ForumGarden

Scrat;1153503 wrote: What does this say to you? Do you see any of your societies with some of the faults mentioned? Do the faults exist?


Good God !!!!!!!! What fantastic words. Did Chaplin really write this? I'm enlightened.

Scrat;1153517 wrote: Here's a link to the site.

Chaplin : The Great Dictator's Speech



I find this telling. It's a large part of the reason I never became a soldier. Soldiers in my opinion are little more than willing slaves to people who themselves do not have the courage to do their own fighting.



This is how I see the people that run my country and the ones who have run it in the past.


Yes, i agree and something that has recently been discussed on another thread. Following in my families footsteps, i myself came very close to signing to the British Army in my early 20's. Had i have gone through with it, my most likeliest draft would have been Northern Ireland at the time of the troubles or even The Falklands.

It's amazing to see Chaplin on screen as the comedy icon and then seeing he was capable of writing this speech.

oscar;1153520 wrote:

It's amazing to see Chaplin on screen as the comedy icon and then seeing he was capable of writing this speech.


Chaplin was a very serious man with a strong social conscience.

He ran afoul of Hollywood and the McCarthy paranoia of the 1950s for his beliefs.

He wound up in Switzerland. Hollywood finally came around in the '70s, and awarded him one of those lifetime achievment Academy Awards, when he was a very old man.

Richard Bell;1153524 wrote: Chaplin was a very serious man with a strong social conscience.

He ran afoul of Hollywood and the McCarthy paranoia of the 1950s for his beliefs.

He wound up in Switzerland. Hollywood finally came around in the '70s, and awarded him one of those lifetime achievment Academy Awards, when he was a very old man. If my memory serves me correct...... wasn't his corpse stolen by grave-robbers?

If you look at Chaplin's Films (like the Great Dictator, or Modern Times) you can see that he thought about these sorts of issues a lot.

I am also reminded of CS Lewis' speech about European civilization and christianity following the madness of WW II. Or St Augustine's works following the collapse of the Roman Empire and the reversion to barbarity in Western Europe.

Unfortunately I don't know whether our societies are even capable of having these arguments at present, as the things we value now are not what these men are talking about. Which is probably why we have gone so wrong in the first place.

Scrat;1153517 wrote: *snip*

I find this telling. It's a large part of the reason I never became a soldier. Soldiers in my opinion are little more than willing slaves to people who themselves do not have the courage to do their own fighting.


You were in the Navy.



http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/curre ... #post51748

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/warfa ... #post88323

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/socie ... post123959

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/warfa ... post291779

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/curre ... post369726

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/paran ... post528038

http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/curre ... post673721



Do you honestly think Chaplin was referring to army soldiers but not navy sailors??

JAB;1154044 wrote: :-2

I took this as his speech in the movie The Great Dictator and not something he crafted on his own.


I'm horrified. All my life I thought Chaplin wrote the script to The Great Dictator. I may never post again, all confidence in the validity of my assumptions has just evaporated.

YouTube - The Great Dictator - speech



Written and directed by Chaplin

Unfortunately I don't know whether our societies are even capable of having these arguments at present, as the things we value now are not what these men are talking about. Which is probably why we have gone so wrong in the first place.


We are having this argument. We are always having this argument.

JAB;1154057 wrote: Thanks Acc, I didn't know he had written the script as well.
Our AVs match.

Clodhopper;1154062 wrote: We are having this argument. We are always having this argument.


Not really, most of our modern arguments are about how we make our societies more "efficient" in order to make more money, but what we have societies for in the first place seems to be a question that is not discussed anymore.

People and politicians pay lip service to ideas such as citizenship, political and intelllectual liberty, and nationhood. This is because its presumed that everyone already understands these concepts clearly and how our societies are organized and for what reasons, but I am not sure that's the case any more.

Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic, but we seem to have become a much more "bread and circuses" type society than we were 100 or 200 years ago. Maybe its just a trend, Western civilization tends to have big cycles within it, like all civilizations, and we are in one right now of course, we'll see where it all leads.

Galbally: I think I'm with the trend or cycle theory. The attempts to settle the Troubles in N.Ireland, the issues of children's rights, integration of sovereignty in the EU and (in England) the questions relating to integration of immigrants all seem to me to be relevant to this.

Clodhopper;1154228 wrote: Galbally: I think I'm with the trend or cycle theory. The attempts to settle the Troubles in N.Ireland, the issues of children's rights, integration of sovereignty in the EU and (in England) the questions relating to integration of immigrants all seem to me to be relevant to this.


Yes, all of those things are symptomatic of the big movements under the surface of Western civilization in the last 100 odd years. To my mind the most momentous and deep-lasting change in Western society has been the emancipation (for want of a better word) of women politically, and their mass involvement in the work force on a more or less equal footing with men, this has radically changed our societies from the bottom up, and its the single most profound change I can think of, aside from mass immigration, cultural relativism, and the impact of technology on peoples lives. Interesting as always of course, what it all means at the end of the day, and where its leading? Blown if I know! :rolleyes:

Galbally: Me neither. By gum I'd be interested to read the history books they'll be putting out in 100 years...

Clodhopper;1154408 wrote: Galbally: Me neither. By gum I'd be interested to read the history books they'll be putting out in 100 years...




Yes, that's presuming they have books on western history then.







Obviously if there are any, you'll need to understand Arabic to read them.

Yes, that's presuming they have books on western history then.


...yes.

Obviously if there are any, you'll need to understand Arabic to read them.


Inshallah.