Milan Kundera on the left’s dream
From The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera:
Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise– the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another. Andre Breton, too, dreamed of this paradise when he talked about the glass house in which he longed to live. If totalitarianism did not exploit these archetypes, which are deep inside us all and rooted deep in all religions, it could never attract so many people, especially during the early phases of its existence. Once the dream of paradise starts to turn into reality, however, here and there people begin to crop up who stand in its way. and so the rulers of paradise must build a little gulag on the side of Eden. In the course of time this gulag grows ever bigger and more perfect, while the adjoining paradise gets even smaller and poorer.
Get in line to sign the petition to arrest “climate deniers”.
I can only take a very modest amount of Mark Dice, but once in a while for entertainment value I look in; and, maybe even get a shock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW8dw9JY6Y
But, I thought the socialists promised us they could create heaven on earth.
You can live a transparent life without living in a glass house.
Who remembers Andre Breton these days? Almost 20 years ago I was playing a “Guess the Poet” game with an online group of poets and offered a Breton poem for guessing. No one could even try.
Breton was essentially the Pope of Surrealist Movement in the 1920s. Most people don’t know that surrealism started as a poetry movement before the painters climbed aboard. Breton was hot stuff in those days.
He joined the commuinst party, then was thrown out six years later. During WW2 he was in the US, making radio broadcasts for Voice of America. I’ve never been clear whether that was for the money or against the Nazis or both.
For his writings and his leadership of Surrealism Breton was an important figure in modern poetry and art of the first half of the twentieth century — now almost entirely forgotten.
Below is a typical Breton/Surrealist poem. Cheval was a real postman who became a minor hero to modern artists for building a stone palace out of rocks he encountered on his postal rounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval
___________________________________
Postman Cheval
We are the birds always charmed by you from the top of these belvederes
And that each night form a blossoming branch between your shoulders and the arms of your well beloved wheelbarrow
Which we tear out swifter than sparks at your wrist
We are the sighs of the glass statue that raises itself on its elbow when man sleeps
And shining holes appear in his bed
Holes through which stags with coral antlers can be seen in a glade
And naked women at the bottom of a mine
…
–Andre Breton
There is a child-like longing for a life with no responsibility and no consequences. It seems to me at this stage of my life that I see much more of this in some of my children and those who seem to adopt the left. Like so many parents who have had to make their own way in the world, I probably was too generous and lenient with my children. Still, most have turned out well. I fear the next generation, or rather their children, are far worse.
Andre Breton, too, dreamed of this paradise when he talked about the glass house in which he longed to live.
“Glass house” reminds me of the architect Philip Johnson: a photo tour of the house he began to build in 1949 is here: https://theglasshouse.org/
Johnson’s flirtation with fascism in the 1940s would not have surprised Kundera: “Johnson became a lightning rod for criticism, not only for his stylistic inconsistency, architectural formalism and his oft brash statements, but also for his embrace of fascist politics early in his life. While he did not appear to maintain these attitudes lifelong, he espoused pro-Nazi and American fascist sympathies during 1934-1940 . . . . Briefly working as a journalist at that time, he made statements that included not only pro-fascist attitudes but also anti-Semitic commentary. Although Johnson would attempt to distance himself from these early beliefs and statements from the 1940s on, these activities brought condemnation and criticism throughout his life.”
https://theglasshouse.org/learn/philip-johnson-biography/
There are styles in politics, but there’s also snobbery in political tastes.
How could Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, *and* Ezra Pound be so wrong?
Homos living in glass houses, I can understand 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBZJQmzRi4&list=RDXJJL-clqdfU&index=7
“Me and Magdalena”
An OK Monkee song I don’t remember at all. My sister-in-law is Magda, Magdalena.
Listening to old Monkees while reading the (real? Marxist) Freddie deBoer
https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/covid-panic-is-a-site-of-inter-elite
“a particularly strange form of worry porn that progressives have become addicted to in the past half-decade. It’s this thing where they insist that they don’t want something to happen, but they describe it so lustily, imagine it so vividly, fixate on it so relentlessly, that it’s abundantly clear that a deep part of them wants it to happen. ”
Worry porn is a good way to describe Democrats (not Left; none on ballots).
