← Back to context

Comment by aebtebeten

6 days ago

Part of Schachnovelle as I remember it is that Dr. B as Weltbürger is driven crazy by the dual facts that Czentovic is both a primitive brute and yet succeeds at chess via brute force, which perhaps is meant to be compared with his earlier imprisonment in 1938, by people who succeeded at politics not by subtlety but by brute force.

The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation.

Does this unpacking make any more sense?

(meanwhile, the Melian Dialogue is the source of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 )

22 comments

aebtebeten

Reply
aebtebeten  5 days ago

Note also that Thucydides' Athenians say that if they were to speak to the many, they would not put the matter so baldly, but since they are speaking to the few, they feel they may be frank.

gsf_emergency_6  6 days ago

The subtlety of Trump is a "self-stabilizing" meme?

Brutality only to outsiders-- see how he handled Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ?

https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ

I'm sceptical of directly "transpiling" lessons from history-- & in general I find that Austrians are full of it* (sorry! It does feel like they are on the elitist end of the populist-elitist divide)

*Earnings

Ps: >Be the change yo want to see

It's Gandhi's saying that needs (more) elab :) I'll be that hypocrite and leave you to it

E- 1974 Lorrance

https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be...

>We but mirror the world

>However, the passage was written in the explicit context of animal attacks.

  • aebtebeten  5 days ago

    Yeah, I was thinking self-stabilizing while writing that, but generally try to avoid bringing in too many doorknobs with unknown interlocutors :)

    > Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ?

    As that old russophone meme went: the diner sits; the waiter stands?

    (can't find it right now, but along the lines of strategic ambiguity this is an amusing one: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=... )

    This is wonderful! Not only does Gandhiji speak on multiple levels, but unlike many who attempt it he carries the conceit through to perfection, offering valid first-aid advice to complete the surface reading. https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M... (if one were only to read the first and last few pages, one would miss completely the change of tone in the middle; did EAB pick up this habit from the subcontinent?)

    Heh. I just noticed DJT literally used the words "extraordinary military operation" during his press conference; does VVP's «специальной» have vastly different connotations in ru from "extraordinary" in en? Unlikely to be intentional plagiarism, maybe just parallel evolution?

      History repeats
  But then again, it has to
  Nobody listens

rixed  5 days ago

Ok, yes I think it helped me to understand what you had in mind.

I'm not interrested in the mind of violent sociopaths as much as I'm interrested in that of the decent people who have to accept to live under their rule, not only because of the numbers involved. Rulers might be a bit shy about their motives at times (although I can apreciate a candid one), but living under one's reign is one of our strongest taboo - thus my interest.

  • aebtebeten  5 days ago

    > ...decent people who have to accept to live under their rule...

    On one hand, there's the option of voting with one's feet, which Zweig describes in "Die Welt von Gestern" (1942)

    On the other hand, another alternative is "inner emigration", eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278

    Maybe there are more possibilities of which I am unaware; of these three, I chose the first.

    • gsf_emergency_6  5 days ago

      Maybe you've been outside for too long.

      Both those who voted for Trump or abstained from Harris believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians.

      (BB was kinda fiction-in-a-fiction and would have provided no clue either for Harris and against Trump-- and 1984 (/Schachnovelle) didn't give a clue on how you might recognise an inner party-goer if you ran into one? Maybe Animal Farm would be better?)

      10 replies →