Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues.George Orwell, from a review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, New English Weekly (21 March 1940)
The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do.
Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flag and loyalty-parades…. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
A bit of humor from Orwell
(emphasis added)
Grammar in 1846
ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEWBURYPORT FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL, ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF ITS ESTABLISHMENT, DECEMBER 19, 1846.
BY ANDREW P. PEABODY.
...I propose to give you a few hints on conversation...
...for some of the new grammars sanction these vulgarisms, and in looking over their tables of irregular verbs, I have sometimes half expected to have the book dashed from my hand by the indignant ghost of Lindley Murray.
Great care and discretion should be employed in the use of the common abbreviations of the negative forms of the substantive and auxiliary verbs. "Can't", "don't", and "havn't" [sic], are admissible in rapid conversation on trivial subjects. "Isn't" and "hasn't" are more harsh, yet tolerated by respectable usage. "Didn't", "couldn't", "wouldn't", and "shouldn't", make as unpleasant combinations of consonants as can well be uttered, and fall short but by one remove of those unutterable names of Polish gentlemen, which sometimes excite our wonder in the columns of a newspaper. "Won't" for "will not", and "aint" [sic] for "is not" or "are not", are absolutely vulgar; and "aint" [sic], for "has not" or "have not", is utterly intolerable...
BY ANDREW P. PEABODY.
...I propose to give you a few hints on conversation...
...for some of the new grammars sanction these vulgarisms, and in looking over their tables of irregular verbs, I have sometimes half expected to have the book dashed from my hand by the indignant ghost of Lindley Murray.
Great care and discretion should be employed in the use of the common abbreviations of the negative forms of the substantive and auxiliary verbs. "Can't", "don't", and "havn't" [sic], are admissible in rapid conversation on trivial subjects. "Isn't" and "hasn't" are more harsh, yet tolerated by respectable usage. "Didn't", "couldn't", "wouldn't", and "shouldn't", make as unpleasant combinations of consonants as can well be uttered, and fall short but by one remove of those unutterable names of Polish gentlemen, which sometimes excite our wonder in the columns of a newspaper. "Won't" for "will not", and "aint" [sic] for "is not" or "are not", are absolutely vulgar; and "aint" [sic], for "has not" or "have not", is utterly intolerable...