Greta wrote:Aside from your speculations about what Orwell, may or may not have favoured, I did not take that statement as comparing the value of soldiers than civilians but considering the balance of populations after war.
They are not speculations, since we have the quotes from Orwell himself. Is there any other better way to know what he favored? It is not a matter of you not wanting to take Orwell statements in some way, but the undeniable truth that he said what he said in The Tribune. May I refresh you from the OP:
"The other thing that needs dealing with is the parrot cry "killing women and children". I pointed this out before, but evidently it needs repeating, that it is probably somewhat better to kill a cross-section of the population than to kill only young men."
There's the other quote from The Tribune, May 19, 1944, that I submitted, where Orwell's position is expressed very clearly.
Greta wrote:By all means be angry about war, but I'm yet to see a war-free world, just as I'm yet to see aliens or hobgoblins.
Well, sure, we are unlikely to see soon a war-free world, given the powers that effectively rule and the economic and political interests behind the military-industrial complex. We're yet to see a hunger-free world and a child exploitation-free world either, but the next thing should not be writing an article to say "screw them all so that the misery of hunger and exploitation is evenly distributed and we admit that we are savages".
Greta wrote:
I think Orwell is speaking about acceptance of conflict but rejection of hatred.
There are many types of conflicts and war is just one of them. If war does one thing well is to invite hatred, it nurtures it, it hides the banal evils from social control, it moves the power to decide the fate of people to the happy triggers of a bunch of psychopaths with licenses to kill, rarely accountable for their actions. But if Orwell is separating hatred from conflict, as if armed conflict was some natural disaster that came upon mankind, he's actually making it worst. He is sanitizing death and suffering by neutralizing the human interests involved and bypassing human action. For him, perhaps war must be a sterile, clinical procedure, and I would think that's even more evil and prone to dehumanization. Such a stance fits perfectly with the "war as only hygiene" slogan proclaimed by proto-fascists.
Greta wrote:
Well, the value from an anonymous internet poster...
There's the issue of relevance and context. This is the opinion of an anonymous internet poster in a modest online forum, about the opinion of a famous and influential intellectual in the public domain. My opinion is only relevant to this forum, while the other is relevant to a higher degree and a wider audience, which includes myself. If I get it wrong, nothing important really happens, but public figures are measured with a different yardstick. I'm using it now.
Greta wrote:...speaking theoretically would seem to have less credibility in the subject of war than one who has been through it.
How about Vera Brittain? She was contemporary to Orwell and went through the same events, but had the opposite views. And yet, you would say she has credibility in the subject of war for being through it.
In any case, credibility about what? About the empirical facts of war? I don't think anyone in this debate, nor Orwell himself, is disputing any facts about what happens at wars. This is not an issue. So you're left with the good and bad of war, but how does "credibility" play any role here? Do I need to be beaten brutally by thugs to make myself credible when saying that beating people is wrong? BTW, there's a thing called empathy, which means being able to put yourself on someone's shoes, even though you don't experience it yourself.
Greta wrote:
Do outsiders with no experience understand your occupation or field of expertise better than you do?
There is no technical, professional or any other job-related issue in debate here. It's all about the social outcomes of war conflicts. And not even about the facts of a particular conflict,, which no one disputes. So, to what field of expertise you refer? Of war? Of human suffering? Of death? Evilness? Geopolitical interests?
Orwell never lived under communism...so I guess you would say he had no valuable insight to offer about it. As an outsider he is not credible and his novels must be naively written, right? And surely anyone who has not been a millionaire cannot have an opinion on Trump's tax policies.
Just FYI, because it has nothing to do with my opinion, as I already said above I did experience a military invasion by a foreign power:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzmUlRWxs-4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex2rF52q60w
Greta wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote:
...Orwell's remarks in The Tribune were directed to Vera Brittain, who advocated for civilian immunity with regards to the bombing campaigns against German cities, an argument which he despised as "sheer humbug". If war is barbarous, let it be as barbarous as it can be, no nuances allowed
I and others have addressed the OP and our posts are based on that, not to be re-contextualised by new information just presented by you.
That's simply false. This is not "new information", it is part of the series of articles in The Tribune, that just the same as the other quotes in the OP, have been there waiting 73 years to surface to this forum. If some were good for you to discuss, the others should be too.
Greta wrote:
Those who argue against sociobiology are simply in denial, and always have been.
That is, most scientists, I suspect.
Greta wrote:
Our animalistic aspects, including the way our social dynamics often echo those of other animals, are blindingly obvious to those interested in what other species do, rather than dismissing their minds altogether.
Ants and zebras are both animals which display social behaviors. That common factor alone doesn't mean you can explain the behavior of zebras with the structure of ant colonies. That's why the distinction between social and eusocial, and it's widely agreed (except for you and O.E. Wilson) that humans and zebras belong to the social category, not the eusocial one. Of course, you can always have your own opinion, even though scientists will not be on your side.
Greta wrote:
So yes, there is a lot of denial going on; humans have always thought themselves divine and special and any attempt to link us with other species is fiercely rejected from most quarters. Even so, birth rates in various socio-economic classes and cultures make clear that humans are increasingly dividing reproductive labour anyway. In the meantime, humans tick all other boxes for eusociality and our societies are clearly vastly more similar to those of other eusocial animals than any other animal grouping.
I don't have any problem relating to other species. In fact, we should be grateful to taxonomists, which have been very busy classifying organisms and have helped us understand where we are in relation to other living beings. And we DEFINITELY don't belong to the same categories as eusocial organisms, such as ants, bees and termites. Among mammals, we are high-order primates. And we're certainly special.
Greta wrote:Well, I'm personally glad there are police to protect me, and all I want my country's military is to provide strong enough display behaviour potential exploitation.
At least the basic police force can be said to promote law and order. As it gets more sophisticated with weaponry (militarized), it also becomes part of the repressive political apparatus. The military industrial complex of hegemonic powers are not there to defend anyone, but to open up business opportunities in foreign lands, far away from their citizens. Don't believe me, believe the former assistant to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:
"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."
It backfired and the wretched of the Earth are now knocking at their doors.
Greta wrote:Today, however, perhaps the greater risks are cyber attacks, which may be even more wide ranging and indiscriminate than conventional warfare.
Haven't seen people getting killed by cyber attacks, but I'm sure some guys are working on it.