Huxley’s Brave New World, language, and the family

The New Neo Posted on by

I read Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World shortly after I had read Orwell’s dystopian Nineteen-Eighty-Four. I was around thirteen years old at the time, and I didn’t quite get Brave New World although I did finish it.

In my opinion both are masterpieces, but Orwell’s novel was much more straightforward and easy to understand, as well as more frightening to me. Huxley’s work was more complex and subtle in its message. I think I perceived only about half of the content’s implications – in particular, the social programming through science. I only partly understood the rest of what was happening in that future world: the desire to eliminate human suffering by eliminating human freedom, and the huge costs humanity and individuals would pay in such a society.

Over the years, however, I’ve re-read Brave New World several times, and each time I read it I appreciated it more than before. I see our current society and current predicament as an amalgam of the two, but more like Huxley’s vision than Orwell’s. Yet I see people referencing Orwell more often – perhaps because more have read it, or at least excerpts from it?

Although it was Orwell who discussed in great depth the use of language as mind-molding propaganda – his invention of Newspeak is genius – Brave New World doesn’t ignore the use of language. In Huxley’s work, it’s the elimination of certain words as obscenities that is especially interesting in light of certain trends today; I’m thinking of the drop in the birthrate in Westernized countries and the fall in the marriage rate.

You may recall that, in Brave New World, society’s designers had not only eliminated the family but had made words like “mother” unspeakable obscenities that were offensive to even utter. Interesting, no? And remember, Huxley’s book was published in 1932, nearly a hundred years ago:

‘And “parent?”?’ questioned the D.H.C.

There was an uneasy silence. Several of the boys blushed. They had not yet learned to draw the significant but often very fine distinction between smut and pure science. One, at last, had the courage to raise a hand.

‘Human beings used to be…’ he hesitated; the blood rushed to his cheeks. ‘Well, they used to be viviparous.’

‘Quite right.’ The Director nodded approvingly.

‘And when the babies were decanted…’

‘”Born”,’ came the correction.

‘Well, then they were the parents–I mean, not the babies, of course; the other ones.’ The poor boy was overwhelmed with confusion.

‘In brief,’ the Director summed up, ‘the parents were the father and the mother.’ The smut that was really science fell with a crash into the boys’ eye-avoiding silence. ‘Mother,’ he repeated loudly rubbing in the science; and, leaning back in his chair, ‘These,’ he said gravely, ‘are unpleasant facts; I know it. But, then, most historical facts are unpleasant.’

Here’s another quote from the book:

“Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. But there were also husbands, wives, lovers. There were also monogamy and romance. “Though you probably don’t know what those are,” said Mustapha Mond. They shook their heads. Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy. “But every one belongs to every one else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb.”

If you’ve never read the book, or if you haven’t read it in a long long while, you might want to take a look.

Polls and goals

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve written a little about polls this election cycle, but not all that much. And that’s true not only just now, when Harris has been rising in the polls in somewhat alarming fashion, but also when Trump seemed to be way ahead. I didn’t rely on them back then in those relatively halcyon days because I continued to think that something would happen over time to cut into his lead, although I couldn’t predict what it would be.

And of course there was also the possibility of a fraudulent election, which remains the case.

As for the present polling on Harris, she’s a new candidate and most people didn’t pay tremendous attention to her as VP, now did they ever even hear of Walz till now (although we political junkies certainly did, as did the people of Minnesota). So I don’t think the polls now are all that meaningful although I follow them.

But I notice here and elsewhere that some people pay quite a bit of attention to them, which is understandable. Polls at this point indicate trends, although they can be manipulated. The trend is Harris rising, but whether that will last or reverse itself is completely unknown. What is known is that at present the polls indicate an election too close to call; sound familiar?

National polls are less meaningful than swing state polls, but both can change. There are polls showing Trump slightly ahead and polls showing Harris slightly ahead, in important areas. So any commenter or pundit or party operative can pick and choose from among them, depending on the desired effect. Cheerleaders for a certain side will choose to report on polls that show that side’s candidate ahead. Depressives (or concern trolls) will do the opposite: report on polls that show the opponent ahead.

And this election cycle already seems as though it’s lasted 25 years. And maybe, in some respects, it has.

