Nationalism, smashionalism ...
So on my flight, which I was pleasantly surprised by how short it was, I read Why I Write: Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind, by, George Orwell and it was fantastic. Partially memoir partially social critic it's clarity and style is fierce. Two passages I really liked for completely different reasons:
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual , nor I against them. They are ‘only doing their duty’, as the
saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.
Brilliant and now this which is just out-loud funny, he's starting off reflecting on English characteristics:
One is the lack of artistic ability. This is perhaps another way of saying that the English are outside the European culture. For there is one art in which they have shown plenty of talent, namely literature. But this is also the only art that cannot cross frontiers. Literature, especially poetry, and lyric poetry most of all, is a kind of family joke, with little or no value outside its own language-group...
Well I find this hysterical because I find it uncanny in its truthfulness, I at the same time think that it says something that Orwell did not maybe intend. That despite being really passionate about how different Americans and Brits are thats really a lot of selective focus on both peoples parts to see ourselves that way. Language is a profound connection. In Why I Write Orwell frequently calls 'England' an animal because he explains as a living creature it is always the same well maintaining the prerogative to look nothing like itself over time. So we might be twins, perhaps even conjoined with a bloody surgery to separate us for the better of both, but the same basic elements on that molecular cellular level is there. Maybe I'm making to much of this but overall I think humans have to great a fondness for their Nationalism. So work it out EU! And stop hating Canada USA!
OK that might be asking for too much! I probably already offended some Canadian by describing USA citizens as Americans, or something... :D
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual , nor I against them. They are ‘only doing their duty’, as the
saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.
Brilliant and now this which is just out-loud funny, he's starting off reflecting on English characteristics:
One is the lack of artistic ability. This is perhaps another way of saying that the English are outside the European culture. For there is one art in which they have shown plenty of talent, namely literature. But this is also the only art that cannot cross frontiers. Literature, especially poetry, and lyric poetry most of all, is a kind of family joke, with little or no value outside its own language-group...
Well I find this hysterical because I find it uncanny in its truthfulness, I at the same time think that it says something that Orwell did not maybe intend. That despite being really passionate about how different Americans and Brits are thats really a lot of selective focus on both peoples parts to see ourselves that way. Language is a profound connection. In Why I Write Orwell frequently calls 'England' an animal because he explains as a living creature it is always the same well maintaining the prerogative to look nothing like itself over time. So we might be twins, perhaps even conjoined with a bloody surgery to separate us for the better of both, but the same basic elements on that molecular cellular level is there. Maybe I'm making to much of this but overall I think humans have to great a fondness for their Nationalism. So work it out EU! And stop hating Canada USA!
OK that might be asking for too much! I probably already offended some Canadian by describing USA citizens as Americans, or something... :D