Milan Kundera Warned Us About Historical Amnesia. Now It’s Happening Again

Greg Ellis reads Milan Kundera Warned Us About Historical Amnesia. Now It’s Happening Again, Ewan Morrison’s essay celebrating the 90th birthday of the Czech novelist. It was published in Quillette on March 31, 2019. Read it online at: quillette.com/2019/03/31/hist...
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[@melissajones5985]

What an incredible article! How did I miss it? Ellis's voice is wonderful and his reading of this text is outstanding.

[@denvercannon7179]

Greg Ellis does exceptional work.

[@stancuraluca-ioana7563]

Milan Kundera deserves the Nobel Price for Literature 2022

[@zorrowcg]

Why hasn't this had 1M views? People don't know any history, concentrating instead on trendy issues. Sad. No wonder we're collapsing.

[@ManInTheBigHat]

Should be 360,000 views (listens) instead of 360.

[@bayamesa5596]

I was born and rose in a Communist country. It was a hell, I scape 16 years ago, I will never go back there. Milan said the truth, amnesia and destruction of the mind of individuals. 😢. Perfect article!.

[@ALeaud]

There are so many people who want to turn the West, if not the entire world, communist. We need people, liberals and conservatives, to speak out against them.

[@bernadettesison5979]

Cromwell of Churchill during the revolt of WW2

[@francoisedandre3644]

A l'avenir la France, sera un enfant de coeur face aux frappes qu'elle recevra de pays inattendus.

[@paulaustinmurphy]

This may sound trivial.... but.... Greg Ellis's portentous and pretentious RADA voice really grates. He never lets up. It's like he's being interviewed for a voice-over job for an arts foundation.

[@anonymousturtle8562]

The famous Indian economist and academic Utsa Patnaik argues that economic drain under British rule ended up *killing 1.8 billion people* in her homeland. But we're supposed to take mid-range estimates as the most reasonable, according to the Brit in this video... right? More seriously (to me anyway) is the comparison of India and China done by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen. Writing in 1991, and noting that the two countries had similar starting points in the late 1940s, Sen estimated that the stagnation in Indian health and life expectancies was creating an excess mortality of 3.9 million Indian deaths per year. "This implies that every eight years or so more people die in India because of its higher regular death rate than died in China in the gigantic famine of (p.215) 1958-61. India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame." (Btw, the largest difference between Indian and Chinese life expectancies happened in the late 1970s, even well before China's economic take-off.)

[@EstebanMataVargas]

This guy just turned one the best and most important novelists of the entire XX century into an anti-communist monger. This is why people with too strong political agendas should not talk about arts and literature. Kundera is way more than his opposition to communist brutality. This guy Ellis is only instrumentalizing Kundera to fit his point of view. Anytime we agree with this we put a stone over art tomb.

[@EstebanMataVargas]

@Samizdat Neomodernist Now we are talking about literature: quoting the books, submerging ourselves into the characters point of view, adding what we know to the author's metaphors and concepts... Thank you for sharing your opinions with me, Samizdat.

[@EstebanMataVargas]

@slučajni prolaznik Let's hope it will happen as you said. His writing is what matters over anything else.

[@doublenegation7870]

Nah, every book Kundera wrote was basically a series of character vignettes to prop up his anti-communist diatribes. Cope.

[@EstebanMataVargas]

@@doublenegation7870 Congratulations for the most idiotic and biased interpretation in the History of literature...

[@kafenwar]

@@EstebanMataVargas Kundera is equally opposed to Capitalist kitsch, and the more subtle yet no less dangerous neoliberal totalitarianism we're all dealing with at the moment.

[@almostdele]

概括中国历史正当性不外一将功成万骨枯。

[@Xara_K1]

I love the mind bending on here. You're doing exactly what Kundera was talking about. You're rewriting history by mere omission of what capitalism has done. But we Africans remember, thankfully.

[@mjsoup29]

I don’t think he’s bending history to ignore what capitalism is doing. But he is focusing on some examples of communism, since Kundera was talking about communism, and came from that background. But you are absolutely correct that to be honest and comprehensive we as a People, have to also include capitalist, atrocities, communist, atrocities, and whatever other outrageous any type of political atrocities any movement has carried out in the name of the people.

