The Captive Mind and America’s Resegregation: Idol smashing and cancel culture are part of a broad ideological project to dominate society.

Wall Street Journal ^ | July 31, 2020 | Andrew A. Michta

[karpov]

Czesław Miłosz, a future Nobel Prize-winning poet who had just defected from Poland, began work in 1951 on a book called “The Captive Mind.” Even as Stalinist totalitarianism tightened its grip on Eastern Europe, many Western European intellectuals lauded the brave new world of Soviet communism as a model for overcoming “bourgeois forces,” which in their view had caused World War II. Living in Paris, Miłosz wrote his book, which was published in 1953, to warn the West of what happens to the human mind and soul in a totalitarian system.

Miłosz knew from experience, having lived through the Communist takeover, how totalitarianism strips men and women of their liberty, transforming them into “affirmative cogs” in service of the state and obliterating what had taken centuries of Western political development to achieve. Totalitarianism not only enslaved people physically but crippled their spirit. It did so by replacing ordinary human language, in which words signify things in the outside world, with ideologically sanctioned language, in which words signify the dominant party’s ever-changing ideas of what is and is not true.

Since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, nationwide protests, which quickly turned to riots, have been hijacked by the neo-Marxist left, morphing into an all-out assault on American cities and institutions. This assault is underpinned by an audacious attempt to rewrite history that turns specific past events into weapons not only to overpower political opponents but also to recast all of American history as a litany of racial transgressions.

The radicals have turned race into a lens through which to view the country’s history, and not simply because they are obsessed with race. They have done so because it allows them to identify and separate those groups that deserve affirmation, in their view, and those that do not.

[karpov]

full article

[snarkytart]

WSJ anti Trump Op ed finally waking up?

[Montaignes Cat]

Thanks for posting this. Milosz is one of many authors who should be more widely known among people who are educated but progressive. So often here articles are behind paywalls so I was happy to see you post another link. But have you read the version at this link? It reads like a bad machine translation. In the first paragraph Eastern Europe is called Japanese Europe; Communism as a model is translated communism as a mannequin; World War II is translated as World Battle II; in 1953 Milosz wrote his e book; I gave up at that point.

[Sicvee]

The translation at your link is better than nothing, but it is very difficult to read.

[livius]

This is a great article. Soberly written and a serious historical warning about what could very easily be the future unless we are aware and fight back.

[RedMonqey]

"The radicals have turned race into a lens through which to view the country’s history, and not simply because they are obsessed with race. They have done so because it allows them to identify and separate those groups that deserve affirmation, in their view, and those that do not."

The BLM is just the "spear point". The real objective is as it always was, the transformation of America into a communist totalitarian regime.

It is the driving shaft behind the blade.

[ClearCase_guy]

The link to the “full article” does contain a rather difficult translation.
The link to the “WSJ” contains a translation that has been properly edited by an American.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[stinkerpot65]

Democrats crave the brutal annihilation of democracy and Christianity.

[Pollard]

Archive.is version, complete with pics, https://archive.is/wQprt

[Pollard]

Archive.is version, complete with pics, https://archive.is/wQprt

[Pollard]

I did not hit the button twice
I did not hit the button twice