Maybe they've always been Mordor
from qaz@lemmy.world to lotrmemes@midwest.social on 20 Feb 2025 07:06
https://lemmy.world/post/25820829
from qaz@lemmy.world to lotrmemes@midwest.social on 20 Feb 2025 07:06
https://lemmy.world/post/25820829
threaded - newest
[Insert Always has been meme]
It's not analogy, it's allegory. It applies too well to the world.
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
The fuck you on about, mate? You got a problem with allegories?
I dunno if you’re just memeing or if you genuinely don’t know.
In case it’s the latter…I posted a fairly famous quote from the author responsible for the text this community is based on.
Fun fact: allegory had a different meaning back when Tolkien lived. Language evolved. Tolkien never mentioned hating what allegory now means - an interpretation of a story by the audience as representative of another issue. In fact, he said he was a fan of that sort of thing in your quote.
I’m not sure that I agree it has changed. To me, an allegory implies authorial intent. Some classic examples being Tolkien’s friend Lewis whose Narnia novels were an allegory for Christianity, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, an allegory for early Communist USSR, or The Crucible by Arthur Miller, an allegory for America’s red scare.
If it isn’t done with authorial intent, it’s still absolutely possible to be a valid reading of the text that there are parallels, but IMO that’s no longer an allegory.
The Matrix is a trans allegory, despite the fact that neither of the Wachowskis knew they were trans at that time. They put their feelings of gender confusion, dysphoria, and euphoria into the movie, despite not understanding those feelings. And it made it a masterpiece. That’s proof allegory doesn’t require intent.
I really didn’t know, so thanks for explaining it.
True. But in 21st century colloquial speech, a linguist would have to admit that, descriptively, "widely applicable" and "allegorical" are nearly synonymous. But I'm also a fan of the quote, history does not often repeat itself - but it rhymes. So whether it's fictional history or rough allegory, the end result is the same.
Ha. You’re the second person to have suggested that, so maybe there is something to it. But to be honest I’m not sure I agree. I don’t think I’d ever use the term allegory without authorial intent. (But to save repeating myself, I’ll just direct you to my reply to @dragonfucker@lemmy.nz.)
Or, at the very least, even if you are inclined to disregard authorial intent, there’s still a subtle difference between allegory and applicability in that allegory requires an almost direct one-to-one relationship between the text and various elements of the real world, while applicability can be much more subtle or broad strokes. Basically, applicability is a broader term than allegory, a superset.
I can’t xD
Downvoted for disliking allegory.
You downvoting granda Tolkien?
I’ll do it again
It’s a Tolkien quote about his buddy CS Lewis’s Narnia and he’s up his own ass in it.
Friesengard
Europe after stopping fighting the most brutal and effective wars for centuries:
You’re sure you want us back? We’ll be united this time too.
But like… hundred/-s of years ago we had a very different moral system? Which doesn’t justify nuts, but we recognize our crimes against humanity!
Do you not think that today the us wanting a colonial empire is so so so much worse?
Potentially yes, but europe was so nice all in peace (compared to before).
Potentially? So a back when the populus couldn’t read then crimes against humanity was bad! But now, that the population can read now crimes against humanity are good? Makes a lot of sense
I answered your question about us imperialism. Should we too gang up? Probably yes. Will it only be giid? Probably no should we counter russia? Yes.
To be fair, your post is hard to read/understand.
Maybe you should ask if you are not clear ab someone else’s post?
Lets take another run at it! You complain about our, European, crimes against humanity! The ones that we stopped doing and recognize them to be warcrimes ag humanity! Is your issue with that that we stopped doing them unlike you americans?
I was just jesting that we had the biggest most fearsomes armys ever, for good (fighting nazis) and bad (being nazis? Being imperialists, etc.) but we stopped “all that” and now putin pokes us enough to go back to our war stance (but this time we are united).
I don’t know what I said that made you think I’m pro imperialism or that I even spoke about crimes against humanity (it do happens europeans do them sometimes and that atrocious of course, but today it’s russia who do them every day, all day long).
Hope that clears it up!
Are you under the impression that Europe is somehow inoculated against imperialism? It’s been fine going along with the US right up to this point, and has sins all its own.
Yea? Not only has no eu country made no attempt to acquire new colonies in the last hundred or so years, they actively deloconized!
In opposition to the US, that demands mineral rights among others in Ukraine! That keeps Guam uprepresented for another example, or for a third example their threats of expansion to greenland and canada! When was the last time any eu countries did anything like that?
