Private Moyse: Were, Were, Were

"The tragedy—and I am using that word in its full and proper meaning—the tragedy is, that these westernized Muslims are banging their heads against that Orwell quote. They have signed on to the modern world and its multi-culti fantasies. There was plenty of courage and good sense on display at St. Petersburg, but not much of those energizing principles Orwell spoke about: “racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war.” It’s the jihadis who have those.

The great genius of the English-speaking peoples was in holding the two sets of ideas in their minds at the same time: both “racial pride, leader-worship (well, to be fair to the Anglosphere, we never really went for that one), religious belief, love of war,” and “the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience ... the equality of all human persons.” This was quite a trick, as the two sets of principles actually contradict each other. It was Orwell himself who gave us the word “doublethink.”

The English, however—from Dr. Johnson down to Private Moyse and my Mum—were an un-intellectual lot, not much bothered by logical contradictions. Were, were, were." [ Wow. RTWT it's short. This one gets added to the classics links over right. Look up at this blog's masthead for the relevant F. Scott Fitzgerald quote... -ed. ]