Freddie seems like a Dem who sees the Dems going off a cliff and wanting them to be more … pragmatic? Common-sense honest, anyway.
Reading him and others and links is so exciting, and time consuming, have little time for writing comments. Here, or there.
“They seek him here, they seek him there.
That damned, elusive, Pimpernel.”
That was a good book, and a good movie, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Haven’t thought of it in years.
The Dark Forest is a GREAT Sci-Fi book.
#2 of 3, first is Three Body Problem
And a likely answer to the Fermi Paradox, tho sad…
I oppose sending signals to space looking for aliens.
I also don’t believe in FTL (faster than light) for matter. I have hopes for info – so “ansible” comm between colonies and Earth maybe.
All should read The Three Body Problem, for a great early description of China’s Cultural Revolution, with a heroine’s father as an educator victim. Probably similar to, but not as extreme, as Pol Pot’s genocide against educated Cambodians.
Ken Follet’s The Fall of Giants (first of three) has a great fictionalization of early Bolshevik revolution Russia.
The seduction of the “dream of Paradise” will never die. We need progress to improve, but metrics to measure the improvement.
Incumbency re-election is a lousy metric, and too high. [Term limits? Better to have term limits on gov’t bureaucrats]
Profit is a good metric for sustainable businesses to create wealth, especially social wealth.
Gini is lousy / too complicated for income inequality. We should be looking at top 1% income (99 percentile) / median (50% level) income.
We need policies so that median after-tax income grows faster than top 1%, and need agreement on that metric. 90%/median is less important.
Yes, Communism is a sedative myth. The land of equality and no cares. Where someone will willingly till the soil, harvest the bounty, distribute it fairly to all, build homes/factories/infrastructure/power plants, and it will all happen while the artists/writers/students/intellects/back packers/rock climbers/dreamers all pursue their muse. What could possibly go wrong? 🙂
Building a civilization is hard. It requires a lot of work. Most people will not do that work unless there’s some kind of reward. And that is why an egalitarian society eventually becomes one of equality of misery – except for the ruling class.
I recently read an article about Zimbabwe, a country ruled by Marxists for the last forty years. A man old enough to remember the former white government led by Ian Smith, recalled those days fondly. He recalled that there was both enough food and jobs then. Now they have neither. food nor jobs. And that is the result of the seductive myth.
Yes, this movement has so much in common with religion. Jordan Peterson thinks that the rise of science, which challenged the superstitions of religion, left a big hole that idealistic cults like communism helped fill. So I always say, we need another way to talk to these people. Reason doesn’t work all that well, maybe we should challenge them more on a Jungian level.
Btw I read an interview with the director of Unbearable Lightness of Being a long time ago and he said that really it should translate the Unsustainable Lightness. Interesting.
“But, I thought the socialists promised us they could create heaven on earth.” Ray
They plan to get started, as soon as the deplorables are ‘neutralized’ and the irredeemables removed…
“There is a child-like longing for a life with no responsibility and no consequences. It seems to me at this stage of my life that I see much more of this in some of my children and those who seem to adopt the left.” Mike K
A longing for a life with no responsibility and no consequences is understandable in children. Even necessary to the retaining of childhood’s innocence.
That said, I remain convinced that the source of all facets of the left’s ideologies lies in the juvenile protest, “That’s not fair!”
Only maturity brings acceptance that life’s essential ‘unfairness’ is not only overall a positive good but in fact, an absolute necessity.
That however is not an excuse for man’s abuse of and inhumanity to man.
Zaphod,
“How could Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, *and* Ezra Pound be so wrong?”
How could Gates, Bezos and Warren Buffett be so wrong?
Intellgence is not equivalent to wisdom. They are entirely different qualities. Nor were Ford, Lindbergh and Pound free from their biases and perceptual filters. Nor are we all.
Mike, it’s worrisome, certainly.
Don’t know if this is any solace; but there is always the possibility of the “intergenerational backlash”(TM)—in this case, the grandchildren questioning/criticizing/rejecting the ethos (or lack of one) of their parents and asking their GRANDPARENTS something along the lines of, “Grandpa, Grandma, tell us what it was like in the days when people actually took responsibility for their words and actions, took chances without a second thought, tried to respect one another and rejected hatred, shaming, canceling and othering as knee-jerk responses. What was it like before social media screwed all of us up. How did people even live in those days?…. How did we get into this current mess? Also, are there any more of those chocolate chip-walnut cookies left (or bourbon/single-malt/etc., as the case may be)….?”