[@ALeaud]

You Africans remember what, exactly? What did you have before the Europeans arrived? Before the Arabs arrived? You had a bartering system. You had higher rates of poverty, illiteracy, etc. You couldn't even come up with written languages, no mathematical/scientific inventions, etc. The most successful black countries are capitalist ones while black nationalist Marxist dumps like Zimbabwe are the worse.

[@endless2804]

@@mjsoup29 & @xara_K1 clearer to look at both ideologies as 'absolute beliefs'. When one absolute belief replaces another absolute belief - what remains the same and what changes?

[@thecatsupdog]

First!

[@Hithere-ek4qt]

First fool who gets a hard on by writing stupid comments

[@thecatsupdog]

@@Hithere-ek4qt I feel validated by your comment.

[@escherita]

Let's go, Brandon. I have no problem with many of the teachings of the left, environmental sustainability, resourcefulness, less materialism and consumption. what I don't like is the Tyranny that eventually characterizes so-called communist leaders when they assume power. Regard for the people and their freedom of expression are sacrificed, and that's the big problem. What should be taught is a Freedom oriented philosophy that is also an alternative to communism.

[@vvggg12]

I don’t have a problem with most of what you say. Let’s Go Brandon is so embarrassing, how do you still think it’s clever?

[@someguy344]

"a Freedom oriented philosophy that is also an alternative to consumerism" you mean communism?

[@escherita]

@@someguy344 yes, you are correct. I edited, thank you.

[@escherita]

@@vvggg12 it's an example of media deliberately censoring. Not so much "clever" as "historically relevant".

[@mjsoup29]

I also don’t disagree with what you say, but it’s the same on both the left and the right. Fake populism by “empowering the people “ used by the right wing in the US today is just another way to make people think the leaders are following the wishes of their supporters, when in fact, the leaders have their own agenda and it’s definitely not to empower the people.

[@Hithere-ek4qt]

Very annoying music

[@thecatsupdog]

I thought it was Mila Kunis for a split second!

[@bernadettesison5979]

Aussie accent much

[@Quillette]

The narrator is English

[@bernadettesison5979]

@Quillette what's English ayu

[@michaelboyd6232]

What was the global number of dead resulting from European colonialism from 1492 to the end of World War2 ?? In the ballpark of Mao and Stalin combined? 1 there is no difference between private tyranny and state-run tyranny. They are reflections of one another they are combine to create the pendulum of History. There is enough Amnesia to go around. In many ways I believe that the language for genocide is a creation of the 20th century. So this language is not applied to for proceeding centuries of European economic expansion globulin. Which laid fertile ground for the flourishing of communism. Capitalism is a revolutionary Force left unchecked it will commodify and deplete environment until it collapses. then it moves on to the New Frontier. There are no more New Frontiers.

[@Boylieboyle]

Hey man, great comment but I struggled to read one sentence in the middle there. It'd be a shame if it wasn't understood so forgive me man but (if I'm right) it should read: "So this language is not applied to four preceding centuries of European economic expansion globally" Again, great intelligent comment, cool.

[@Dan16673]

Lol by its nature capitalism cannot deplete all. The pricing mechanism allocates so this does not happen. You strike me as someone who has zero economic understanding

[@go0b3rtron7]

@@Dan16673 Most of these pro commie bastards hold zero actual knowledge when it comes to economics, which is odd since their ideology is actually linked to a economic ideology(Marxism) above all else. In their defence(struggle to find one, but want to be fair ;), economics is a beast of a subject matter to wrap your head around.

[@user-ju7ze9to4k]

@@go0b3rtron7 yeah, but to be fair I used to think that way when I was a kid too. I blame it on Canadian public education.

[@go0b3rtron7]

@@user-ju7ze9to4k You are not wrong in saying exactly that. The road to educating yourself on the system(s) that govern all people does have to lead right through communism and Marxism. Schools have picked up the baton on being kinder to marxism than they are on capitalism, and this change in the way they teach is a real dangerous one, specially since all they ended up teaching is to be ashamed of the very system you live in. Add in there that people seem to also be very in awe at the idea of a resource based society and the venus project(which is marxism organized by computers) and here we are...