The Shapiro snub and the Jewish vote

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Richard Aubrey” asks a question:

Did dumping—or scaring off–Shapiro do enough to catch the attention of non-observant Jews?
Shapiro’s observant. But does “No Jews Need Apply” get the attention of the ethnic-only Jews?

Let me first note that even non-religious, ethnic-only Jews are not all Democrats. This poll taken in 2020 indicates that something between 19% and 22% of non-religious Jews were Republicans at that time, and I would guess that figure has gone up to some unknown extent since then. Although Richard Aubrey’s question appears to lump all ethnic-only Jews together, I’ll assume that his question only applies to those “ethnic-only” Jewish voters who would be inclined to vote for Harris in the first place. So my response in this post only applies to that latter group.

I obviously can’t answer the question about how many will notice, because no one can answer that question unless a poll were to be taken of that group about that specific question. But my contention is that, for most of them, even if they did notice, it wouldn’t matter in terms of their votes and they would still vote for Harris/Walz. They would give any of the following reasons, and some would probably give some combination of these reasons. Nor would this be limited to Jewish voters; these reasons would be available to any Democrats or swing voters who are not rabidly anti-Semitic, and numbers 2-7 would be available to any Democrats or swing voters who are not rabidly anti-Semitic and rabidly anti-Israel:

(1) They would say that Shapiro was rejected because he is pro-Israel rather than because he’s Jewish, and they don’t support Israel either.

(2) They would say that even though the rejection of Shapiro was unfortunate, it was a pragmatic decision by Harris (or her advisors) that made sense, because dumping Shapiro would help Kamala win and winning is all that matters at this point because Trump is tantamount to Hitler.

(3) They are deeply upset by Shapiro’s rejection and think the ticket is the worse for it, but will vote for Kamala anyway because Trump is tantamount to Hitler.

(4) They are low-information voters and don’t even know it happened.

(5) They are low-information voters and have never heard of Shapiro.

(6) They are aware that Harris didn’t choose Shapiro but they deny that it had anything to do with his being a Jew or his stance on Israel.

(7) They are aware of the the event but believe that it was Shapiro who said “no” to Harris (which may even be true).

The point is that there are many avenues available to those who might have any cognitive dissonance about what happened to Shapiro. Cognitive dissonance is generally an uncomfortable experience, and people – not just Democrats, not just leftists, not just Jews (ethnic or otherwise) – will usually go to great lengths to rationalize it away or reason it away.

Trump assassination attempt bodycam

The New Neo Posted on by

Some new footage from that day shows a chaotic situation with extremely poor communication, almost like that old “who’s on first?” routine from Abbot and Costello – only this isn’t funny:

In other bodycam video, officers are clearly confused about why the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building, where Crooks shot from, was unmanned.

“I thought you were on the roof?” one officer says.

…

“Why were we not on the roof…why weren’t we?”

…

There also appears to be confusion about whether the shooter was neutralized and the shooter wasn’t taken out before he opened fire.

“If you’d all had a gun up there … I’d have shot him. He wouldn’t have ripped out a gun up there,” one officer says in the bodycam.

Notes from Chairman Walz: “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness”

The New Neo Posted on by

Not really, Tim; one is involuntary and the other is voluntary.

This was the context in which Walz said it:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz … made these comments last week on the “White Dudes For Harris” fundraising call.

“Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values. One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness,” Walz said.

Another quote from Nice Guy Walz on the same occasion:

Here’s the great news: how often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? How often in 100 days do you get to do something that’s going to impact generations to come? And how often in the world do you make that bastard wake up afterward and know that a Black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road?

And you know that’s something that guy’s going to have to live with for the rest of his life.

Grandiose much? “Trajectory of the world” and “generations to come” – forget four years. And of course, “that bastard” is Trump and Harris is the black woman kicking his ass.

Re socialism, I guess Walz has never read Kundera. Or maybe he has, and thinks these prospects would be great (both quotes are from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting):

… human beings have always aspired to an idyll, a garden where nightingales sing, a realm of har­mony where the world does not rise up as a stranger against man nor man against other men, where the world and all its people are molded from a single stock and the fire lighting up the heavens is the fire burning in the hearts of men, where every man is a note in a magnificent Bach fugue and anyone who refuses his note is a mere black dot, useless and meaningless, easily caught and squashed between the fingers like an insect.

