I seldom lurk around the pages of the Grauniad, but this was simply too sadly amusing to ignore. Ms Clark remembers her halcyon days in the Hungarian Young Pioneers some thirty-odd years ago. In so doing she manages to recall a figure common in English writing for young people (of a certain vintage, of course): the jolly hockey-sticks head prefect who always exhorted her charges ‘not to let the side down’ and ‘remember our school spirit’ while leading a mob of unwilling teenagers though the mud on school camp. People like that existed on the outer edge of my experience - like a type of antimatter - compared to those of us who preferred skiving off school or smoking behind the bike sheds.
Except the Young Pioneers were so much more sinister. Readers with Godwinesque interests may know that Germans of a certain vintage often recall their days in the Hitler Jugend with similar affection. As is ops normal in these lefty nostalgia pieces, Thatcher’s society quip is misremembered. And I have to say the thought of Britain’s deracinated youth engaging in such, ahem, communal activities is hardly cheering:
- Unlike those brought up in Margaret Thatcher’s devil-take-the-hindmost Britain, I was fortunate to be raised in a society where solidarity and togetherness were officially encouraged from an early age. The Pioneer movement, of which I was a member, was not about indoctrinating young people with the tenets of Marxist-Leninism, as many believe, but engendering a sense of community among the nation’s youth.
Many of the Pioneers’ activities were similar to the Scouts’, but the values were more collective and they involved all children and teenagers in the country, not just a minority. Pioneer membership was an integral part of school life, not just in Hungary, but throughout the socialist bloc. Our motto as Pioneers was Together for Each Other. It was not an empty slogan: it was how we were encouraged to think. Being a Pioneer meant taking special care of the weak and vulnerable. We helped the elderly with their shopping and cleaning; we chopped up firewood for them and carried their coal in and out from the cellar. There were competitions, too: for collecting waste paper and waste metal, for sports activities and for other acts of good citizenship. But, reflecting the collective ethos of the movement, the prizes were nearly always for groups, not for individuals.
Each class had different duties which were rotated week by week. When we were on cleaning duty we had to go to school half an hour earlier and sweep the pavement outside the school. But no one ever seemed to mind: we carried out our tasks willingly.
Okay, this is a leading question, but it really disturbs me that former communists and their useful idiots can write schmaltzy stories about their misbegotten pasts, when in reality the system they supported was so utterly murderous. How do they get away with it? Sure, this is a lefty paper, but I doubt in the extreme the Torygraph (to continue with British satirical monikers) would want to interview old hands in Operation Condor, or erstwhile Hitler Youth leaders.
158 Comments
A bit unfair, SL. These Pioneers may seem sinister to you or me (looks like child labour with hints of slavery), but clearly Ms Clark is just reminiscing about some good-ol-days experience that she actually enjoyed, not the horrors of enforced communism that was the reality for adults at the time.
The activities described are hardly “misbegotten” (and a bloody long way from the Hitler Youth focus, training future Aryan soldiers), and being children they can’t really be blamed for “supporting” a murderous system - that’s just how they were being socialised.
Why is it a long way from the Hitler Youth?
You mentioned race. Thats a superficial difference. An in any case socialist dictatorships can turn racist on the toss of a coin.
Oh right fatfingers.
You’re off the hook a little bit. You emphasised that it was a murderous system.
But its very strange that she should be showing her pride of it, without her LIKEWISE mentioning just how murderous and wicked the system was.
We didn’t after this last war fully shame the fellow travellers and raise up the anti-communists as heroes.
And so we are stuck with this communist afterlife.
But I don’t know if we could have killed it anyhow without getting a form of capitalism together that most people are inclined to think of as fair.
Shit, nuance from GMB. What next? Will it start snowing outside?
Okay, this is a leading question, but it really disturbs me that former communists and their useful idiots can write schmaltzy stories about their misbegotten pasts, when in reality the system they supported was so utterly murderous.”
Yes it is disturbing isn’t it? Just look at the first commenter on this piece and the how he tries to swing things: Fat fingered idiot.
” How do they get away with it?”
Because we let them get away with it. A few high profile firings like that idiot teacher idolizing Castro would do the trick. They are cowards at heart. Look at fats for instance. Ever see a brave soul appear from the cover of that ugly moniker? Of course not.
Anyone these uni professors swearing allegiance to Castro or vermin like that ough to be fired like any Nazi sympathizer.
The Hitler Youth was basically a training ground for the army and SS.
The Young Pioneers were very different - essentially indoctrination camps, with good works emphasised. Kind of a compulsory Scouts.
“Ever see a brave soul appear from the cover of that ugly moniker?”
Que?
SL, the article you linked wasn’t long, so including the entire text wouldn’t have been that problematic.
Oh, except that this line would have weakened your argument:
“Hungarians of my generation almost all look back at their Pioneer days with great affection, regardless of their views on other aspects of the socialist system.”
You’re right, SL. See how the defenders come out from under their rocks at every opportunity.
Like good little Hitler apologists arguing that he at least made the trains run on time…. those leading to the gas ovens.
