1984 CONNECTIONS
(Part II, ch. 9-10)
Aleksandra Estere Kononova
ENDLESS WAR
”It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants
who are unable to destroy one another, have no
material cause for fighting and are not divided by any
genuine ideological difference.”
(CHAPTER III OF THE THEORY AND PRACTISE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM)
“The smaller side suffers more, and it cannot do to the
larger what the larger can do to it, but its resistance
creates a protracted conflict. Ultimately, a stalemate
emerges: the larger cannot enforce its will without
unacceptable costs, and the smaller can resist but cannot
defeat the larger.”
‘A HAPPY ENDING TO ENDLESS WAR: VIETNAM’ BY BRANTLY WOMACK – UVA |
MILLER CENTER
“So many of the objectives cited by the military and other
proponents of a continued presence in Afghanistan —
transforming the country into a stable democratic ally, weakening
the Taliban, fighting corruption and the drug trade — had either
proved beyond the abilities of the United States and its allies or
had yielded only partial or tenuous gains.”
BIDEN, SETTING AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL, SAYS ‘IT IS TIME TO END THE FOREVER
WAR’ – THE NEW YORK TIMES
Is the term “endless war” just a rhetorical
device or a valuable criticism?
To what extent do we owe our scientific
progress to military interest in science?
FAITH IN THE FUTURE
“In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society
unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly and efficient – a glittering
antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete –
was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person.
Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed,
and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on
developing.”
(CHAPTER III OF THE THEORY AND PRACTISE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM)
“Do you really want to waste all your energies in this
unending futile veneration for the past?”
MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM – FILIPPO MARINETTI
“This failed to happen, partly because of the
impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and
revolution, partly because scientific and technical progress
depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could
not survive in a strictly regimented society.”
(CHAPTER III OF THE THEORY AND PRACTISE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM)
Is it healthy for society to hold unshakeable
beliefs about the future?
What outlook do you think humanity generally
has towards the future now?
THANK YOU
FOR WATCHING