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.

Another clever use of words by the left: abortion bans

The New Neo Posted on by

For quite some time, the left has labeled a limit of any sort on abortion-at-will to be an abortion ban. It’s a way to mislead by using a word in a different way than is customary.

For example, see this from factcheck.org (an article which actually does some halfway decent fact-checking on Harris and Walz):

Walz claimed Trump “said he’d ban abortion across this country.” Trump once supported legislation that included a federal 20-week ban on abortions, with some exceptions. But Trump now says it is entirely a state issue, and that he does not support a national abortion ban and would veto such a bill.

A ban on abortions after 20 weeks is not what the vast majority of people would think of as an abortion ban minus the qualifier about the time frame. To give some perspective, a baby delivered at 24 weeks is able to survive between 60 and 70 percent of the time, and the youngest preemie to ever survive was 21 weeks old. And so a “ban” of abortions past 20 weeks is actually a very liberal abortion law. But the use of the word “ban” to describe such a law is to purposely and knowingly mislead people.

And of course Trump doesn’t even advocate that anymore; he says states can decide.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Walz seems to be a real piece of work. As the Stolen Valor scandal builds, will it cause him to be dumped by the Democrats and replaced? There’s a poll on that at Legal Insurrection. In the subtitle to that post by Professor Jacobson, the name “Biden” is used as a verb: Will Democrats ‘Biden’ him before the convention?

(2) The Babylon Bee does it again. The title of the piece: “‘They Got You In Here Too, Huh?’ Says Biden As Dems Lock Kamala In Basement.” Follow the link to see the photo, which is priceless.

(3) Rumor has it that Iran will strike Israel on Tisha B’Av, which is August 12-13. The symbolism would be the point:

Unnamed Western intelligence sources quoted by the UAE-owned Sky News Arabia indicate that Iran and Hezbollah plan to launch their retaliatory strike against Israel on Tisha B’av, the day of mourning for the destruction of the two Jewish temples …

The sources indicate that the choice of the day is due to several psychological and tactical considerations. It may aim to revive historical traumas for Jews of destruction and uprooting, thereby amplifying the psychological impact of the attack on Israeli society.

To Muslim audiences receptive to Iran and Hezbollah’s narrative, an attack on Tisha B’Av would signal that Israel is vulnerable to destruction, the way Jews have historically been, the sources add.

A large-scale attack on a day of religious significance may also exploit Israel’s lowered defenses and “increase the state of chaos,” …

(4) Lee Smith believes that Obama has been in charge all along.

(5) David Dutch, one of the victims shot and badly injured at the Butler PA Trump rally, is out of the hospital and has issued a statement. He and the other surviving victim have retained lawyers, as well you might imagine.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I missed the anniversary yesterday, but today I’m recycling this previous post on the subject.]

Once again it’s the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Nagasaki followed three days later, and Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.

To date these two bombs remain—astoundingly enough, considering the nature of our oft-troubled and troubling species—the only nuclear warheads ever detonated over populated areas. (I’ve written at length on the subject of those bombs: see this, this, and this.)

Oliver Kamm wrote a while back:

Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire – and for Japan itself. One of Japan’s highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties.

This context always needs to be kept in mind when evaluating any “terrible thing”—and there is no question that the dropping of these bombs was a terrible thing.

But critics who are bound and determined to portray the West as evil, marauding, bloodthirsty— whatever the dreadful adjective du jour might be—are bound and determined to either avoid all context, or to change the true context and replace it with fanciful myth. As Kamm writes, those who want to portray Hiroshima and Nagasaki as American crimes cite evidence of an imminent Japanese surrender that would have happened anyway.

Trouble is, available information points strongly to the contrary. It’s difficult to know whether those who argue that the bombs were unnecessary and the deaths that ensued gratuitous are guilty of poor scholarship, wishful thinking, or willful lying – but most likely it’s some combination of these elements.