JC, you are confusing your fascists. Or the apologists. Also you are wrong - no-one has defended anyone except Ms Clark.
Poor JC. So much hate, so little brain.
Just finished photoshopping stuff for work, so have just checked in. The point is that - apart from the ideological slant - the HJ and the YP were very similar. Both pinched the Scouting program holus bolus (this is extremely well documented, because they destroyed Scouts in the process, often killing Scout leaders). The Scouting program was well designed, and I’ve talked to both Germans and Eastern Europeans who remember the HJ as ‘fun’, especially women, interestingly enough. They always add the rider ‘but you can’t say that now’.
The point I was trying to make was that one body is remembered one way, and one the other. Either we apply nuance to the HJ, or we view the YP in the same way as we now do the HJ. To do otherwise is remarkably inconsistent and - dare I say it - intellectually dishonest.
Yes, I remember the team captains who used to lecture us in assembly. Why weren’t we there to see the team play? Of course not everyone could be a star footy player but all of us could show up to cheer them on.
Hooray! Go school! Punch the prick one more time for me!
Enthusiasm was compulsory.
I was even less interested in sport then than I am now. And it never occured to me to think that the team was doing me a favour by competing on my behalf. My maladusted ego remained the same size whether they won or lost.
Obviously there was something wrong with me. No school spirit at all.
Maybe that’s why I haven’t got the hang of political blogging. I’m supposed to choose a team and cheer them on. A good argument is one that wins points for the team. Hooray! etc.
Thanks for picking up on that point, too, Don. I had the misfortune to be good at sport, but was singularly uninterested in expressions of collective ’spirit’, or whatever. As you can imagine, this made me rather unpopular (at least with the hierarchy).
I did make me better as a PE teacher, though, because I understood people who didn’t give a stuff much better than most other staff.
“the HJ and the YP were very similar”
Superficially. But they actually weren’t. Like they were similar to Scouts, but actually weren’t.
“The point I was trying to make was that one body is remembered one way, and one the other.”
Because of the differences.
“To do otherwise is remarkably inconsistent and - dare I say it - intellectually dishonest.”
No. To equate them is intellectually dishonest.
Really, ff? And your evidence for that assertion is?
An interesting portrait from 1950 (long article).
“I’m supposed to choose a team and cheer them on.”
Yea, right Don. Please inform us of your views to do with tax policy, industry policy, social policy, privitization policy, labor market deregulation, environmental policy etc.
Tell all those and tell us you don’t have a team your cheering for. Enough with the gags.
——————————————–
Fat
Don’t get upset. You’re always kneejerking to support mass murdering ideologies. I’m just the messenger reminding you of your evil ways.
JC, you still haven’t upset me, though you do try every so hard. Better luck next time.
“You’re always kneejerking to support mass murdering ideologies”
LOL! Show us, if you can. Liar.
And a beautiful description from Christopher Hitchens:
More here. His piece is on Scouting, but the way he puts a sentence together is wondrous.
JC-
When Don says this:
“Maybe that’s why I haven’t got the hang of political blogging. I’m supposed to choose a team and cheer them on. A good argument is one that wins points for the team. Hooray! etc.”
I think he makes a valid point about what really lies behind totalitarian systems and their manifestation in democracies.
After all in democracies, within political circles, thought is quite totalitarian. The individual is discouraged from asking difficult questions or rocking the boat.
We were briefly discussing Nietzche on the ‘Evil’ thread yesterday. He said:
“Joy in the herd is older than joy in the ego so as long as the good conscience says herd only the bad conscience says I”
It’s entirely possible to hold opinions about the range of policies you mention as an individual without recourse to the team. Y’know?
Or do you?
Good grief, that Nietzsche quote sounds suspiciously Randroid in tone.
Adrien:
He don’t.
Adrien
Nonsense.
Don is making himself to appear the man of the world, the man of vision who is beyond politics.
This is gibberish and high sounding and is deviod of reality.
I couldn’t care less if Don is a member of a satanist cult. However when he talks about politics beyond politics I know he’s talking gibberish and I tell him.
By the by
I used to live with a lawyer from the Czech republic quite a while back.
He was about 16 when Comintern fell to bits. he said when he grew up that participating in all sports and kids hobbies: basketball, skateboarding blah blah required the reading of a pamphlet with a picture of Lenin on it. Inside there’d be a rundown of the great contribution old Vlad’d made to skateboarding or breakdancing. Whatever. I’m being glib but it was pretty funny.
According to him no-one believed any of it but you never knew who was dobbing you in to the secret pork. He remembered the day it all came undone everyone was real quite about it for hours. They thought it was a trick.
Pardon my ignorance SL but Randroid??
Please explain?
SL:
For the second time, any reason why your abridged version left out Clark’s line about how “regardless of their views on other aspects of socialism” people remember their days in YP fondly?
It would seem to be quite crucial to your suggested reading of the piece to include anything she has to say about socialism as a system, and in that line she makes quite clear that she’s distancing her account of YP from the system in which it existed.
Sure, it’s not the shrill denunciation most here would prefer, but that’s not the point of the article is it?
