i added [ ] ..haithabu wrote:Max, since my posting of Orwell has political implications I think it's only fair that people can discuss its application in detail. As long as we can keep it civil and acknowledge the good points each other makes.
Boot, I share your concerns about Trump's rhetoric. I don't think though that he wants to run a totalitarian state nor does he have the personal capacity to do so.
I do have concerns about the political atmosphere in the US and the rising polarization. Trump has helped to make it worse with his reckless and sometimes abusive speech and the rude baiting of his opponents.
At the same time, the Left has seemingly gone into a state of permanent hysteria since the election and seems unable [deliberately unwilling] to view anything Trump says or does objectively.
Everything is viewed through the lens of their worst fears. [deliberate division for partisan politics.]
And I don't see Trump as being entirely to blame for it either because people are winding each other up.
It's almost as if the internet provides for a virtual mob psychology.
It looks to me that Trump has made some good solid choices in his appointments, I don't mean necessarily solid in terms of conservatism but solid in terms of character. He is at his worst in terms of speech and getting along with others but so far seems to be okay in terms of what he is actually doing on the executive side. I'm not sure how much he will get done legislatively.
i agree with Max.
this thread began well. you have wisdom; seemingly limitless patience and diplomacy.
re: your words in bold, if not for the left behaving so-badly for years prior, Trump would not be POTUS.
the intolerance, refusal to recognize differing opinions, created his platform.
to answer, "why Trump?" - mirrors hold answers.
i hate to find one OP point out of so many great ones,
but, one point that has astonished me for all my life is from you, esp underlined words:
evidence of this is found from earliest ancient writings. it twists one's brain. we're "supposed" to keep improving, right?! evolution says so?!haithabu wrote:
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it,
and wiser than the one that comes after it.
This is an illusion, and one should recognise it as such, but one ought also to stick to one's own world-view, even at the price of seeming old-fashioned:
for that world-view springs out of experiences that the younger generation has not had, and to abandon it is to kill one's intellectual roots.
"but, today," .. the "information age," ugh!
filled with mis-information, lack of depth, this has to be on an epic scale?!
today's people give themselves so much credit for being "advanced." auto-reflex?
i don't believe that's going to hold true over time.
i'm afraid, if these who so-believe, ever meet up with reality, if they are honest, will be filled with agonizing humility about how advanced they were not - in comparison to those who walked before (without "benefit" of tweats+snapchat, virtual mob psychology.)
shudder