superficial. Really, it is about much deeper things than that. It is an allegory about human nature. And therefore it is, in my view, always relevant to any undertaking. Campbell argues that Orwell’s modern-day political opposites use Animal Farm‘s lines to oppose things Orwell himself would have supported. But of course! The point of Animal Farm was that even noble endeavors can go badly wrong.
(Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan)
A reminder:
“Our mortal race
Is never blest.
There’s no such case
As perfect rest;
Some petty blight
Asserts its sway.
Some crumbled rose-leaf light
Is always in the way!”
Is never blest.
There’s no such case
As perfect rest;
Some petty blight
Asserts its sway.
Some crumbled rose-leaf light
Is always in the way!”
–W.S. Gilbert. Utopia, Limited. Act I. 1893.
Glenn Beck for President?
I assume this is a joke.
For the record, though: if Beck were President, he would be less George Washington and more John Henry Eden.
The Big Question.
“Fellow-students: a Palestinian, an Iraeli, several Indians, a Pakistani… more than one evangelical Christian. We managed to get along just fine, even collaborating on homework!
Department parties were potential opportunities for World War III, but everyone attended, and all seemed to enjoy themselves… even engaging in conversation with “THE OTHER”.
So why is the world so fucked-up?”
I’d never realized it; but that is the central question of all political blogging, is it not?
Anyway, I’ve been meaning to link to something on Private Buffoon for a while now, because it’s an excellent blog and you should check it out.
Overusegate
Why must anything that is remotely scandalous in nature have the word “gate” appended to it? It doesn’t even make sense!
