I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin. Leonard Cohen
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Poetry and Poets in a Time of Crisis

When Stevens discusses the pressure of the real, he talks about it as a violence done to our very selves. He writes that poetry is the way we can resist that pressure, that violence, not in order to avoid the real, but in order to preserve within ourselves the necessary space of imagination, possibility, humanity, love, a space that can help us live our lives. Poetry, because it is ultimately undistracted by whatever uses to which language is otherwise devoted (telling stories, arguing or convincing or informing, buying and selling, preaching, condemning, and so on) has a unique role in this preservation of an imaginative space.

http://www.openculture.com/2016/12/george-orwell-tries-to-identify-who-is-really-a-fascist.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

George Orwell Tries to Identify Who Is Really a “Fascist” and Define the Meaning of This “Much-Abused Word” (1944)

in History, Politics| December 7th, 2016

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Two neologisms, “Post-truth” and “Alt-right,” have entered political discourse in this year of turmoil and upheaval, words so notorious they were chosen as the winner and runner-up, respectively, for Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year. These “Orwellian euphemisms,” argues Noah Berlatsky “conceal old evils” and “whitewash fascism,” recalling “in form and content… Orwell’s old words—specifically some of the newspeak from 1984. ‘Crimethink,’ ‘thoughtcrime,’ and ‘unperson’…. They even sound the same, with their simple, thunk-thunk construction of single syllables mashed together.”

“The sheer ugly clumsiness is supposed to make the language seem futuristic and cutting edge,” Berlatsky writes, “The world to come will be utilitarian, slangy, and up-to-the-minute in its inelegance. So the future was in Orwell’s day; so it is in 2016.” As in Orwell’s day, our current jargon gets mobilized in “defense of the indefensible”—as the novelist, journalist, and revolutionary fighter wrote in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language.” And just as in his day, the euphemisms pretty up constant, blatant lying and racist ideologies. We can also draw another linguistic comparison to Orwell’s time: the widespread use of the word “fascism.”

Berlatsky uses the word without defining it (when he talks about “whitewashing fascism”), except to say that “fascism thrives on falsehoods.” That may well be the case, but is it enough of a criterion for an entire political and economic system? The word begs for a cogent analysis. Even Umberto Eco, who grew up under Mussolini’s rule, felt the need for clarity, given that “American radicals,” he wrote in 1995, abused the phrase “fascist pig” as a pejorative for any authority, such that the word hardly meant anything thirty years after World War II

Father Maximilian Kolbe  gave his life  to save a Jewish man in Auschwitz.Despite being starved and despite the nine other men  havingdied,in the end  shot St Maximilian as he had not died as expected. In fact he had prayed with all tfe men as they died.We  probably can’t do that but what era are we now entering?
https://archive.org/stream/WallaceStevensTheNecessaryAngelEssaysOnRealityAndTheImagination/Wallace-Stevens-The-Necessary-Angel-Essays-on-Reality-and-the-Imagination_djvu.txt

Mary wore her new garnet  red winter coat to go to the dentist and doctor who were in the same building.Unfortunately, it was shorter than  her  wool skirt which had a  quite few moth holes .
First ,she had to see the doctor.
Hello dear,how are you getting on without your husband?
He calls now and then.He told me he has bought me a house in Ealing.
Did he give you the address?
No,but if I am  living in Ealing I shall have to change doctors.
You can change here if you want to !
But I like and respect you,doctor
Thank you so much.Very few people ever praise me.And unlike you many people come here in dirty old clothes.
I just got this new coat.I may not have needed it, but ,to me, it is a symbol of wishing to return to life again.
That’s a good one.I’d better not tell my wife!
Is she  quite extravagant?
Not really.I suppose there is no absolute level of spending which  defines extravagance.What is normal for Princess Kate  would not be for my wife.It is I suppose a way of dressing so you look ok for the life you lead and does not get you into debt.
Surely you like your wife to look good?
As long as she feels good I don’t mind.
Anyway, why did you wish to see me?
Well, you don’t come very much so I wanted to see how you were getting on
I had a panic attack in the waiting room just now.I got vertigo
Are you frightened of me,my dear?
No,I really  love you, doctor.
Shush, that is not allowed
I just meant in a Christian sense although you are a Hindu.But when it comes down to it all religions are about compassion and love if we look carefully.
That is hard to believe nowadays.
I know.I suppose it’s an ideal to aim for.
All I can do is do my job well and look after my family and my patients.
Find God in the little things.See how small an acorn is and wonder.If I swallowed one would an oak tree grow inside me?
No.it would have to grow by the sewer
Imagine under the ground may be thousands of oak tree growing
Only if silly idiots swallow acorns!
I’m sorry.I have this vivid imagination.Can I have it removed and put a plastic one in?
Not yet but no doubt it will happen.Go outside and walk about alot
Why?
Because I have decided you are ok and we’ve talked enough.
Thank you so much,doctor.
And so say all of us
Then Mary picked  up her red coat which the doctor had not seen and she  went into the dentist waiting room.The kind receptionist got her some water as Mary did not understand the machine.Uncountable infinity,yes.Water machines,no.
This dentist was a most beautiful  young woman darting about  like a  colored fish in the  deep ocean.
The filling is still here!The tooth broke.I shall repair it for you.
Thank you,Mary told her.It is almost a pleasure to come here.
Almost? the dentist replied.
It’s a day out for me,Mary told her.I don’t meet young women like you so much.
Oh,my.I forgot to feed Emile.Hi , can you send a cab, please? I must go home or my cat will never forgive me.
A handsome young man appeared with a silver car.It almost seemed like a dream
He was a  Muslim and his wife a Christian.
And  both are good to us.