A Few Quick Words From Aldous
Ok so I have been hyping this bio up for a week or so but to me this book has been refreshing like nothing I have read in a while. I've done a good bit of reading since I have been here and am slowly starting to figure out that it has enhanced my life in so many ways. I think my own writing has improved, my ability to see thing a little more descriptively and drawn out has improved, and my overall appreciation of life and ideas has just exponentiated itself to like the ^5, But Aldous just touches me somehwere. I read Orwell's, Wright's, and Haven's bio's this year but nothing compares to Aldous. I have always loved Orwell and though he was imaginative Aldous is a guy you would want to hang out with and just be blown away every second. He was an engaging social figure who fought his whole life bia words without want for material posessions. He at all times lived a middle class gentleman's life where education and courtesy were valued over anything else. I have to openly admit that I have only read two of his books and one book of criticism about Orwell but I had no idea he was just so beautiful and odd. Odd to the point of extreme self-exploration. Odd to the point of living like we all want to live but have problems finding the strength to and then making fun of those who do live like that. Anyway, that was all put together quite rag-tag and I'm sure I will write a better description afte given some time to reflect. But here is some stuff I have taken from the first 500 pages of the bio...only 300 more pages to go.
Empirical Facts - (right before ww2 was about to start)
1. We are capable of love for other human beings
2. We impose limitations on that love
3. We can transcend on these limitations - if we choose to (it is a matter of observation that anyone who so desires can overcome personal dislike, class feeling, national hatred, colour prejudice. Not eay; but possible.
4. Love expressing itself in good treatment breeds love. Hate expressing itself in bad treatment breeds hate.
In the light of these facts, it's obvious what inter-personal, inter-class and international policies should be. But, again, knowledge cuts little ice. We all know; we almost all fail to do. It's a question, as usual, of the best methods of implementing intentions.
"The propogandists of the future will be chemists and psychologists as well as writers....the most shocking thing about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings"
"There are men who profess to be pacifists in international politics, but who are tyrants in their families, bullying employees, or unscrupulous competitors. Such me are fools to suppose that is possible for a government to behave as a pacifist when the individuals it represents conduct their affairs in an essentially militaristic way. Constructive peace must be first of all a personal ethic..."
"Man has now little to fear from competition with other species. His worst enemies are insects and bacteria. For man competition is now predominantly intra-specific, entirely gratuitous and voluntary. We are wantonly and deliberately pursuing a policy which we need not persue and which we have the best scientific reason for supposing to be disasterous to the species as a whole."
I'm sure there is some stuff I missed...because I didn't get my lazy ass up to get a pen until the 3rd time I said "Holy crap..."