Or do you mean as in Ayn Rand?
“However when he talks about politics beyond politics I know he’s talking gibberish and I tell him.”
No JC he’s talking about politics beyond mindless ideologial partisanship. The enemy is the gramaphone mind.
It’s not about belonging to a team. I couldn’t give shit if anyone agrees with me or doesn’t. Political philospohies have a set of core beliefs that you either agree with or you don’t.
I could go around and say I want to join the green party or that i like their policies but it would be true?
You , Don and that hammerhead FDB are putting the cart before the horse here. You think people want to belong to a team and their polticies are secondary. Its the other way round.
If there is group that shows serious tendencies of the team fiirst approach it is the left. Seeing that 99% of their policies are worthless, negative to economic well being and generally contradictory most lefties don’t want to be descibed as such only because they know how weak their position actually is.
Not at all. Nietzsche is anti-Randroid in his scorn for the cult mentality.Not to mention the quote is actually factually correct.
Don’t be a total doofus, Adrien. Normal people arrive at a core set of political and philosophical beliefs for good reasons. They then look around for people who also share those sets of beliefs.
Most people do that.
I believe in maximum freedom, totally open markets, strong property rights, minimally intrusive govt. and strong defense. That’s it.
To turn around and say that I only believe in those things because other group members do, or want group affirmation is absurd.
Two reasons, FDB. 1. It is not appropriate to cut and copy an entire article. That’s what links are for. 2. The line struck me as throw-away, and did not affect the tone or import of the rest of her piece. It is also untrue (I do know rather a lot of people from Eastern Europe, including Hungary, who have a rather different view of the YPs). Hence my ‘jolly school prefect’ comment, which Don noted.
That quote by Christopher Hitchens does demonstrate his writing talent - perhaps not the quote I might have chosen to contrast with Clark’s recollections though.
As Hitchens says
“the regime was by then in an advanced state of decay and inanition”
Clark’s own recollections are perhaps from a time when the regime was at the height of it’s power and its social and cultural dominance was strong.
I’d find it hardly surprising that the YP were also showing the signs of wear and tear as the communist disaster gasped it’s last.
As a child it is perfectly possible to have happy memories of camaraderie even in the worst regimes, and perhaps even more so in the very worst as the child seeks desperately for something worthwhile to grasp for.
In the absence of the society we have been lucky to grow up in, the Young Pioneers in the communist bloc may well have been one of the rare times when you could legally congregate and enjoy time with peers.
Hardly surprising then that some of those who grew up in those regimes remember their YP experiences fondly.
Do you have an English version Jason? I have to dig through my German copies otherwise. I was thinking about the focus on egoism, although if the quotation is wrong, it probably doesn’t mean tuppence.
What do you mean? that is an english version (I don’t read German).
Essentially he’s saying the herd mentality came first in humans. Individuality is something cultivated.
Here is another example
Take present day environmental policy and the left. Most creatures of the left these days want to see an end to coal fired energy plants but not have nuke power as an alternative. This isn’t proper reasoning and can only be descibed as faith. Only faith could be the driver for such an unreasonable view.
That’s a legitimate point, Grendel, but it is also a point that can be made about the HJ, which then leads to an awkward bit of knife balancing: do we treat both with nuance, or condemn both out of hand? As a pronounced non-joiner (Hi, Don!), my instinct is for the latter, but I can see the attractions of the former.
My point is that treating them differently simply because they promoted different (equally murderous) ideologies is intellectually dishonest.
JC
We’re not most people. I do think most people (left and right) choose their team colours emotively.
“The Hitler Youth was basically a training ground for the army and SS.
The Young Pioneers were very different - essentially indoctrination camps, with good works emphasised. Kind of a compulsory Scouts.”
The difference isn’t one of principle. Those communists were at least as evil or more evil IN PRINCIPLE.
The difference is more one of opportunity and life-cycle of the mass-muder-machine. What I mean is that Hungary was not the absolute best ground force military in the world since the fall of Bonaparte. So on their own they could not realistically train these kids up, indoctrinate them and ready them for invasion and genocide.
Whereas the military culture of the Prussian Army that Germany-proper inherited was in fact the ‘best’ (ie the most lethal) military culture that the world had……. and they could have these ambitions that they decided to imbue in the kiddies….. No use getting the kids ready for world domination if even the Canadians of the time could likely cut a swathe through your ass.
In the end the facists would have calmed down in their murdering like the Soviets eventually did.
But just because the gargantuan rivers of blood murdering of the Soviet machine was somewhat behind them it doesn’t mean they weren’t comparable systems.
In PRINCIPLE communism is clearly even worse then whatever the Nazis were on about.
We brought the Nazis down just after they had reached the peak of their killing spree. They could not, nor would they, keep that kill rate up forever. They would rather have slaughtered all the slavs and most of the people in the Soviet Union……. and then they would have settled down to murdering in only the tens of thousands every year.
