tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post115725427176236034..comments2024-03-28T17:58:56.707+11:00Comments on The Social Pathologist: Some More Thoughts on Griffin's Modernism and FascismThe Social Pathologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-85844377348239636882021-12-02T04:25:26.387+11:002021-12-02T04:25:26.387+11:00I really enjoyed your blog thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed your blog thanks for sharing. Alexis Ohttps://www.alexisolsen.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-34803649283296378632017-08-21T14:43:35.809+10:002017-08-21T14:43:35.809+10:00This comment has been removed by the author.harada57https://www.blogger.com/profile/06015023155124017905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-34245666082708245282017-04-02T21:35:06.026+10:002017-04-02T21:35:06.026+10:00Thanks David,
I remember the review. Yes, there ...Thanks David, <br /><br />I remember the review. Yes, there is the whole tradition of Remarque, but there is also the tradition of Junger, something that gets little mention in the Anglosphere. Junger is particularly interesting since he saw war as a test of manhood and character. Also, in Italy, the Arditi (who suffered enormous losses on the battlefield) came out of the war with contempt for pacifism.<br /><br />I think we live in a different age where death is comparatively rare. The 1914 West was still a world without antibiotics and things like childbirth still had high mortality rates. I think people were more accepting of death in the past. Somewhere in the comments section of the post you mentioned there was link to a French novel about the war, Le Fuere, I think. What struck me reading that novel is just how accepting of death people were. The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-88130890223182299862017-04-01T13:50:03.114+11:002017-04-01T13:50:03.114+11:00A neglected but very good novel that deals with th...A neglected but very good novel that deals with the aftermath of WWI is Erich Maria Remarque's 'The Road Back,' which is sort of a sequel to "All Quiet on the Western Front." I reviewed it here:<br /><br />http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/21350.html<br />David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-90508033435960286302017-03-30T08:07:58.490+11:002017-03-30T08:07:58.490+11:00@The Social Pathologist
The elites have given up...@The Social Pathologist<br /><br /><br />The elites have given up on Christianity in some parts of Europe. In others, most notably Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, and the Austrian Empire, faith still used to be taken seriously before the War. The Great War saw all three of those reactionary empires destroyed, and worse yet, brought Communists in power in Russia (also for a short while in Bavaria, where Hitler participated, back then he was a regular socialist, and in Hungary). It was disastrous even for France, Great War had killed off far more nobility than the Revolution and the subsequent revolutionary wars.<br /><br /><br />It energized them, but not in a good way. They didn't start becoming monks and missionaries. No, everyone wanted emancipation... from morals, from obligations, from religion. The Great War was the final split with tradition, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe says "the end of civilization." Women gained equality, morals loosened, and everything became permitted. Celebrities became national heroes, and that fact was the clear sign of the begining of the end, as Sir John Glubb wrote "The heroes of declining nations are always the same—the athlete, the singer or the actor." As easy money fueled the loose morals of the Roaring Twenties, all kinds of radical ideas about sexuality remiscent of today's left-wing theories surfaced. <br /><br /><br />And then easy money struck back, the Great Depression happened. During the Great Depression, someone who wanted to build a new world joined a party militia... now that the people were not just spiritually empty, but also of empty stomach, the scene for the rise of totalitarianism was set—anyone offering the exit out of the desperate situation seemed godsent. As Communism became greater, and greater a threat, even those that otherwise wouldn't have turned to fascism, turned to fascism as the only viable alternative.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14387061181175539546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-1512540729274279612017-03-30T07:05:09.332+11:002017-03-30T07:05:09.332+11:00I've not read the Griffin book - would like to...I've not read the Griffin book - would like to - but your comments on it bring to mind Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community, insofar as totalitarianism steps in to fill the void created by the breakdown of traditional bonds of religion and civil society, and as a response to the natural yearning of man for belonging and purpose. <br /><br />Fascinating themes of clear relevance to our troubled age.Giant Beannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-1100163419774542322017-03-29T09:56:35.486+11:002017-03-29T09:56:35.486+11:00@Michael Rothblatt
Griffin has a good section on ...@Michael Rothblatt<br /><br />Griffin has a good section on the First World War and his take on it is, in my opinion, correct--not the usual boilerplate that one sees from both the Left and mainstream Right. The First World War was seen a chance of renewal the experience of it and the collapse of Christianity is not exactly causal. The elites had given up on Christianity well before then and I feel that its effect on the dechristianisation of the masses was far more complex. To quote Griffin;<br /><br />"It would be logical to assume from a humanist perspective that the infernal realities of industrialized warfare that unfolded over the next four years would shatter such great illusions. Certainly, the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, the outstanding bestseller of the inter-war period, spoke for untold thousands for whom the experience of combat was hell on earth, and whose only new community was the international but largely silent one of fellow survivors for whom promises of redemption rang lugubriously hollow. Yet, as the prospects of a short war evaporated and the death toll from the 'war of position' grew ever higher, powerful psychological processes continued to be activated, thereby ensuring the war would remain for millions a catalyst to experiencing transcendence. It was as if the fantasy of redemption through sacrifice, a fantasy stubbornly entertained by both the fighters and the onlookers, was fuelled rather than quenched by the blood of the fallen, like pouring oil on flames." <br /><br />Lots of people emerged from the horror of the First World War surprisingly normal and positive about the experience. The experience of it seems to have <i>energised</i> many into wanting to build a new world.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-69617350216678689272017-03-29T03:46:53.395+11:002017-03-29T03:46:53.395+11:00The Great War (and actually before that, the Italo...The Great War (and actually before that, the Italo-Turkish War) was the necessary catalyst to turn the ideas into a solid organizational presence, but the prerequisites were there. Syndicalism, being inspired by psychology and sociology like that of Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon, switched from emphasizing the workplace and trade union as the focal point of proletarian consciousness, into emphasizing the nation. Enrico Corradini was one of the first to formulate this "proletarian nationalism," which was in some ways a precursor to various Neo-Marxist ideas of dependency theory that used to be popular in developmental economics during the post-WWII Keynesian era.Nulle Terre Sans Seigneurhttps://carlsbad1819.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-84744030548426919592017-03-29T02:05:47.514+11:002017-03-29T02:05:47.514+11:00Hm, one issue so far is that nowhere is there a me...Hm, one issue so far is that nowhere is there a mention of the Great War. Does he ever mention it and its effects anywhere in the book? Enlightenment was bad, but it doesn't seem to have caught on amongst the general populace, it was a movement of the elites, of absolute monarchs, nobility, and the intellectuals. And while revolutions of 1848. have certainly been for the worse, there still doesn't seem to be any widespread disillusionment with the old, Christian, Weltanschauung before the Great War. Only in the aftermath of the Great War, there appears a disillusionment with Christian Weltanschauung among the general populace. Great Was has purged the last vestiges of the Ancien Régime from Europe, and, it seems, turned the ordinary people into bitter cynics, ordinary people who have had nothing to do with lofty theories of philosophy of science.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14387061181175539546noreply@blogger.com