Most US imperialist actions post-WWII haven’t been for territory. The modern version is more economic and abstract. It’s why Steven Pinker could write a whole book on why violence has declined in the world, be technically correct for the most part, but completely misses how the situation has transformed.
And yes, the EU is very guilty of it all, too. You can claim the US is worse, and certainly a revival of territorial imperialism is a regression to a horrible history, but this wholesale wiping away of EU sins is completely unjustified.
Aside from me giving literally gave 3 examples of the US holding/pursuing territorial expansion while not giving/not planning to give representation(guam, canada, greenland)… Do you think that makes it good? Should we start praising Trump for only wanting the mineral rights of Ukraine?
Unlike you Americans, we actually do recognize our actions against our past colonies as crimes against humanity! But aside from stopping and holding bilateral development programs for them, da fuck are we supposed to do?
I explicitly said it’s a return to a horrible history. If you’re not going to take arguments that are given, then I think we’re done here.
.
When? When did you say “…return to the past…”? You wobbled on about that us (complete fucking nonsense mind you, the cold war was a thing) and you vaguely stated that it did imperialism without stating a time or a specific event… So maybe you can try that? What country is doing what?
lmao 14 countries are forced to use France’s central bank. Do you think Africa sells you labor and resources for pennies instead of developing their means of production because they just love stripping their country of resources for you?
You should kind of read your links, you know? Doesn’t write a singular word ab how these 14 countries were aggressively forced to use the stable cfc instead of the hyper-inflating rand
I don’t see the link or the example where their resources are unjusty pilfered! I too can make definitive statements you know? American chedar is scientifically the grossest cheese!
Wait, you really don’t know about neocolonialism?
Also American cheeses as a whole are extremely mid, you’re not going to find anyone defending that shit out outside of Wisconsin.
Again, can you maybe read your links? It exclusively gives examples of immortality of the US?
Also on a diff note:
Which rlly sound like some nationalistic bs from someone who is butthurt from being colonized, doesn’t it? I am sure europeans rowed over to africa in small boats to claim colonies!
The economic dependency is another fun segment for implying that the smaller countries don’t want the larger one’s investment in return of soft power!
It literally doesn’t, scroll down.
The investment is in maintaining systems that keep resources flowing out as cheaply as possible. Yall aren’t sending dictators arms out of the goodness of your hearts.
Unlike you I read your source, either quote it or move the goalpost again!
As for the other thats a typically US thing to do too 😂! The recently created jobs in hungary from the german auto industry or the janapanese medical industry are highly sought after for they pay a lot better than our industry average! You know the shit your companies pull, say nestle using slave labour in south america, would not fly here?
Neocolonialism was used to describe a type of foreign intervention in countries belonging to the Pan-Africanist movement, as well as the Asian–African Conference of Bandung (1955), which led to the Non-Aligned Movement (1961). Neocolonialism was formally defined by the All-African Peoples’ Conference (AAPC) and published in the Resolution on Neo-colonialism. At both the Tunis conference (1960) and the Cairo conference (1961), AAPC described the actions of the French Community of independent states, organised by France, as neocolonial.[39][40]
The politician Jacques Foccart, the principal adviser for African matters to French presidents Charles de Gaulle (1958–1969) and Georges Pompidou (1969–1974), was the principal proponent of Françafrique.[41]
The works of Verschave and Beti reported a forty-year, post-independence relationship with France’s former colonial peoples, which featured colonial garrisons in situ and monopolies by French multinational corporations, usually for the exploitation of mineral resources. It was argued that the African leaders with close ties to France—especially during the Soviet–American Cold War (1945–1992)—acted more as agents of French business and geopolitical interests than as the national leaders of sovereign states. Cited examples are Omar Bongo (Gabon), Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Ivory Coast), Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo), Denis Sassou-Nguesso (Republic of the Congo), Idriss Déby (Chad), and Hamani Diori (Niger)
Nestle is Swiss.
From where did you copy those paragraphs? I cannot find it with the ‘find it on page’ feature?
Ferero international S.A. is an American company, whiches largest majority owned by Blacrock
Third heading down, “former colonial powers and Africa”
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Blackrock owns 4%. The majority of its shares are held by the Swiss. It is headquartered in Switzerland.
We’re getting in the weeds, the point is that Europe’s actions maintain an incredibly unbalanced trade with Africa; colonialism never ended, it just took on a different form. America does this too.
You’re still keeping all of the wealth though, naturally, and maintaining the system of unequal exchange that lets you increase that wealth.
Tell me you weren’t born in a poor country without telling me… You really think these countries don’t want the investment knowing full well that the profits won’t end up in an inland banks hoard? You think it matters at all for the worker who owns a company?