Sorry Jason, I thought you were saying Adrien’s quotation was inaccurate; I was hoping you’d dig up an accurate version for me
[Okay, have just logged in as admin and seen your change - now I know what is going on]
As usual you fail to grasp what I’m actually saying and interpret it otherwise. I have a range of opinions on issues some of which are decribed as left wing some of which as right wing. I merely tried to point out that that is possible.
I’m also willing to change my mind.
I think what Don was alluding to is the sports-team/herd mentallity that is evident in political activity. This is a reality. Instead of reasonably operating as a citizen-individual we are still inclined to subscribe to ideology based as you say on core beliefs.
I’m inclined to think ideology as a kind of secular religious mode of political thought locked in a state of war analogous to the religious wars that tore Europe apart in the seventeenth century. After a while the beliefs no longer matter. What matters is the war.
Given the hysteria with which you sometimes express yourself especially confronting those you deem ‘the enemy’ I’m inclined to doubt that you “couldn’t give shit if anyone agrees with me or doesn’t.”
Fatfingers dresses up the Young Pioneers as “compulsory Scouts” with “good works emphasised”
Not true, by decree from the Soviet central command the Pioneers rejected all that was the scout movement. They were an extension of the political elite, nothing at all to do with scouts.
And where are they today? the scout movement is globally huge, the pioneers are globally extinct and communism is a joke.
“To turn around and say that I only believe in those things because other group members do, or want group affirmation is absurd.”
I never said that JC.
Rubbish adrien, this “sports-team/herd mentallity” is what is seen as a goal by many corporations, a tight group of people who think as a unit.
The navy realised this and now looks at ships as teams, without cooperation by the team the project is sunk.
Good individuals make good team members, compromised or damged individuals make for poor team players.
There’s also the Eureka Youth League and CYO and a bunch of others that existed around the same time. Are these like the Hitler Youth?
GMB…it was the Russians who busted the Nazis
They did pinch BP’s manual, though, and ‘Seid Bereit’ (Be Prepared). The Scouting movement was always destroyed, though - in both Nazi Germany and the Eastern bloc, with its leaders commonly killed. In Germany after the war, there was considerable overlap between the HJ and the YP - commonly, the YP would recruit successful HJ Bannfuhreren (sorry, no umlaut in Wordpress), get them to sign a declaration that they renounced their past and declared war on ‘class enemies’, and they would adopt identical roles in the new body. The YP also made extensive use of old HJ membership records.
GMB, you’re right, in principle they are the same - compulsory movements to control young people inthe direction desired by the state. Like I said above, sinister (and wrong).
But their actions and reason for existing were different, and that should not be forgotten. One trained Communist Party members, the other trained anti-Semitic soldiers.
Yeah, there was overlap. That explains the behaviour noted by the 1950 article writer.
Different only in that the designated outgroup was different - class-enemy as opposed to race.
Why I prefer ‘democide’ to ‘genocide’, incidentally - the Sovs butchered Lemkin’s definition so that it didn’t include politically motivated mass-death, only racially motivated mass-death.
Rog-
Ah it’s so hilarious one place where those truly committed to the left or right can come together and hold hands dancing in a circle is on their complete and utter lack of comprehension of any suggestion that you can think for yourself.
Yes you can. Or I can anyway.
I did not say in any way that we should abandon co-operation or teamwork or whatever alright. This did not happen.
What I was alluding to was the tendency of people when thinking politically to groupthink. And yes this happens in many workplaces too. Sometimes this is good and necessary and sometimes it’s a pain the arse.
This doctine of yours that “good individuals make good team members, compromised or damged individuals make for poor team players” sounds straight from the Nazi handbook.
If you are in ze groop you are ze goot mun. If you are goink to read ze buke in ze park by yourzelv ve must poot you in ze home for ze krazy peebles. Yah!
Could it be perchance that some people are better at working in tandem and some work better solo regardless their psychological health.
Is that allowed Herr Kommandant?
By the by I reckon the Navy developed the team idea before there was ever such a thing as a corporation.
The two-minutes hate’s about to start don’t forget your Newspeak dictionary. Y’need somethin’ to throw.
Of course the Eureka Youth League is a different kettle of fish, being - as I understand it - set up in a democracy, and not backed by the coercive power of the state. That said, I still feel really sorry for any kids whose Commie parents made them join. Cheesy!
“But their actions and reason for existing were different, and that should not be forgotten. One trained Communist Party members, the other trained anti-Semitic soldiers.”
Not a significant moral difference.
And skeptic said it better then I could.
The only difference really is one set of socialists past their killing peak.
And another stopped midway through their peak.
We would have to compare whatever the Soviets were doing with the kiddies in the 20’s and 30’s.
Actually they were MURDERING the boy scouts.
The boy scouts got in the way of the revolution so they were murdered.
Whereas the Nazis had their own boy scouts but didn’t murder the ones that were already there.
Well if you think team playing is from a nazi handbook then you are probably very young, naive and out of work.
In life and death situations, you depend on your buddy and your team to save you. If you feel the need to constantly have to prove your individuality then you are on your own. (I mean why have to prove it over and over, are you a self doubter?)
The Young Pioneers got going straight after the 1917 Revolution, Graeme - the wiki link manages to get the dates right, at least.
