George Orwell called it “thought crime” in 1984. There was a 1000 post argument on what constitutes “cultural marxism” that went predictably nowhere. I think using collective pressure to stamp out heretical beliefs qualifies.
The outrage groups are trying to put pressure on businesses (CC processors, sponsors etc…). It’s weird who it works on and who it doesn’t. For instance the Washington Resdskins owners’ response was “don’t care” and then the outrage groups just went away.
The Vermont Teddy Bear company had a “crazy for you bear” that came with committal papers and was in a straight jacket. When the outcry went up about how insensitive it was, the female CEO responded that it was selling really well and the customers loved it. So they were going to keep selling them.
Wasn’t Orwell referring to thought crimes as determined by the state? If so, that’s a qualitatively different animal (pardon the mixing of totalitarian dystopias) from what we’re talking about here.
Yes, but it’s not the same. Totalitarian systems, notably both communism and nazism relied a lot on self-policing on a local level, because even the reach of a totalitarian system is limited.
Denunciations from family members, neighbors and work colleagues were encouraged - any kind of “suspicious” utterings were reported and then ad hoc security and/or Party staffers decided whether it was a crime. Similar to the current practice where you outrage over everything and see what sticks.
At it’s peak, 12% of the East German population were actively denouncing their family members and neighbors to STASI. Figures from the Nazi period were even higher.
A society can survive the existence of bad ideas or ideas that are contrary to its values, provided the society has enough smart people with balls. It’s when the smart people are too scared to stand up to the idiots that things go bad. The problem is that idiots tend to do stupid (violent) things which smart people won’t do.
Lmao, you and my Dad have a scarily similar career trajectory. He moved from making Romanian and Azeri malls to contract negotiations for London property. He was also a civil engineer.
Christ was I dumb to do law, your guys are making a killing.
If he worked on a mall in Baku chances are I know him. Weird.
I’m doing quite well, but Russians are spectacularly obnoxious, notoriously unreliable and prone to hissy fits and emotionally charged business decisions so it isn’t exactly easy money.
So he said. Austrians were his personal bugaboo. To quote his old partner ‘The problem with Austrians is that they talk like Germans, walk like Germans, but do business like Greeks.’
Edit: His partner was Turkish, for the record. He had…colorful idioms.
When I was exporting I could buy freight insurance to nearly every country on earth, but not Greece. I asked my sales rep why that was and he responded: “because their postal service will steal anything or their corrupt businesses will claim it didn’t arrive.”
Apparently Greece’s postal service is more corrupt than Brazil’s… which is downright impressive.
Heh. Nope. I’m dealing with third tier Russians, mostly middle and upper middle class types who want to buy a vacation property that could double as a fallback home abroad should things get hairy again in Russia. Young professionals from smaller cities beyond the Urals to whom Putin is doling out generous salaries, occasional professional civil servant… Pretty innocuous crown by Russian standards.
Vladimir Sukhomlinov, Chief of Staff or the Army of Tsarist Russia in WW1 froze to death on a park bench in Berlin of all places where he was living as a bum in the 1920s. That’s a history lesson not lost on my Russian clientele.
Many mid level Russian civil servants keep their families year round in such homes while the fly to Russia each Monday for the workweek. The practice was so rampant and so concerning for the regime (keeping one’s family out of harms way removes a strong incentive for unquestioning loyalty) that Putin personally had to issue an degree forbidding that.
Millions were to be made in Lyondon and the French Riviera but with a caveat. Oligarch money is spectacularly shady and clans of Russian siloviki sometimes fight their undeclared government sanctioned turf wars in the UK and there’s always a possibility that you might become an unwitting accomplice in something simply while doing run-of-the-mill property stuff.
And then as I understand you get this irresistible urge to jump out of a window.
Yes, back before WW1 all those negative (and justified) stereotypes about Mediterranean peoples - lazy, chaotic, shifty, unreliable - the Northern Germans attributed to Austrians.
You mean something along the lines of “I’m going to dig up your granmother’s corpse, sever her leg and fuck your syphilitic mother with it” And that’s pretty tame.
I always thought I was an experienced hand, but in Greece I got swindled in ways I didn’t think were even possible. And the most infuriating thing is that they’re so brazen about it.