Do you know how well sought after the recently created jobs in hungary by german auto industry and the japanese biomedical industry jobs because they slightly pay above industry average?
Queue historical materialism
?
It's a theory in international relations which argues that colonialism is all present today and excercised by mainly the West, but not in the form of guns and slavery but via the economical system and centre vs periphery
Oooooh
Eh, colonialism has ended less than it has evolved.
What do you mean?
Most of Europe is actively helping Israel exterminate the Palestinians in an act of brutal colonialism.
Qute an actual happening!
I can make definitive statements too! The american cheddar is scientifically grose!
🤡
Da fuck do you mean 🤡? Europe is apparently helping in an exterminator! Surely you can quote one, just fucking one, really just one such eventthat what you state are actually happening?
Are you supposed to be the clown? Is that why you sent it?
Least incoherent shitlib.
Ain’t that sad bud? It only takes your worldview to fall apart for someone ask when and where!
But plsssss send more clown emojis and call me some more names! It only makes your crying funnier!
O…K…
Can you maybe be asked in the futureto look things up before making nonsensical claims? So that you wouldn’t embarrass yourself in the future?
So, are you going to be coherent at any point?
Aye
Slavery and colonization is not “war”.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
America may be able to join Russia, but ultimately the war in Ukraine is a war on Europe so how tf does Europe “join” Russia (besides handing over the entire territory)?
How about Europe joins the war?
no thank you
I think that’s the point, that’s what Saruman here is advising, just like some European politics, unfortunately - to join Russia willingly, to become what Belarus is, a vasal state.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzIjVKbxuec&t=128
Oh, my friend
How did you come
To trade the fiddle for the drum
More importantly, why is EU Gandalf supporting so many pro-Sauron leaders when they have USA Saruman’s fall as a cautionary tale right in front of them?
Murica was never free, has always been madness
All states are tyranny, agreed.
True but if you don’t have an army you’ll quickly become a slave to others who do have an army
We were freed from England. Slaves were freed from slavery. But, no, we were never freed from plutocracy. We’ve made attempts, though. There will always be someone trying to opress. There will always be a culture of servitude because in service of others power is concentrated.
Although, America has continued to fight for its freedom. Sometimes winning. Sometimes losing. As a result Americans have experienced more freedom than those who came before.
How are Americans more free than the native people that were on the continent before Europeans arrived?
Answer: They aren’t
Ok.
You really won the morality dick measuring contest we weren’t having.
I said America was never free and you said
Why are your acting like you weren’t clearly disagreeing with me?
Slavery in the British Empire ended a generation before slavery ended in the US.
Sorry, but USA was founded on hypocrisy, pretty words about freedom and equality set down on paper by slave masters.
Everyone else in the world knows you get freedom by voting for it in election after election. Only Americans believe that freedom is granted by deified slave masters.
Sorry, was your argument the British empire is more free than America?
Edit: also did you just call the gibberish that comes out my mouth flowery?
Seek help.
[citation needed]
I dunno read a book.
What books are you reading that you think 1776 was about anyone’s freedom except for the bourgeoisie’s freedom to exploit the working class and genocide the natives?
That’s not to say the people who did the fighting and dying didn’t think they were fighting for freedom, just that they were surprised when they were disenfranchised by property requirements and laws that favored the big bourgeoisie over themselves. You may remember Shays Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion?
If you’re looking for further reading, The Counter Revolution of 1776 is a good one.
You’re proving my point by 1856 all states had removed the property ownership requirement for whites.
Please, just the bare minium reading comprehension next time you try to engage someone.
The purpose of that was to marginalize the freed slaves and keep the working class divided. The removal of the requirement wasn’t because a faction in power decided it would be nice and create a freer society, but because it gave them further power.
To quote LBJ a century later: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Don’t condescend when you haven’t read shit on a subject.
Do I need to walk you through every event that happened post 1856? Women sufferage, civil rights, this is my entire contention you clod. Just go away. You are not engaging in good faith.
Like any one at random? haha
Most brainwashed people on earth.
Europe must join together send to shit USA and go full Gandalf the White
May I suggest to evaluate the idea to side with Russia and go full homeland vs newland. I mean EU + Russia sided with China could smash the old USA. If USA leaves NATO the rest of NATO could integrate Russia. Top notch superpower, with a little topping of democracy. TL DR What if EU + RU Vs USA ?
I mean it’s easier for logistics once you build proper infrastructure. Better than an ocean
But don’t mind this comment nor take it seriously, what I want is no more wars.
