| parrthenon@cs.com 2006-08-23, 2:35 am |
| DOUBLETHINK
<We don't need translations of plain facts from Mr
Kingston who talks about the most cynical empire
in the world as it were Disneyland, and these
surface impressions all there was to know - this
particular surface is >covered with scum.> -- Phil Innes
Dear Phil,
When discussing subjects Soviet with NMnot
Taylor Kingston, you are dealing with someone who is
still largely virgo intacta intellectually. He gives
evidence of trying to learn more, and he quotes from a
work by Ronald Hingley.
We have to be pateint with NMnot. He is trying to learn.
Now, then, Hingley's point about the Stalinist
regard for truth is that the reputed failures in the
Purge Trial frame-ups (physical impossibilities are
imputed to defendants) were actually successes in
terms of totalitarian theory. Getting people to
accept lies as truth -- even as they understand that
the statements are lies -- is inculcating doublethink,
which Orwell defined as believing two contradictory
statements can be true at the same time.
Hingley owes this insight to Hannah Arendt's The
Origins of Totalitarianism, who undoubtedly read
Lionel Trilling's Middle of the Journey during her
writing of The Origins. That is a volume featuring
the dramatic conflict between John Laskell, a
middle-age liberal, and Nancy and Arthur Croom, two
fellow-travellers. You have Laskell trying to escape
the phenomenon of doublethinking, especially in his
attitudes to Gifford Maxim, a Communist agent who has
just defected. (Maxim was based on Whitaker
Chambers.)
Double-thinking undoubtedly existed among Western
intellectuals, who often swallowed mutually exclusive
beliefs about the Stalin regime. But I have often
wondered what the average Soviet city dweller of the
1930s thought?
Anna Akhmatova once noted the dumb belief inside
many Soviet citizens of the mid-1930s, which indicates
a simpler intellectual process at work than
doublethinking. To wit: simple belief that a lie is true.
Actual Soviet propaganda of the period was
remarkably homely in its claims. Trotskyite and
Bukharinist "spies, wreckers and traitors" were said
to be tossing sand into factory machinery, a kind of
sabotage used to explain the failures of the
centralized Soviet economy, especially during the 1st
Five Year Plan. My point is that the actual claims
were believable in purely physical terms. They were
meant to convince the average citizen.
Stalin did not expect ordinary factory workers to
perform the mental gyrations that intellectuals were
required to accomplish.
On rgcp, we have, then, NMnot Taylor Kingston
claiming to be a man with "standards," even as he
writes anonymous messages in praise of himself (for
Pete's sake!) as Paulie Graf and Xylothist. Does our
NMnot believe himself to be honest and
straightforward, a boyo with "standards"?
If he does so believe, then we have a classic
case of doublethinking, do we not?
Chess One wrote:
quote:
> "Taylor Kingston" <tkingston@chittenden.com> wrote in message
> news:1156212513.063521.156010@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>
> You gave us what you read in a book, which did not deal with behind the
> scenes manipulations. Which I suppose is fair enough. But where you always
> come a cropper is where you think that's all there is to know.
>
>
> I don't know - I think its profoundly Russian. But you were too shy to
> mention your own favorite?
>
>
> That would have been the point to respond to - the emphasis was on the
> cynicism.
>
>
> Phil knows more than Taylor recently read in his word-book, since Phil has
> exchanged 1,000s of emails with Russians.
>
>
> But this is a lie from Kingston.
>
> WHO DUNIT?
>
> Kingston first wrote to me by e-mail BECAUSE he said I knew something! I
> even offered to make him introductions - to Vasyukov and Linder, for
> example. Also to Zhukov Kortchnoi Taimanov Svidler Karpov just to name some
> relatively well known people. At the time Ken Wylde was doing the same.
> After speaking with 3 or 4 sources it would be clear to a blind bat that not
> all versions could be true.
>
> But Kingston couldn't think of any questions to ask! Not any! The truth is
> that Kingston doesn't want to know anything other than the bits and pieces
> he's read in his nice book.
>
>
> We don't need translations of plain facts from Mr Kingston who talks about
> the most cynical empire in the world as it were Disneyland, and these
> surface impressions all there was to know - this particular surface is
> covered with scum.
>
>
> Your words, not mine. Is there anything you don't like about the Soviet
> Union?
>
> The most striking thing about Kingston's representation, and to be fair,
> this is a very widespread opinion, even historically, is not if he is soft
> on this subject of official and widespread lying, [this is almost exactly
> Orwell's point in 1938 about how Europe went to sleep before the Tyrants]
> but how incurious he is! Reducing the subject to his own cartoonish level of
> understanding, while also playing victim, is an imbecilic way to interrogate
> the subject.
>
> When he could have found out something about the period we addressed, he
> didn't even ask a single question about it in his interview with Averbakh.
>
> SOFT OR SIMPLE?
>
> If he wanted to learn something he might try asking Jerzy here, who lived
> behind the wall, and could probably tell him how straight any official
> history was, and who wrote the newspapers behind the curtain. After that he
> can reassess his own attitude and only tell us if he wants to.
>
> Phil Innes
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