Right.
So do we have some record of what filth these vermin were teaching them?
Bullshit Bird-brain. The Hitler Youth did indeed bash and occasionally kill members members of other youth groups. That was one of their main activities.
I think it is also idiotic to compare the race supremacy and anti-semitism and violence that was a part of the Hitler Youth with Pioneer type groups in the Eastern Bloc. It is dumb and dishonest to say venomous anti-semitism with Marxist indoctrination re class.
Having said that I have no problem with former Hitler Youth members saying they enjoyed the more savoury activities like camping and singing songs around the camp fire. What’s wrong with that?
I think a compulsory Pioneers type group could be a good thing in our fractured multi-culti society. If done well it would enhance trust and social cohesion. Plus too many kids today are grossly fat things who spend far too much time indoors.
Wow. Oh, and there’s this wonderful political party out there called, ahem, One Nation. Bring Back National Service, I say old chap. Jolly good show and all that.
I guess it’s too late for you and Bird, eh Munn?
Mel says:
“I think a compulsory Pioneers type group could be a good thing in our fractured multi-culti society. If done well it would enhance trust and social cohesion. Plus too many kids today are grossly fat things who spend far too much time indoors.”
You gotta stop it with compulsive schtik, dude. Seriously, you have to rethink a lot of what you believe in.
Go to the next level and ask yourself, what will you do to kids who don’t wish to join up? What happens?
ROG - Allow me to retort:
“…if you think team playing is from a nazi handbook then you are probably very young, naive and out of work.”
I did not say that. What I said was:
“[groupthink] happens in many workplaces too. Sometimes this is good and necessary and sometimes it’s a pain the arse”
“In life and death situations, you depend on your buddy and your team to save you.”
We were discussing the submergence of the individual under the umbrage of ideological groupthink not life on the battlefield. I’d put it to you that teamwork and individuality are not mutually exclusive things either.
On the battlefield you need to move as a team but you also need to use your own initiative. Depending on the situation.
I’ve worked in groups and on my own. I prefer the latter ’cause the boss is always real cool in that event.
“If you feel the need to constantly have to prove your individuality then you are on your own. (I mean why have to prove it over and over, are you a self doubter?)”
I don’t have to prove it. It’s manifest in my personality. Some people are more inclined to be group participants some more inclined to fly solo.
There’s nothing wrong with it either way!
It’s like, y’know, the diversity in the species man. Can you dig it?
And this inclination of yours to insist that individuality is inherently dysfunctional is one of the cornerstones of totalitarianism. I really can see you practising your goosesteps in front of the mirror. But whatever. If you wanna stoush at least do me the courtesy of dealing with what I’m saying not simply using it as a springboard to sing the sheep song.
Gosh the discussion moves along eh?
My emphasis was more about judging the experience of people in HJ and YP rather than the organisations themselves, my point being that even in ‘bad’ organisations, a person can have good experiences.
I confess that I know nothing about Ms Clark beyond what you have posted above, and certainly not how political leanings (as far as I know she may in fact be redder than a rapidly receding star) but I think it a bit of a stretch to portray Clark as a “a communist” solely on the basis of a fond recollection of something from their youth in a communist regime or equally because they belonged to a youth organisation with structures and personalities of those who ‘lead’ in that environment that you as a self confessed ‘non-joiner’ find to be banal in the extreme (extreme banality, now there’s a new one. . .).
I too lack whatever genetic or personality trait is required to have ever enjoyed such structured youth activities so that I would have felt distinctly uncomfortable equally in the Hitler Youth, Young Pioneers or the Scouts. Critically, to the best of my knowledge no one is forced to join the Scouts, and thus it would be populated by exactly the type of people I would most like to avoid, but as both the Nazi and Communist regimes compelled membership of their respective your organisations I would have been much more likely to have encountered kindred spirits within those organisations than I would have in the Scouts. This would be despite the fact that I was involved, rather than because of the fact that I was involved.
Would having a good memory of friendships and events with those friends while compulsorily enrolled as a member of the said youth organisations necessarily make me either a Nazi or a Communist?
WELL THE FASCIST MUNN CALLED BULLSHIT.
Munn calling bullshit is a sacred tradition.
Here I keep in mind the ‘South Park’ call of “SHENANIGANS”.
You called bullshit?
But it wasn’t an enquiry you were making.
You didn’t ask me to explain myself.
Rather you said a bunch of stuff that did not back up your flippant and sacreligious BULLSHIT call.
Now Munn-you-facist.
When you call bullshit… you are supposed to be calling bullshit on something the other guy said.
In fact you did not find a single thing I said that was bullshit did you Munn?
No you didn’t!!!
So you are clearly both a fascist and a liar.
Totally dishonest of you.
But nothing that I wouldn’t expect from fascist-ecoolgical filth.
[Further political spelling errors corrected by admin]
I have to admit I’ve entertained the notion Steve puts forth in #56.
Much as I’m opposed to compulsory stuff it might, properly managed, be a solution to the problems he’s named. Have a nationwide organisation that deliberately puts kids from different backgrounds, socially, economically, ethnically together and stuff.