It’s been known to happen….
Now that the Jussie Smollett train wreck has been exposed officially for all to see (except those who refuse to), the spotlight is now on his enablers: Foxx…and by extension, Soros:
“Special Prosecutor Releases Full Report on Investigation of Soros-Backed Prosecutor in Jussie Smollett Case”
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/12/20/special-prosecutor-releases-full-report-on-investigation-of-soros-backed-prosecutor-in-jussie-smollett-case/
Turley on the Democrats unending and unyielding attack on the USA, its people and its institutions:
‘From Packing To Sacking, Democrats Pledge Politics “By Any Means Necessary”‘—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/packing-sacking-democrats-pledge-politics-any-means-necessary
I think this is FaceBook posting safe.
Goes against the agenda there, but over the head of the AI Censorbots.
Zaphod and the Cheeked Lindberg as fascist claim.
I’ve read this dispatched as no more than a scurrilous smear in authoritative terms. My referring is likely to be deficient.
Proviso notwithstanding, apparently Lindberg supported Nazi Germany in his diary. But not publicly.
His sympathies did not inform the very public opinions of a very public man. And only for a brief period.
Sorry that I cannot offer a proper fishing
But this claim is more disparaging myth than revealing Truth, and Zaphod collects and convicts a group from that time wrongly, me thinks.
@TJ:
I did not say that Charles Lindbergh was a fascist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If you don’t see Franco and Salazar as two great heros of C20 who held back the tide for a while then you really need to get out more.
Lindbergh was anti US involvement in the coming war in Europe and he was right to be so. You might want to read some pre-war sources and get a feel for who was hell-bent on US intervention and their motivations. The GIs who got mown down at Omaha Beach died so that their great grandchildren could be subjected to compulsory Drag Queen Story Hour. And so that Europe could become Africanised and Islamicised.
Plenty of other perfectly respectable folks were anti-interventionist too. You just don’t know about them because they were un-personed later. Funny how that always happens to the losers when the stakes are very high. Did you think un-personing is something only Russians and Chinese do?
Hitler was a bit of a retard to declare war on the USA after Pearl Harbor, but again… anyone with knowledge of the state of affairs at the time knows that the USA was already an undeclared co-belligerent supplying the UK and sinking any German U-boat it could get a bead on. The USA was not dragged into war in Europe… it was already a major participant from the get go.
Shit happens in this shitty world. It is not the God-given Purpose of the United States of America to run around sticking fingers in dikes. One of the problems with insanity is that it’s very hard to get the insane to look at themselves and admit they have a problem. Messianic Liberalism and Interventionism is insanity of the highest order. It gives virtue signalling feel goods… but look at the mess you’ve all ended up in. You won the war… showed those evil Nazis what’s what and just coincidentally killed your own societal soul in slow motion. And what did the Pax Americana get you? Global supply chains and logistics. Hmm…
Standard disclaimers about not impugning the bravery and sacrifice of individuals. We are talking statecraft here.
Rant Ends.
PS: What the three fellows I named had in common was the temerity to be less than effusively complimentary towards the perpetually blameless.
Zaphod:
Without the US in WWII Hitler would have taken over Europe and killed every single Jew, and then gone on to kill most of the Poles and kill or enslave many of the Slavs. Not your concern, right?
Your judgment is so poor it’s laughable.
By the way, Lindbergh didn’t just oppose entering the war. He thought the Nazis could not be stopped, so why bother trying. Bad judgment. But he was a Germanophile, as his strange and sleazy later life indicated.
There was a lot of time between the end of WWII and Drag Queen Story Time. A lot of good years. And it’s not over yet. By the way, I’d rather have Drag Queen Story Time any day than Nazis. Apparently you feel quite different. Luckily the generation who fought WWII didn’t need a guarantee of a perfect future in order to fight a present evil.
Not your country or your history. Your opinion, tedious.