People assumed that Hitler was a “unimportant crazy” as well…
A Wayne State University professor of philosophy and law who studied George Orwell’s ( “1984” ) writings uses the author to warn about a new Trump presidency.
Writing in , The Conversation, Mark Satta ( pictured ) says he believes “people were correct eight years ago” to connect Orwell’s views to Trump, including the difference between nationalism and patriotism.
” Patriotism is of its essence defense, both physically and culturally”, Orwell wrote in 1945. ” Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power”.
For Satta, Trump’s response to losing in 2020 — trying to” undermine the election outcomes by lying” and “encouraging insurrection” — is an example of his patriotism.
Trump” conceptualizes whatever, as Orwell put it,’ in terms of aggressive prestige’ and ‘ his thoughts usually turn on successes, loses, triumphs and humiliations,'” Satta says.
In” 1984″, Oceania party people engage in a” Two Minutes of Hate” in which they’re “encouraged to cry and jeer at a picture of a political opponent, fast group members to focus their thoughts on ‘ successes, loses, achievements and embarrassments.'”
Party people regularly turn on each other via “kidnapping, torture and murder”, and for Satta Trump’s instructions about the “enemy from within” show his “desire to turn on Americans who threaten his pursuit of power”.
In the end, Satta cites Godwin’s Laws and connects Trump to 1942 reflections on his time serving as a charity man in the Spanish Civil War.
Less: ‘ Orwellian nightmares ‘: Professor trained in Soviet Union says U. S. institutions becoming authoritarian
Orwell criticized how many people argued that” the thing you most fear not truly happens” and that terrible “always defeats itself in the long run” and that people should make a” conscious work” to keep “vigilance against backsliding.”
In contrast,
Orwell criticized a number of academics who described Hitler as” a number out of comic opera, hardly worth taking significantly.” And he criticized the English-speaking nations for being areas where it was “fashionable up until the war started that Hitler was an inconsequential crazy and the German tanks were made of cardboard.”
Satta cites “numerous critics” — from sources like as , The Guardian, NPR, and NBC News, no less — who’ve noted Trump “routinely speaks like an autocrat”, and he worries that, like the Western countries before World War II, Americans are n’t taking for speak as the” threat to democracy that it is”.
According to his personal website, Satta’s passions include” First Amendment laws, free speech, religious rights, LGBTQ civil rights, ]and the] philosophy of language”.
In , The Conversation next summer, Satta reported on how laws against bring exhibits and “gender-affirming” attention were being struck down in authorities on First Amendment basis.
More recently, regarding the case of families who wore” XX” bands to a female ‘ soccer game to protest the participation of a biological man, Satta said there are “important variations” between this condition and the historic , Tinker free speech situation.
” If the court views]the school ] as neutrally enforcing its policies against threats, harassment, and intimidation]as the district contends], it seems unlikely that such a court would conclude that the parents ‘ First Amendment rights were violated”, he said.
MORE: University puts a trigger warning on George Orwell’s ‘ 1984’
IMAGE: Mark Satta/X
Follow The College Fix on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.