Still I dunno about compulsory. I’m conflicted but it sounds like pratical solution. Sorry.
I was in the Boy Scouts of America in Egypt, that was pretty cool. But their handbook on swimming had an interesting lie: when discussing the different strokes they called the Australian crawl, the American crawl. No shit.
“this inclination of yours to insist that individuality is inherently dysfunctional is one of the cornerstones of totalitarianism.”
Thats rubbish, what I said that a team needs functional not dysfunctional individuals.
As you say, at least do me the courtesy of dealing with what I’m saying not simply using it as a springboard to sing the sheep song.
Come on Munn…. Here you are…. a Facist by your own admission….
What did I bullshit about you fucking liar…
I would have that retraction Munn.
GMB since you’re so fond of using the word, a spelling tip.
It’s F-A-S-C-I-S-T
Got it?
Eeek, too many scary collectivists on this thread, Adrien. I don’t normally have a go at you but seriously, reach back into your mind and try to remember how you felt when you were forced to do extra-curricular things - especially at school - that you didn’t want to do. I don’t mean not burning the science block down, I’m talking about sports and community service and school songs. You know, singing your undying affection for half-a-dozen demountables and a patch of asphalt?
A FASCIST BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION:
“I think a compulsory Pioneers type group could be a good thing in our fractured multi-culti society. If done well it would enhance trust and social cohesion. Plus too many kids today are grossly fat things who spend far too much time indoors.”
I’VE TOLD YOU MANY TIMES MUNN.
You just stay away from the kids.
Just keep away from the kids fella.
They are not YOUR kids all right?!!!????
[Political spelling errors corrected by admin]
“Have a nationwide organisation that deliberately puts kids from different backgrounds, socially, economically, ethnically together and stuff.”
There’s already an organisation like this. They’re called schools.
That, too.
“They’re called schools.”
That’s right. That different-backgrounds-together thing is part of the public school argument.
Just returning to my original point - SL, your title is unfair. It suggests Clark should apologise for being in the YP, when in fact it was compulsory.
Crikey, I’ve got a tiger by the tail starting this thread. I wanted to respond to Grendel’s point (nice Beowulf reference, btw), but got sidetracked fixing Graeme’s spelling…
It does move along. I thought I’d get about four comments, to be fair.
I had the publishers of her piece in mind, ff. I don’t know whether you’ve ever lived in the UK, but I spent the unhappiest 6 weeks of my life as a subeditor at the Grauniad. An entire newspaper where no-one cared about spelling, punctuation or grammar. I actually went to Germany to teach business English on a lower wage instead, it was so rotten. Mentally, I still catch myself fixing up its dreadful writing.
ROG -
“Thats rubbish, what I said that a team needs functional not dysfunctional individuals.”
No, no, no, no, no you didn’t.
What you said was:
Preceded by:
In this and in lambasting my need to compulsively prove my individuality you are inferring that “the bad conscience says I.” You are in fact categorizing people who are ‘individuals’ as bad. Let’s have a look at that quote again:
See the simplistic opposition:
You might try to conceal your defence of the bleating majority by reinterpreting what you said to your own advantage (reinventing history to suit one’s present position is another cornerstone of totalitariansim) but you have said what you have said. You equated the good people with the team players, the bad people - the compromised and the damaged - with the otherwise.
You can of course argue for your reinterpretation. Possibly that’s what you meant to say. But you made a generalization about team playing that trips you up. That in addition to your missives about me being somehow dysfunctionally obsessed with proving my individuality; your equating my critique of political groupthink with a wider denouncement of teamwork and your unsubstantiated and untrue allegations about my age, my street smarts and my employment status lead me to conclude that you think that:
If you are in ze groop you are ze goot mun. If you are goink to read ze buke in ze park by yourzelv ve must poot you in ze home for ze krazy peebles. Yah!
Otherwise you would have engaged with me in less combative and more intelligent discourse.
Oh, OK.
“ok,ok.”
That’s two rakes by the sounds of things.
“Have a nationwide organisation that deliberately puts kids from different backgrounds, socially, economically, ethnically together and stuff.”
I don’t think schools deliberately set out to mix kids from different backgrounds together at all. Apart from the obvious homogenity found in elite schools, religious schools etc, state schools tend to be drawn from the local community so your experience from school would be comparable to one’s experience from life in the neighbourhood.
Also schools definately don’t teach you stuff like how to survive in the bush.
I’m not really gung ho about this idea by the way. In principle I have lots of problems with it. But it seems to me to be sound and I can’t dismiss it simply because it doesn’t gel with my Utopian defaults.
If for example you attend an exclusive Muslim school designed to shield you from your decadent Western countrymen a programme in which you had to go and spend time in the middle of nowhere with them would put you in a situation that would broaden your horizons somewhat. Likewise a resident of Stiffotown who attends Saint Haughty-Jerkoff for Boys.
Also considering the obesity and lack of exercise obvious to anyone taking a stroll through the local mall it might prove benfitial if everyone had to rough it one week out of the year.
