“The thing that strikes me more and more—and it strikes a lot of other people, too—is the extraordinary viciousness and dishonesty of political controversy in our time. I don’t mean merely that controversies are acrimonious. They ought to be that when they are on serious subjects. I mean that almost nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point. “
I opened the Substack app and I had forgotten which post I had open, this was the first section I read and it took me a moment to remember I was reading an 80 year old Orwell passage
This should be sent to the New York Times and all other major newspapers under a new name, maybe without the Trotskyites, Nazi's become Neo-Nazis, and few other modifications, in a letter to the editor and see what happens.
Trying to understand usually leads to peace, however tenuous. Not trying to understand usually leads to discord and in politics and world affairs to war. We need pamphlets to provoke, but they should come with a warning like cigarettes: “This is opinion and not necessarily the truth or the whole truth. Use wisely.”
Everyone tries to remain neutral until they are personally affected. Whoever hurts them first becomes their enemy. It's mostly an emotional knee-jerk reaction that turned people into Nazis or liberals or conservatives or anarchists...
Most only care about their own personal interests so by appealing to that mostly, a party can persuade the most people.
“The thing that strikes me more and more—and it strikes a lot of other people, too—is the extraordinary viciousness and dishonesty of political controversy in our time. I don’t mean merely that controversies are acrimonious. They ought to be that when they are on serious subjects. I mean that almost nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point. “
I opened the Substack app and I had forgotten which post I had open, this was the first section I read and it took me a moment to remember I was reading an 80 year old Orwell passage
Some things never change it seems
The more things change the more they stay the same.
Nothing really changes because the nature of people remains the same.
This should be sent to the New York Times and all other major newspapers under a new name, maybe without the Trotskyites, Nazi's become Neo-Nazis, and few other modifications, in a letter to the editor and see what happens.
Trying to understand usually leads to peace, however tenuous. Not trying to understand usually leads to discord and in politics and world affairs to war. We need pamphlets to provoke, but they should come with a warning like cigarettes: “This is opinion and not necessarily the truth or the whole truth. Use wisely.”
Everyone tries to remain neutral until they are personally affected. Whoever hurts them first becomes their enemy. It's mostly an emotional knee-jerk reaction that turned people into Nazis or liberals or conservatives or anarchists...
Most only care about their own personal interests so by appealing to that mostly, a party can persuade the most people.