echognomics

I assume you're talking about his time in the Spanish Civil War. But even then some of his contemporaries saw him as essentially an unserious war tourist who was in Catalonia just to collect juicy material for his writing.

Orwell had no understanding of the world-wide significance of the struggle in Spain, he knew little of the national efforts of the Popular Front government to achieve a united front against fascism, he had never seen the Republican flag, he did not agree with the actions of the POUM — he took a rifle in the role of an outsider, a journalist looking for experiences to figure in a future book.” — Bill Alexander, commander of the British Battalion of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, in George Orwell and Spain (1984), p. 94.

Not to mention his supposedly negative review of Mein Kampf. Yeah, he shit talks it super vaguely here and there ("Then suddenly it turned out that Hitler was not respectable after all." I've heard of ironic understatement, but don't you think you're overdoing it just a little here George?), but then he somehow finds it possible to say that he doesn't personally dislike a literal genocidaire and spends so much time talking about Hitler's supposed supernatural "charisma":

But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches. I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler. Ever since he came to power—till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter—I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs—and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett's edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can't win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

(Side note: really suspicious that when I googled for Orwell's review, the versions in the top results always seem cut out the part where Orwell says he never was able to dislike Hitler.... )

And his ending paragraph, ostensibly meant as to criticise the fascist false promise of providing with meaningful struggle in a nihilistic world, actually spends more time puching at "hedonistic" Socialism (Socialists want peace and sustainable material improvements for the lives of the working class? Oh horror!) and while also doing false equivalency between Stalinism and Nazism:

Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won't do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin's militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation "Greatest happiness of the greatest number" is a good slogan, but at this moment "Better an end with horror than a horror without end" is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

Orwell's not a commited anti-fascist. His worst condemnation of fascism is merely of its aesthetics, and his tepid opposition to Nazi Germany is just another opportunity for him to posture and smear leftists that are more serious than he is in defeating fascism.

classic stories of the Wéstern tradition

What's with the accent mark? Is this some sort of advanced esoteric racism that I'm too non-Amerikkkan to understand?

Ah I guess then it makes sense to me why they would publish Losurdo's other works, but not his book about Stalin specifically. They're big tent, with exceptions for anything too closely associated with or explicitly positive about big bad Joey Steel.

Checking the sources cited in the wikipedia page, it seems that there may be actual justification for not saying "second wealthiest"? The sentence in question specifically links to a 2015 Reserve Bank of India annual report about percentage of population below the poverty line, not state GDP. The other source, a UN/government think tank index of sustainable development goals, also says that as of 2020 Kerala places 2nd in terms of "No Poverty". So, technically, the data being referred to in this specific case was in relation to poverty rates, not wealth.

However, the second source at the same time positions Kerala in 1st place overall among all other Indian states in terms of sustainable development goals generally. So yeah, someone should maybe go and fix the wikipedia page accordingly.

Bernie read Settlers

Oh hey

Apparently Sharts was an American socialist politician and a lawyer who defended in court?

Joseph William Sharts (September 14, 1875 – May 15, 1965) was an American attorney, political activist, newspaper editor, and novelist. Sharts is best remembered as a popular novelist of the first two decades of the 20th century and as a defense attorney in a number of high-profile political trials, including cases involving Socialist Party of America leader Eugene V. Debs, future Workers (Communist) Party leader C. E. Ruthenberg, and radical clergyman William Montgomery Brown. Sharts was a top leader of the Socialist Party of America, sitting on that group's governing National Executive Committee from 1925 to 1932. He was three times the Socialist candidate for Governor of Ohio.

Wonder whether the book's actually good. And whether there's some specifically intended political meaning? The blurbs I could find online seems to say that it's historical fiction about the Bar Kokhba revolt, but not sure what statements (if any?) about history/contemporary politics it's trying to make.

Read a comment responding to the April Fools' post saying that Verso is run by trotskyists (specifically their senior editor Sebastian Budgen). So is all this controversy basically part of some obscure ongoing infighting between trots and MLs within left-wing publishing/academia? Not very familiar with industry politics for niche left-wing publishing companies. Is there a particular ideological tendency in contemporary left-wing publishing? (I assume there's a perception of trotskyist-aligned theory having some degree of outsized prominence, what with the memes about trots selling newspapers) Is everything published by Verso considered trotskyist or trotskyist-associated, or are they seen as generally non-sectarian?

Neat. Another book on my reading list...

Careful, Joanne might decide to say that actually golem legends are lies made up by rabbis to steal real wizard valour.

The Sun-Cross series is the one where a wizard has to escape the Nazis who reverse-isekaied him into our world, right? Was there jewish mysticism in the book? Haven't read it myself but I literally just read a critic describing it as an interesting experiment with/subversion of the portal-quest fantasy subgenre (instead of being directly told about the true nature of the world by reliable wise sage figures (eg. Gandalf, Aslan), the protagonist has to actively question and interpret the world around him to find out the truth (ie. the holocaust)).

: Only the most broken people can be great leaders.

Wow, I didn't know Rothko was a self-professed anarchist. I guess that and the fact that he later donated the pieces to galleries indicate that his guiding principle was egalitarianism (everyone should be able to enjoy art, not just rich assholes) rather than elitism (only people with real taste would appreciate my genius). A really nice sentiment, but possibly a bit idealist (now rich assholes in charge of the Tate Modern get to benefit from and control public access to his art).