And some of the skills imparted would be comparable to aspects of military training thus making up (a bit) for our small population and standing army.
Just an idea and interestingly one that probably runs contrary to the various ideologies of the good people in this forum. Can we then consider it purely on the merits. Or do we reject it ’cause it puts us too close to old Pauline.
That one was mildly funny, JC, even if you had to stretch it to breaking point to fit.
Of course, it wasn’t a rake or two - SL clarified, and I acknowledged it.
Fatfinger’s law back in business.
“… try to remember how you felt when you were forced to do extra-curricular things - especially at school - that you didn’t want to do.”
As far as the “school-spirit’ type teachers were concerned SL I was the antichrist. They still have nightmares I’d wager.
I see your point and I’m troubled by it.
I MEAN REALLY REALLY TROUBLED. I hated all that stuff and managed to wangle myself out most of it.
But it does seem like a good solution. Therefore either I have to at least acknowledge that or come up with a better one.
I’d really like to come up with a better one.
PS I didn’t want to burn down the science block, I liked science. I did want to kidnap the creationist biology teachers and idiotic ‘chemists’ and ship ‘em to Yemen.
If you are obese, it will take more then one week in the year out yonder to lose those pounds.
I don’t object to Muslim schools shielding them from us decadent Westerners, and I don’t mind Stiffotown’s finest avoiding the plebs either.
It’s an idea that just violates every ‘let people be’ bone in my body.
“But it does seem like a good solution.”
Only if you consider the putative benefits and not the costs.
It’s straight out of right-wing conservatism.
Mine still do - they’ve admitted as much to me. My best stunt was rewiring the school’s phone system so that every time the principal picked up the phone, he auto-dialled emergency services. There were a few other good stunts, too - I was an inveterate practical joker as a kid.
I’ll pay that. Good one.
The national socialist appears to be coming out in all our socialists…
PSSSSSSST….. THEY ARE LIKE RUMPLESTILTSKIN IN THAT THEY ARE AFTER YOUR CHILDREN.
But Rumplestiltskin weaved straw into Gold. Whereas these people take your money and turn it into shit, then they turn around and want to steal your children and not just the firstborn.
And the way I read the story…….. …..Rumplestilskin had fallen in love with the peasant girl.
But these people just want to screw you and take your children.
Talk about a can of worms SL!
Robert Conquest writes well on this subject - see “Reflection on a Ravaged Century” and also Martin Amis’s “Koba the Dread”. Conquest is asked to say whether he feels the Nazis to be worse than the Commies. He says the Nazis were worse “because he feels so”.
As it happens, I have two friends who were in the Hitler Youth. One (older) went on to fight in the Waffen SS, becoming (I think) a colonel. The other was conscripted in the last days of the war (at 15 years old), and was captured by the US Army (lucky boy). The older chap described the Hitler Youth of the 30s as being more ideologically driven and more a training ground for the SS. The younger fella said it was focussed on German youth (ie health and wellbeing messages etc), only becoming heavily ideological as he was consripted into the SS. Both said it was a cool way to meet girls (which, in my experience, was a key attraction of catholic youth groups like Antioch).
Interestingly, both extolled the health and educational benefits of such organisations, while damning the ideological purpose of it. Methinks a commie experience would be similar.
Is it not then possible that most of these sort of groups can be remembered fondly - we all after all tend to view our youth through rose coloured glasses (unless the victim of serious abuse etc etc).
Scott: You know when your old high school principal buckets you in the national media (as mine did) seven years after you’ve graduated, your practical jokes must have annoyed somebody. At the time, it pissed me off - now I see it as a perverse sort of compliment!
Okay but supposing the problems to which it’s supposedly the solution are real and need addressing. These are:
- Cultural fragmentation due to excessive mutliculturalism. The creation of states within states as has been alleged in Great Britain.
- The small size of the population and resulting tiny standing army making us dependant on alliances in the face of much larger standing armies adjacent in the region.
- The physical fitness of the nation spiralling downward.
What is the everyone leaves everyone alone solution?
Is there one?
Please be aware that I’m not a staunch advocate of this idea I simply recognize it as a solution to, or at least some kind of action on, the above problems. In itself it has the problems one would normally associate with compulsory collective action. However apart from emotional or principle arguments against it, what are the pragmatic criticisms of it and what are the alternatives?
“My best stunt was rewiring the school’s phone system so that every time the principal picked up the phone,”
That’s good.
Moving an entire classroom up onto the roof of B block and putting a skeleton behind the teacher’s desk.
Moving the German teacher’s car from one parking lot to the other while supposedly in class.
There are others but I forget.
I put some of mine in Quadrant recently too - the biggest stick-insects I could find in the teacher’s drawer in her desk (in year 1), along with loosening the wheel-nuts on another teacher’s car (that was impressive on a rear-wheel drive skyline - year 7 I think). Shaving-cream on teacher’s cars (throughout school). Magnesium strips in tailor-made cigarettes (looked like she was smoking sparklers. She also did what looked like the Mexican Hat Dance to put the bloody things out - year 10).