Peace
For you ukraine doesn’t matter?
This whole template implies that Russia is Sauron. I wouldnt side with it.
Of course It matters, as anyone. I was thinking if USA leave NATO what if we side with Russia, we as EU Ukraine included. But I’m not thinking of military strategy but an hypothetical scenario that would result as a no death stability of the new biggest, triumvirate between China Europe and Russia. Hopefully thinking that those countries are more inclined to have more civilized manners and thus permeable to democratic values.
Become part of Russia’s empire is the only way this works.
You are right and I am wishing for a third way, as equals as in EU. With Russia in EU the congress gonna be so much fun. They already are with one foot (Hungary), Serbia also would be dragged in ending the balcanization by making really peaceful. EU would have access to raw materials. Russia to cutting edge theory and tech. Lesser partner would be china!
Russia needs to fundamentally change for that to happen. Maybe even disintegrate a lose much of their central and eastern asian territory. Russia is too big to be easily integrated into europe.
Yes, I agree but maybe some day Putin will leave the charge either voluntarily or by dying. What will happen then? Elections? Succession?
We will see. Putin has built a very stable authoritarian system that could very well survive him.
“What if we abandon siding with one authoritarian and side with a different authoritarian” is not the good argument you seem to think it is.
The USA has been the bad guy since, like, 1952. Hell, it was post-Soviet Russia that joined with The United States back in the post-9/11 War on Terror period. And the Europeans aren’t Gandalf. You are a serf. Bitch, you live in Alsace. You are a peasant. You need to give your fuckin’ lord the grain. Your fucking children, you’ve had 15 children. You’ve never taken a bath. You’ve literally never. washed. your. penis. You’ve never used toilet paper. Motherfucker, you have worms. You are dying. You’ve had 40 children, 3 of them are alive. 2 of them are child soldiers in the Duke’s army.
Bitch, the greatest thing you can hope for is to die at the old age of 36. You fucking can’t read. You don’t know what TV is. If you were transported into today, you would be the worst gamer of all time. You don’t know shit. You literally probably don’t even know what the direction ‘left’ is. I’m sure some Medieval guy is gonna get mad at me for this, bitch I’ve been to the Renaissance Fair. I’ve eaten a large turkey wing, which the Juggalos call ‘bitch beaters’, which I think is problematic but a funny thing to call them.
Motherfucker, you gotta recognize where you are, and then you gotta get passed that. You gotta be unemotional. You can’t sink into this hole. You live in the oubliette. Your job is to crawl up the ladder, motherfucker. You live in the HOLE. You’re in the HOLE. You are a RAT. And the rat, when he’s in the hole gets fucked. People only throw trash in the hole.
You need to eat a body. And you need to carry the plague. And you need to carry a plague around this whole world, that will change this whole fuckin world. And all your enemies will vomit black bile and will choke on blood and will grow boils and die. But only if you get together with your other RATS. And you come up with some kind of super plague, to fuckin end your enemies and…
End. This. Nightmare.
Get better soon.
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Legend says it started with Trump getting a dirty sanchez in a Moscow brothel.
I was there the day the strength of men failed.
I don’t like Putin, but showing serious political situations as blockbuster movies is a bit distasteful.
Pffft… Nowhere near as distasteful as Donald Trump turning the USA into a nation that’s all about betraying allies for money.
Haven’t you heard? All politics can be explained through comparison to Harry Potter, Starwars, or Lord of the Rings.
I’m starting to think the same thing, if you go over US foreign policy since WW2 it is almost like the mask is just coming off entirely now.
What? You’re welcome for all that world peace and prosperity since ww2. It is about time Europe started to share this burden.
Sorry to burst that bubble, but just because you were never taught about the things they’re talking about doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.
It just means your education system, like most, is run by nationalists that care more about using mythology to make more nationalists than about conveying historical fact.
Lol national mythology
Exactly! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_myth
It’s pretty disingenuous to act like the US took sole credit, or that Europe didn’t share in the burden of WW2.
Plus re:world peace - the USA has been involved in 32 wars since WW2 ended, none of them on American soil.
Check the numbers. Those are vastly tiny compared to ww1 and ww2. Small policing actions are necessary to keep dictators in line.
There wouldn’t be a ww2 without Europe. Their faulty treaties and failure to stop dictators led to the conflict. America cleaned it up.
oh yes, the small policing action known as The Cold War that almost ended the human civilization
followed right up with the friendly local copper checking in on Iraq and Afghanistan as a social call
When did the United states and the Soviet union fight?
