Books
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“Never meet your heroes” I reckon.
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@mclaincausey I’ve been consciously avoiding reading this article. Doesn’t make it any less real I suppose. Huge bummer
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@mclaincausey Avoided reading too much on this topic, too.
'Kill your idols' is another way to put it... -
About to jump into Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright. Seems interesting and won a bunch of awards and was shortlisted for others.
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I‘m currently reading Peter Fröberg Idling‘s „Pol Ponts leende“ (well, the German version). Very interesting book on how western leftist (here Swedish, but certainly transferable) intellectuals in the 70s tried to idealize the Khmer Rouge reign despite the growing information about the horrors actually happening. And how we (probably all) see and hear what we want to. An intelligent and beautifully written essay on travelling, history and Cambodia, for whom it may interest.
There are several translations, but I‘m not sure if there‘s a published english version. However, there is this excerpt online.
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@endo fascinating. We certainly had some embarrassing support voiced for KR here in America, even after the atrocities were exposed.
The problem I think is that people get hung up on political alignment and defensive because of it, where they should be thinking about the dangers of dogmatism, authoritarianism, and state violence regardless of under which banner they occur.
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@mclaincausey said in Books:
they should be thinking about the dangers of dogmatism, authoritarianism, and state violence regardless of under which banner they occur.
Exactly, and in addition the author (born 1972) puts up the question which blind spots he (or our generation) might have.
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Don't get me started on dogmatism.
I don't give a flying fuck (mostly) about peoples, religious or political views , or sexual proclivity (nor do I care that much about how they dress, cut their hair or how many piercings or body art they have). Whilst those things are important, they are way down my - "do I like you as a human being scale". People are to a great extent shaped by their upbringing and environment, just because they have views that I may not share, does not necessarily make them a bad person.
But you get dogmatic with me and won't engage in sensible, objective discussion, it'll likely be the last interaction we have....
Did that sound dogmatic