I was a delightful child.
Why do we need a solution when there isn’t a problem?
Jimmy:
Most of the people I’ve interviewed on this point say something similar. Ex-communist youth organisation members also point out that they learnt good stuff (one is an excellent skier as a result - he taught me to ski). The communists seem to have been down on sex, though, while the Nazis encouraged it. Many of the women I spoke to spoke glowingly of being encouraged to play sport, and being allowed to express themselves sexually - without fear of a comeback, or at the very least back-up from a locally powerful HJ leader when mum & dad cracked the shits.
You are right about a can of worms, and I have to say that intuitively I agree with Conquest. Amis once commented that the Nazis built an autobahn to the subconscious, and that like all the best autobahns, it conformed to the landscape and was functional because it made sense neurologically. That’s at the end of Time’s Arrow. Creepy but I think insightful.
Adrien strikes me as one of those kids who wanted to be in the gang but never quite made it.
Thing is Adrien with you it’s all about “me me me me” which may be a fascinating subject for yourself but leaves others cold.
Thats why you are an “individual”
“Why do we need a solution when there isn’t a problem?”
Well Scott there are those that argue there is. The whole compulsory scouts/National service thing was posited as a solution and I had to admit it seemed plausible.
I brought it up as a provocational operation. A way of seeing whether one is capable of assessing ideas one finds objectionable without recourse to ideological first principles.
SL- Was there any karmic retribution when you becamse a teacher. I’ve thought of teaching history from time to time (to tell the kids how bad McCarthy was) but I don’t know how I’d cope with the system from the other side. I think I’d probably be pretty strict after a certain fashion.
Just kidding Graeme.
I was commonly referred to as the world’s blondest marine drill instructor. I didn’t have discipline problems, and I think it’s fair to say I was a good teacher. However, I did spend a great deal of time planning my lessons around useful classroom management strategies. I did make a deliberate choice to teach in tough schools, though, both here and in the UK. The schools in Italy (Bettona) and Germany (Nuremberg) where I taught were very middle-class by contrast and the kids were easy to teach.
ROG - I’ve got to go to the movies so your inevitable reply will probably go unanswered but you are
such a pigheaded twitso obtuse that I feel the need to put you in your place.Having failed to match me you resort to insults.
So.
I have been in several ‘gangs’ in life, (never the ultra-violent variety). Often as leader. Contrary to your completely unsubstantiated assertions I don’t have trouble getting along with people provided they’re not
ultraconformist dorksa little too prone to the bigotry of the convention-ridden. The thing is the one kind of person who I don’t get along with because they simply instinctively disapprove of me are bleating fools who are uncomfortable with even a moment’s solitude because their thoughts leads them to the truth that they spend the entirety of existence avoiding.Otherwise I’ve mixed well with many and varied: the rich the poor, the glamorous, the ugly, the free, the imprisoned and the lost.
And anyway what would you know? In this exchange of views you have consistently failed to get it and resorted to self-righteous puffing about dysfunctional individuals and glossy overtures about the necessity of teamwork. You have consistently failed to grasp my assertion that I’m not criticising team work. And then you make this unfounded assumption that I’m some sort of narcissist.
Based on what?
Each time we interact there’s this attack based on personal attributes which you attribute to me incorrectly. I’m sorry but stereotype and villification are no match for articulate discourse except of course in an arena in which a microphone circled man addresses an anonymous crowd of thousands with hysterical and hate-stuffed bleating.
Whoops forgot to close the strike tag.
I’ll go & fix it.
“I think a compulsory Pioneers type group could be a good thing in our fractured multi-culti society.”
Yes, you can call it the “Grassby Youth”.
That’s all public education was ever about:
1. Lying about Joe McCarthy
2. Deifying War Criminal Roosevelt.
3. Blanking out any knowledge of the pre-WWI years and this included a full spectrum code-of-silence when it came to the classical liberals.
4. Conveying an understanding of the problems of the new industrial cities of the 19th century………that was to be taught IN TOTAL DEFIANCE OF ANY CONTEXT WHATSOEVER.
5. An obsession with maintaining a bizzare political model which put blood brothers Lenin and Hitler at total opposite ends of the polictical spectrum and nary a classical liberal to be seen.
The more quickly we can trash public education the more likely we will resist the onslaught of the barbarians during this 21st century of our Lord.
Whoohoo, Graeme, getting kinda Biblical there (not to mention off-topic). This has been a kicking thread, that’s all.
Sister if I was there drinking Vodka with you I’d be sounding like the fucking St James Bible.
I don’t think this Clark woman was actually defending communism in the form it took in the Soviet Bloc, but rather she was reflecting on her own good experiences in the Pioneers and proposing that such an organisation would have benefits in Britain. That she is wrong is something that we can argue, but to dismiss her as a socialist tragic is unfair.
Not to point out the bleedin’ obvious, but the Grauniad can publish what ever it bleedin’ well likes. The price of freedom is having to give quarter to fools.
I have no problem with Ms Clark (although I do think she is cheesy & naive, and a bit of a tragic - apar