1944–1949, 1945–1946, 1946–1954, 1947, 1948–1960, 1950–1953, 1952–1960, 1955–1975, 1954–1955, 1958 (x2), 1960–1996, 1960–1965, 1974–1991, 1962–1970, 1962–1976, 1962–1990, 1963–1967, 1965, 1965–1979, 1965–1983, 1966–1967, 1966–1969, 1966–1990, 1968–1982, 1968–1989, 1968–1989, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1974–2002, 1974–1991, 1975–1999, 1977, 1977–1991, 1978 (alleged involvement of USSR), 1978–1982, 1978–1987, 1979, 1979–1989, 1987–1988, 1989–1991
Proxy wars are not declared wars. There is a difference. Like millions of dead difference.
Does Vietnam fall under “small policing actions that are necessary to keep dictators in line?”
Yes. Extremely low casualty rate compared to ww2.
K bud.
Have you seen the numbers or are you throwing an opinion out there?
The numbers are irrelevant. Just because WWII was so deadly doesn’t mean you should trivialize Vietnam and other conflicts. It’s ridiculous to call it a “small policing action to keep dictators in line” when over a million people were murdered in a war of aggression, propping up a dictator against a popular movement.
So war is not measured by casualties. Got it. 58,000 americans died over ten years.
Of course, only the Americans matter, right? Let’s focus on those poor soldiers who went off to another continent to massacre villagers and sometimes got shot, and completely ignore the million villagers who were massacred and had napalm and agent orange dropped on them.
But it’s fine! The Nazis killed more civilians, so, you know, from then on literally nothing less than the Holocaust ever matters, right?
That’s the real meaning of “Pax Americana” right there. The US will come to your country and slaughter people en masse and leave it in rubble using chemical weapons that last for generations, and then they won’t even recognize it as a significant conflict because it was primarily your people who died, and only Americans register as human to them. Perhaps later they’ll come by to film a movie about how killing you made them feel sad.
Ok. Let’s talk about that. 2 million over 15 years. 2 million died in 6 months on the eastern front in ww2. 30 million died in the Taiping rebellion 100 years earlier.
You’re not supposed to agree with that.
America did a lot of bad stuff, to put it mildly. This is definitely something else though.
I agree, that’s what I mean by it just going mask off, there’s no pretending about a probable cause of higher moral path etc this time.
2016
Yeah, America was fine before that, just ask Iraq, lol. (and Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Indonesia, Korea, Chile, Panama, Cambodia, Iran, Palestine, etc)
We live in a country that was stolen then we stole some other people so they could do the work for us. Then conquering half a continent wasn’t good enough for us, so we went around ruining other places if they didn’t want to give us all their stuff. If people think we only recently crossed a line, I’d generously hope they were just ignorant because the alternative is horrific. Every piece of the past is a step that got us to where we are.
The US is just Helldivers 2 in real life. A democracy managed by Elon Musk and people ready to die „liberty“, „prosperity“ and „freedom“.
Don’t make me feel bad about my beloved Helldivers!
Don’t feel bad. It’s not the devs fault that we live in a strange timeline
You do understand that Helldivers is a satire of America? This didn’t change in 2024. The Helldivers yell about freedom and democracy while having zero meaningful freedom or political influence, and invading other places to steal their oil or murder them for being communists because that is what Americans do.
Sorry to say most people don’t get it or starship troopers.
Murica, land of the free, was founded by people who owned slaves. While speaking about the evils of slavery.
So the madness was always there.
.
It was right around the time he got shot and made that fake fist pump. Also when he started considering that scum bag - obama a friend.
Oh, I got this one! Pick me, pick me!
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/cac0531c-369d-4b2f-83ca-30c5656fb592.png">
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/69be0fc4-86c3-4f05-bf81-9ac1e849bc17.webp">
Mexico, Samoa, Hawaii, Philippeans, Columbia, Hondurus, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico (again), Haiti, Dominican Republic, Russia, Greece, Costa Rica, Albania, Syria, Egypt, Guatemala, Iran, Syria (again), Indonesia, Iraq, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba (again), Congo, Dominican Republic (again), Iraq (again), Guyana, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Angola, East Timor, Argentina, Afghanistan, Nicaragua (again), Granada, Panama, the USSR, Iraq (again again), Haiti (again), Yugoslavia, Afghanistan (again), Venezuela, Iraq (again again again), Haiti (again again), Palestine (continuously), Syria (again again), Libya, Bolivia (again), Venezuela (again)
Can’t help but to sing along
I gotta organize them to make them more singable sometime.