Truth in history is not easy to determine (see this), although it helps greatly if conventions of scholarship (sources, citations) are properly followed. Oh, the main events themselves are often not disputed – except for fringe groups – although the details are often the subject of disagreement. But it’s the motivations behind the acts, the hearts and minds of the movers and shakers, the “what-might-have-been’s” and the “but-fors” that are so open to both partisan interpretation and willful distortion, and so deeply meaningful.

It’s hard enough to determine what happened. How many died in Dresden, for example? Do we believe Goebbels’s propaganda as promulgated by David Irving, or do we believe this work of recent exhaustive scholarship? The former “facts” have reigned now in popular opinion for quite a while, and although the latter mounts a far more convincing case, how many have read it or are familiar with the facts in it, compared to those who have been heavily exposed to the former?

There’s what happened, and then there’s why it happened—the meaning and intent behind the policy. A combination of the two is what propaganda is all about. It takes a lot of time and effort to wade through facts, make judgments about the veracity of sources, and be willing to keep an open mind.

Much easier to stand in a public square (as a bunch of nodding, smiling, waving, elderly peace-love Boomers regularly used to do in a town where I lived) holding huge banners declaring “9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB.” Repeat it often enough, and the hope is it will become Truth in people’s eyes.

Especially in the eyes of the young, and of future generations, who don’t have their own memories to go on. It’s much harder to convince a WWII vet that Hiroshima was an unnecessary war crime than it is to convince a young person of same; the former not only has the context, he has own personal memories of the context. World War II veterans are scarce these days and getting scarcer by the minute. And propagandists from the left are more numerous, with larger platforms from which to distribute their products. They are not just interested in changing opinions in the present, they’re interested in history and the future.

[NOTE: The definitive essay on the dropping of the atomic bomb by a contemporary and a fine historian is Paul Fussell’s “Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.” And for a good discussion of all the controversy about whether Japan was thinking of surrendering prior to Hiroshima, see this. For a discussion of the idea that Russia’s entry into the war against Japan rather than the atomic bomb was the cause of Japan’s surrender, see this.]

Dueling military narratives: Vance versus Walz

The New Neo Posted on by

Both VP nominees have some military background.

J. D. Vance was a Marine who served in Iraq:

After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003, Vance enlisted in the US Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a combat correspondent for six months in late 2005. He was part of the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing and said that his service “taught me how to live like an adult” and that he was “lucky to escape any real fighting”. His decorations included the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.

Vance enlisted knowing that war was almost certainly going to be part of the equation. After his service, he attended college on the GI bill and later went to Yale Law School.

And then there’s Walz, who was in the National Guard of Minnesota for 24 years. He also didn’t see combat, and therein lies a tale:

When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz chose to leave the military on the eve of his deployment to Iraq, Thomas Behrends went in his place.

“I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,” Behrends said of the 500 soldiers under his command. “For a guy in that position, to quit is cowardice.”

Behrends, a 63-year-old farmer in Brewster, Minn., called the Democratic vice presidential candidate “a traitor” for retiring from their Minnesota National Guard unit just before their deployment to Iraq in 2005.

“When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” the retired command sergeant major told The Post Tuesday. “He ran away. It’s sad.

Vance has addressed the issue this way:

But here’s my question: will any of this matter? The people I know who will vote for Harris are so virulently anti-Trump that nothing about Walz (or Harris, for that matter) could dissuade them. Then again, I don’t think I know any swing voters, to whom this sort of thing might matter.

And wouldn’t a lot of people these days think that not serving in Iraq is a badge of honor?

And then there’s this statement from Democrat Senator Tina Smith from Walz’s state of Minnesota:

That’s a US senator speaking. I ask the same old question that I’ve asked about so many others: is she that ignorant or was she merely lying and didn’t think she’d be called out on it? If the latter, she can be forgiven for believing that Acosta wouldn’t correct her; after all, the MSM lets most Democrat lies pass.

The larger point, way beyond Tina Smith, is that many Democrats will purposely lie – and so will the MSM – in order to fool the listener and spread the lie, calculating that it’s a huge plus. They’ve seen their lies become reality for so many people, over and over: Russiagate, hands up don’t shoot, Trump said racist things in Charlottesville, just to name a few. They know the truth of the old adage: A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on.

[ADDENDUM: See also this about claims that Walz fought in the War on Terror. In addition, see this as well as this. And then there’s also this.]